Subject: (urth) Severian's Humanity

From: Terence Nickolette <terrynick at centuryinter.net>
Date: Tue, 07 Apr 1998 18:31:10 +0000

[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]

Sorry for the error in my last post.  Let me complete my thought:

From a practical, perhaps male, point of view, Severian didn't need to
return to the whorehouse.  He had his trysts with Thecla in her cell.  It
was painful because he didn't like the idea of Thecla as a object.  The
memory was painful because he had come to know her person in her cell.

Severian is shockingly matter of fact about the pain he inflicts. Which
leads me to ask if there has been any discussion of the emotional, inner
journey that Severian travels in the BOTNS.  When does he find his humanity?
I would say it starts to develop when he finds and cares for Triskele.  But
then we see him strutting for the crowd when he severs heads in Saltus.  He
seems cruel and unfeeling towards Dorcus when he beds Jolenta and later
Cyriaca.

Wandering in the mountain wilderness after Typhon kills little Severian
seems to me to be a turning point for Severian.  

Terry Nickolette

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/

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From: m.driussi <m.driussi at genie.geis.com>
Date: Wed, 08 Apr 1998 00:11:00 +0000

Reply:  Item #6224292 from URTH at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET#

Terry Nickolette,

We might better call this "Severian's sense of Mercy"; but even so,
it is (still) a tangle.  Each act Severian performs can be qualified.

Severian's relationship with Triskele is that of human and animal.
Severian's "mercy" in giving Thecla a knife, while on the one hand a
testament of his love being so great that he would go against his own
guild, is largely a result of his spiteful desire to avenge himself
of her "inadequate" degree of love for him.  Severian's release of
Cyriaca is less tainted.  Giving half a whetstone to the Green Man is
relatively clean mercy.  Severian's lack of mercy is instrumental in
getting little Severian's family killed.  (In the same sort of pattern
that leads to Valeria being killed.)

But when he gets inside the castle of Baldanders and sees the
vivisectioned woman, he himself notes the change within himself.  So
this is a benchmark of sorts.

It seems much easier for Severian to use the Claw on strangers; he
prudently (and masterfully) avoids killing such clear and present
enemies as Agia; yet people closer to his heart have a much harder
time--another reason for Catherine to keep her distance (Merryn,
too)!

=mantis=