Subject: (urth) Two (hopefully) quick questions

From: Eric Ortlund <eortlund at briercrest.ca>
Date: Fri, 04 Jan 2008 20:49:23 +0000

1) When Severian meets Dr. Talos toward the end of Citadel, he goes out
of his way to emphasize to the reader that the coin Dr. Talos gives him
is the same kind as that which was given to him by Vodalus.  This has
the feel (to me, anyway) of one of those Wolfian epiphanies which is
implied but which is supposed to break over the reader . . . but I'm not
being epi-phanized.  What is the point of emphasizing that the two coins
are the same?  That Vodalus and Baldanders are both bad guys - both in
league with Abaia?  That seem the most obvious inference to me, but the
reader knows that already; that doesn't need to be emphasized.  That Dr.
Talos is trying to draw Severian into his own cause, just as Vodalus did
with his coin?  That Baldanders and Vodalus are somehow in league with
each other?  All of the answers I come up with fail to match the size of
the epiphany I think is being suggested.  (I've been trolling through
old posts, but can't find anything about this.)

2) I know that there has been a lot of discussion about Valeria already,
but most of it seemed to center on whether Valeria was a true Autarch -
a question which (no offense intended) doesn't interest me, because it
seems to be extraneous to the novel itself.  On the other hand, the fact
that the ringing of the bells when Autaurch Severian goes to see her is
practically the last thing we're told in BotNS suggests to me that Wolfe
is highlighting it - a "slingshot" ending, like Able telling us about
Michael at the end of Wizard Knight (while the reader needs to go back
and read the conversation between Able and Michael to understand how
glorious of an ending this is, and how far the slingshot will shoot you
if you get inside it).  But I'm failing to find the slingshot here.  The
three big things we're told about Valeria are that (when Severian first
meets her) she has a face which seems incredibly old (despite her young
looks), that her family is waiting to travel to the stars with the
Autaurch, and that she's the last of her line.  That would make sense
with the last encounter, when Severian, himself destined to travel to
the stars, starts the bells a-ringing in the Atrium of Time.  The only
other thing I remember being said about her in BotNS is when Severian
tells the Anchorite Ash that . . . well, he wonders out loud why the
walls around the Atrium of Time are so high, since it keeps the sun off
the sun dial for all but a few hours a day.  There must be something
significant in that question, but I just can't come up with what it is.

And that's it - that's all we're told about her.  The ringing of the
bells in the Atrium of Time right at the end of the account hints (in my
mind, anyway) that Valeria is extremely significant.  But I don't know
how to put together the information we're given about her to catch the
slingshot ending here.

The one helpful thing I found in older posts was that the Atrium of Time
exists outside of time somehow, which would explain Severian's
description of her when he first meets her.

I'd be most grateful to anyone who, without undue speculation and purely
from within the world of the text, can help me with these questions.

PS - I know this was said already several years ago, but Valeria
mistranslates the Latin she quotes.

Eric Ortlund
Assistant Professor of Old Testament
Briercrest Seminary
http://www.briercrest.ca/seminary/prospective/
http://scatterings1976.blogspot.com/

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From: thalassocrat at nym.hush.com <thalassocrat at nym.hush.com>
Date: Sat, 05 Jan 2008 08:55:32 +0000

On Sat, 05 Jan 2008 07:49:23 +1100 Eric Ortlund 
<eortlund at briercrest.ca> wrote:
>Friends:
>being epi-phanized.  What is the point of emphasizing that the two 

>coins

Remember that Sev saving Vodalus is the key event in the whole 
story: without it, nothing else would have followed. So says Sev; 
and this is why he starts with it. 

In his recounting of it, Sev identifies taking Vodalus' coin with a 
soldier taking the "King's shilling", the formality which binds the 
soldier's loyalty. Taking it, Sev becomes a "Vodalarius". So on one 
level, I think, the falsity of the coin points to the falsity of 
Vodalus' cause. And also to the essentially false basis for the 
loyalty, which of course didn't last. 

Finally, given my "Sev2 as cosmic error" reading, I also take it as 
a little marker that the event itself was "false" in that sense.

I don't think it's supposed to uncover any particular plot element, 
though. Vodalus I guess hands out fake coins both to save money and 
also as a little attack on the soundness of the Commonwealth. We 
know that he has spies watching Sev and Dr Talos' troupe, so no big 
surprise if one those spies was in the audience & dropped a fake 
chrisos while fleeing from Baldanders.