{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4930", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 4930, "subject": "A Slow-Moving, Half-Living, Smiling, Pale-Limbed \"Statue\"?", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "2007-11-17T08:51:16+00:00", "last": "2007-11-18T23:04:18+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "E", "address": "euth82 at gmail.com" }, "date": "2007-11-17T08:51:16+00:00", "subject": "(urth) A Slow-Moving, Half-Living, Smiling, Pale-Limbed \"Statue\"?", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hello,\n\nIn Urth of the New Sun Ch 41 \"Severian from His Cenotaph\", he says the\nfollowing:\n\n \"An antlered buck... to my right... On my left, a statue stared with\nsightless eyes.\"\n\nThen a few paragraphs later, after analyzing his epitath/monument:\n\n \"...and my absurd memorial stood where at another time I had feigned\nto think the giant Nod a statue. Recalling the moment, I glanced at\nthe one I had seen upon stepping back into Briah, and found it was,\njust as I had supposed, one of those harmless half-living creatures.\nIt was moving slowly toward me now, its lips curved in an archaic\nsmile. For a breath I admired the play of my own light on its pale\nlimbs, but it seemed to me it had been only two watches or three since\ndaylight had come to the slopes... and the vitality I felt now put me\nin no mood to contemplate statues...\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From the above, to me at least, it seems Severian is applying the\nterms \"half-living\", \"smiling\", \"slow moving\", etc., to the statue to\nhis left, the one with sightless eyes. Are these terms implying the\nstatue is some sort of bio-engineered type monument, and not of stone?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " His description almost makes it seem zombie-like, like a\npartially-animated corpse (paleness, slow-moving, smiling but\nseemingly non-sentient, etc.). It must not be sentient, because if it\nwere, he would probably have spoken to it; were it dangerous or\nthreatening, he would have noted that as well.\n\nAny conjectures would be great. Now that I think about it, the\n\"zombie-statue\" idea seems too extreme; if I had to guess right now I\nwould say it's a hologram of some sort, a projection... and Severian\ndoesn't say this explicitly because he assumes we know about his world\nand know that statues on Urth aren't necessarily made of stone.\n\n[Maybe this is related to the hologram/projection of himself that he\nsees much earlier in UOTNS when the \"jibers\" on The Ship want him to\nsalute his own hologram, which itself is stuck in a pattern of walking\n3 steps and then saluting... but in this case he explicitly says he\nsees an image of himself being repeated, and doesn't call it a\n'statue' at all... so maybe it is not related.]\n\nBest\n\n-Adam" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Pedro Pereira", "address": "domus_artemis at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2007-11-18T13:47:25+00:00", "subject": "(urth) A Slow-Moving, Half-Living, Smiling,\n Pale-Limbed \"Statue\"?", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hi, Adam.\n \nI don't remember the books all that well, but I think that \"statue\" is exactely the same type of statues that Severian finds in BotNS when he gets near the House Absolute for the first time. I don't remember very well as I said, but my impression is that they are some kind of \"robot\" or bioengeniered beyings. I think it was clear in BotNS.\n \nSorry I can't be of more help. By the way, this is my first post here. :)\n \nPedro\n \n " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4740C4F2.8080900@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2007-11-18T23:04:18+00:00", "subject": "(urth) A Slow-Moving, Half-Living, Smiling,\n\tPale-Limbed \"Statue\"?", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Pedro Pereira wrote:\nHi, Adam.\n \nI don't remember the books all that well, but I think that \"statue\" is \nexactely the same type of statues that Severian finds in BotNS when he \ngets near the House Absolute for the first time. I don't remember very \nwell as I said, but my impression is that they are some kind of \"robot\" \nor bioengeniered beyings. I think it was clear in BotNS.\n \nSorry I can't be of more help. By the way, this is my first post here. :)\n \nPedro" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Welcome to the monkey house, Pedro.\n\n\nBionics (in the literal meaning of \"mimicing life\") seem to be fairly \ncommon in Severian's era, thus the confusion over Jonas' true nature, \nthe description of construction mechas as \"giants\" in the mountains \naround Typhon's tomb, and the particular attention paid to stationary \nstatuary like the Eponyms and the allegedly mineralized bodies excavated \nat Saltus. This may be because conventional moving machinery would be \nmuch less likely to survive from the eras of its creation, while some \nbionics would seem to share the ability of living things to heal damage \nand wear, and so \"half-living\" machines tend to become a larger \nproportion of those surviving to be observed by him in the time of the \nAutarchs.\n\n\nJeff" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\n< http://www.io.com/~jwilson >" } ] } ] }