Subject: (urth) Bee Wrangler

From: Rex Lycanthrosaurus <lycanthrosaurus at fastmail.fm>
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2006 02:57:55 +0000

Found the one other bee-related quote I was looking for, and append it,
if for nothing other than to answer Roy Lackey's question about what
exactly it is Paeon teaches the penultimate autarch. 

"The dead Autarch, whose face I had seen in scarlet ruin a few moments
before, now lived again. My eyes and hands were his, I knew the work of
the hives of the bees of the House Absolute and the sacredness of them,
who steer by the sun and fetch gold of Urth's fertility. I knew his
course to the Phoenix Throne, and to the stars, and back." (Citadel,
Chapter XXIX)
-- 
  Rex Lycanthrosaurus
  lycanthrosaurus at fastmail.fm

-- 
http://www.fastmail.fm - Same, same, but different

---

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2006 04:09:05 +0000

Rex Lycanthrosaurus quoted:

Damn! I forgot that and should not have, particularly in this context.

Still, while the quote establishes a link between bees and the Old Autarch,
that does not make him Sancha's Appian. If the Old Autarch had been a boy
when he was trained, and went to Yesod as a relatively young man a
quarter-century before Paeon told him about Sev, then he would not have been
particularly old when he made his lament about not thinking his replacement
would be "so soon". If, however, he had held the throne for more than sixty
years at that point, his complaint would be unreasonable.

I think my earlier list of the last four rulers makes more sense, and better
reconciles the apparent with the actual age of the Old Autarch. Lomer's and
Nicarete's longevity can't be helped, no matter who was autarch when.

-Roy

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2006 05:05:02 +0000

Jumping in to be a pain in the ass.

On 8/29/06, Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net> wrote:
> If the Old Autarch had been a boy
> quarter-century before Paeon told him about Sev, then he would not
> have been particularly old when he made his lament about not
> thinking his replacement would be "so soon".

It ain't necessarily so, Roy. In fact ... I think you've just pried open
an important argument for the pro-Appian camp.

How long was the Predecessor gone?

More accurately: how much time passed for him, and how much
time passed on Urth, between his departure and his return? We
know that Severian's journey didn't take too much subjective time,
but he returned years after his departure.

Such considerations make it plausible to me that the Autarch
has reigned longer than it seems, looking at him, he could possibly
have done.

-- 
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, writer, trainer, bon vivant
-----
http://www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer
"Shovels are essential to the fantasy genre.
However, they are primarily used by the authors rather than the
characters." -- Stephen R. Donaldson

---

From: Bob Miller <bob_bageera at hotmail.com>
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2006 11:53:59 +0000

While I personally find the Appian thing to be a matter of little interest, 
after looking at all the posts I'm no longer convinced I am right.  I do 
believe that it may be a part of the  "malleability and disconnectedness of 
time" that seems to be a major factor in so many of Wolfe's books.  The 
vagueness deliberate and, perhaps, the answer not even something Wolfe 
believed relevant to his story and "fleshed out"?

--
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, writer, trainer, bon vivant
-----
http://www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer
"Shovels are essential to the fantasy genre.
However, they are primarily used by the authors rather than the
characters." -- Stephen R. Donaldson
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From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2006 19:59:21 +0000

>has reigned longer than it seems, looking at him, he could possibly

There is not the least hint in the text that the Old Autarch was absent from
Urth for any significant length of time, whether measured subjectively or
objectively. Whether he was in his fifties or his eighties doesn't change
the fact that 50 years before his death he was being trained by Paeon and
messing with bees. And that was 12 years after Autarch Appian let Sancha
move south. I seriously doubt that the Old Autarch was autarch when he first
knew Paeon, or that he would be learning all about bees at least a dozen
years after coming to the throne.

And Maruthas closing the roads when Palaemon was 25 still has to be
accounted for.

-Roy

---

From: Tony Ellis <tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com>
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2006 23:27:25 +0000

>an important argument for the pro-Appian camp.

Rex
(http://listserver.dreamhost.com/pipermail/urth-urth.net/2006-August/002
622.html) and Roy
(http://listserver.dreamhost.com/pipermail/urth-urth.net/2006-August/002
629.html) have already touched on this, I think.

>but he returned years after his departure.

Years *before*, surely?

In any case, as Roy says, the penultimate Autarch needn't have been gone
any time at all. Why should Tzadkiel and co risk the Commonwealth
falling to the armies of Erebus in his absence when they are masters of
time travel, and can bring him back the day after he left?

My own problem with the old Autarch going to Yesod and coming back 20
years later or 20 years younger is that there's just no support for it
in the text. If the old Autarch really has been in power for *at least*
the last 62 years, why doesn't Severian comment on how implausibly
youthful he looks?

If someone wants to argue that evidence isn't required, that this
slight-of-time could have happened regardless of the fact that Wolfe
doesn't say anything about it, I can just as easily argue the reverse.
Who's to say the Autarch didn't come back from Yesod significantly older
than when he left, as Gunnie says happen to some people who travel on
the Ship?

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2006 23:42:20 +0000

On 8/30/06, Tony Ellis <tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com> wrote:
> In any case, as Roy says, the penultimate Autarch needn't have
> been gone any time at all.

No, you're quite right; he could have been gone from three seconds
to three decades, or less, or more. But the point is not to argue that
the Penult _did_ skip a couple of decades; it's  simply that he _could_
have, and so his apparent age is not an overwhelming argument for
his not being Appian, even if (as I believe)  there's no life-extension
technology available to the Commonwealth.

> Why should Tzadkiel and co risk the Commonwealth

I don't particularly see this as a risk -- not only is Father Inire
perfectly capable of keeping things going without the Autarch,
the Penult is a double agent for Erebus (via Vodalus) ... or
something.