{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4976",
    "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": 4976,
    "subject": "Sev on Yesod; his powers; his testing",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "2008-01-20T06:36:10+00:00",
    "last": "2008-01-20T19:04:06+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<20080120063610.AD1D411803C@mailserver5.hushmail.com>",
      "from": {
        "name": "thalassocrat at nym.hush.com",
        "address": "thalassocrat at nym.hush.com"
      },
      "date": "2008-01-20T06:36:10+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Sev on Yesod; his powers; his testing",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "This is dump of some of my efforts to make sense of UOTNS, long but \nI hope reasonably coherent.\n\nFirst, the New Sun, the White Fountain and Sev's powers. I take it \nthat the physical White Fountain comes into being when Apheta \nseduces Sev in Yesod:\n\n(UOTNS XX) \"Lying upon my back, I entered Yesod. Or say, rather, \nthat Yesod closed about me ... There was something born between \nYesod and Briah when I met with Apheta upon that divan in that \ncircling room, something tiny yet immense that burned like a coal \nconveyed to the tongue by tongs. That something was myself.\"\n\nComment: Sev intends to question Apheta before having sex: \"We must \ntalk first. I would be betraying my kind if I did not question \nyou.\" He says, \"A hundred questions I had been ready to ask ...\" \nBut then \"her lips brushed mine, and every question vanished.\" She \nstops him from asking, just as she cuts off Gunnie's attempts to \nask questions later on.\n\nBut even though that seems to be when the White Fountain is \ncreated, Sev's faculty of \"linking\" to it happens earlier, in his \ntime-line, on the Ship. \n\n(UOTNS XXIII)\n\nSev: \"Is this where I will be taught to bring the New Sun?\"\nApheta: \"You will not have to be taught. ... You are gravid with \nthe knowledge, and it will be born as soon as you approach \n\nthe White Fountain sufficiently for you to be aware of it.\"\n....\nSev aasks Apheta \"how I came to carry such knowledge without being \naware of it.\"\nApheta: \"Tzadkiel gave it to you as you slept.\"\nSev: \"You mean he came to your chamber last night?\"\nApheta: \"No .. On the ship, I believe.\"\nSev then thinks of his awakening to see hairy Zak after his \"death\" \nand eidolon-ization on the ship.\n\nComments: \n\n- The \"gravid\" description resonates with Sev being \"engulfed\" \nrather than penetrating in bed with Apheta. In whatever is \nhappening here, Sev is the \"female\", \"passive\" player. Or perhaps \nthe host.\n\n- I assume that Apheta *isn't* lying when she qualifies what she \nsays with \"I believe\", presents information as being just her \nopinion etc etc. In this case, what she says is consistent with \nSev's narrative. \n\nThis is the vision Sev had after his fall, I assume while he is \nbeing eidolon-ized (UOTNS IX):\n\n\"The winged woman of Father Inire's book [Tzadkiel] awaited me in \nthe wings. Her hands she clapped once, formally, as a great lady \nsummons her maid. As they parted there appeared betwen them a point \nof white light, hot and flaming. It seemed to me that it was my own \nface, and my face a mask that stared into it.\"\n\nSo: Tzadkiel \"impregnates\" Sev (makes him \"gravid\") with a link to \nthe physical White Fountain as part of his eidolon-ization. \n\nComment: This suggests that the eidolon-ization may actually have \nbeen a *planned* thing, to produce a Sev upgraded with the \"link\". \nRecall how Sev comes to die on the ship. Encased in Sidero, he is \nattacked by a being with \"titanic wings\", which drops him down a \nshaft. The fall knocks him unconscious, and Sidero apparently \nstrikes him, killing him, if he's not already dead. When his \neidolon comes to life, Zak is there. \n\nWe never hear of the winged being again - unless it was, in fact, \nTzadkiel. I think it was.  Presumably Tzadkiel needed Sev dead, to \nget a Sev eidolon to work with; FB&O say that eidolons are never \nmade of the living.\n\nSev's power seems to be the ability to draw energy from external \nsources and focus it to heal, to twist time etc etc. I see two main \npossibilities for where this power comes from:\n\n1) It's intrinsic, somehow or other; nothing to do with Tzadkiel. \nTzadkiel just gives him access to a big external source, the \nWhite Fountain; or\n\n2) Tzadkiel implants the ability as part of the eidolon-ization.\n\nTwo of the main pieces of evidence for trying to puzzle this out \ncome from FB&O (as Ray points out), and Apheta.\n\n(UOTNS L) Sev: \"Why couldn't Tzadkiel have called me back as I \ncalled back Zama? Healed me as I healed Herena? ...\"\n(Famulimus kneels and kisses the floor.)\nBarbatus: \"What makes you think Tzadkiel wields such power? ... \ngreat though he is, he's not the head of his race and its savior.\"\n\n(UOTNS XX) Apheta: \"If I try to unravel this for you, will you \nunderstand that I do not ... know all the secrets of you Briah \n...You may master a New Sun. Should you, its energy will be yours \nto draw upon, though it will not exist unless you .. triumph here. \nBut as the boy foreshadows the man, something of that faculty has \nreached you through the Corridors of Time. I cannot say whence you \ndrew when you were on Urth. Partly from yourself, no doubt .. \nPerhaps from your world, or from is old sun.\"\n\nI read Apheta's statement as supporting (2). She's not saying just \nthat the influence of the New Sun was somehow reflected back in \ntime, because she does not suggest that Sev drew on the New Sun on \nUrth. She must be saying that Sev's basic \"faculty\" for tapping \nenergy was reflected. \n\nFurthermore, she must be saying that the \"faculty\" does not depend \non his \"triumphing\" in Yesod - it is independent from whether or \nnot he actually brings the New Sun. \n\nThe only way I can put all this together is by assuming that the \n\"link\" implanted in Sev by Tzadkiel on the Ship included this \n\"faculty\", tuned or optimized for the white fountain.\n\nFamulimus' statement, on the other hand, of course supports (1) \nagainst (2). If Sev's powers are greater than Tzadkiel's, then \npresumably Tzadkiel cannot have implanted them. But to me many \nthings suggest that the Hierodules are \"out of the loop\", \nthemselves dupes. Eg: What could possibly be the point of their \n\"mission\" on Urth, as reflected in their conversation with \nBaldanders, given that human civilisation will end in 50 years or \nso? \n\nEven though FB&O don't know it, the right answer to Sev's question \nis: \"Because Tzadkiel wanted to make alterations to your eidolon.\"\n\nBut I'm not sure I believe Apheta's reflection-back-in-time \nspeculation. It may be that Sev is his own ancestor; perhaps he \ninherits the faculty implanted by Tzaadkiel from himself. He \nresurrects Dorcas with no conscious intent, not even knowing her \nbody is there, and Dorcas rises to clasp his hand. Perhaps blood \ncalling to blood ...\n\n\nFinal item in this lengthy post: Sev's \"testing\". I think the best \nexplanation of most of the events on Yesod is that Tzadkiel is \ngiving Sev a final check to make sure he's been conditioned well \nenough not to interefere with the operation of the \"link\" in \ncalling the White Fountain to Urth. So:\n\n- Do it even if it's likely meaningless? Check! After their night \ntogether, Apheta (lying) hammers him with discouragement & reasons \nfor not going ahead. He and Urth don't really matter; it's the \nhuman race as a whole which is going to bring forth the Hieros. \nThere are thousands of worlds with humans; it'd be better to be \nable to take care of them all at once, but physical constraints \nprevent this. What we do with you, we're going to have to do with \nthousands of other representatives of their worlds. None of them \nare individually important. I'm just a mid-level bureaucrat in the \nwhole process, and you're nothing special. We don't even like you \nvery much. If you fail it won't make anything worse but if you \nsucceed everything you ever loved will be destroyed.\n\n- Suspension of empathy? Check! The passage leading to the \"trial\" \nchamber is lined with scenes of Sev's various tortures & executions \nseen from the victim's viewpoint, which he pretty mcuh ignores.\n\n- Do it even if fellow humans (all the sailors except for Gunnie) \nhate the idea enough to die to stop it? Check! \n\nOn the other hand, Tzadkiel doesn't want Sev to think about things \ntoo carefully. There is urgency, and a sense of large risks taken. \n\nRush Sev through Yesod (less than a day), confuse him so he can't \nask good questions, get him back to Urth in another day, rush him \nthrough his \"mission\" in what seems to be less than a week, herd \nhim back on course when he's about to go astray, rush him back to \nhis future just in time for the destruction of Urth. By the time \nthe white fountain arrives & Urth is destroyed, for him it's been \nperhaps ten days since his trial. He never has a chance to think. \nAnd as he says to a Pelerine at the lazarate, he's not a quick \nthinker.\n\nBut amongst the things which Apheta says, and which I believe: the \nYesod-ites were indeed running a big risk that the game might go \nagainst them."
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<47939B26.2040409@io.com>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Jeff Wilson",
        "address": "jwilson at io.com"
      },
      "date": "2008-01-20T19:04:06+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Sev on Yesod; his powers; his testing",
      "in_reply_to": "<20080120063610.AD1D411803C@mailserver5.hushmail.com>",
      "reply_link": "header",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "thalassocrat at nym.hush.com wrote:\nSev's power seems to be the ability to draw energy from external \nsources and focus it to heal, to twist time etc etc. I see two main \npossibilities for where this power comes from:\n\n1) It's intrinsic, somehow or other; nothing to do with Tzadkiel. \nTzadkiel just gives him access to a big external source, the \nWhite Fountain"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "This power might be inherited, and may also be what is required for an \neidolon to instinctually become real again. In that case, it could \nsupport both (IIRC Borski's) theory that the old Autarch is Severian's \nmother Katherine, and mine that there is some hidden way of choosing \nsuccessor autarchs: despite the lack of a visible dynasty, they are all \nblood relatives from a series of trysts with and among the servants and \nprisoners in and around the ruling household of the Commonwealth, and \nthe assassination attempts on the heirs by both \"good\" and \"evil\" time \ntravelers are tests for the attribute as well as attempts to influence \nthe candidate one way or another."
        },
        {
          "kind": "sig",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\n< http://www.io.com/~jwilson >"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}