{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/5287", "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": 5287, "subject": "The argument for Intractability:", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "2008-12-22T17:46:07+00:00", "last": "2008-12-22T18:40:17+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "<273409710812220946m21f48f66g3f357ed2e7cf29c6@mail.gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "Jordon Flato", "address": "jordonflato at gmail.com" }, "date": "2008-12-22T17:46:07+00:00", "subject": "(urth) The argument for Intractability:", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "David Said:\n\n\n1. Well, for one, Severian would never have been born. His mother was with\nthe Pellerines, who would not have existed if it weren't for Severian\nbecoming the Conciliator. I think it's clear Sev's mother ran away from the\nPellerines, and again, they wouldn't exist without a succesfull Severian.\n\n2. The Conciliator and the Guild: Well, the guild was ruled by a woman\nwhen Sev met up with them as Concilliator. He killed the woman, and seems\nto have initiated the time of male only membership in the Guild. His\nactions led to the destruction of part of the wall of the citadel and the\nleaning of the witchtower. Maybe that isnt' part of the intractibility, but\nit shows that Severian BEFORE HE DROWNED THE FIRST TIME, and thus apparently\nbefore the first muddling with his timeline, had effected tha past by having\nthe wall blown up and the witchtower leaning, which shows that when he was\nborn, he had already suceeded as the New Sun.\n\n3. If he hadn't already succeeded, then Ymar wouldn't have been Autarch and\nas such the world Severian would have inhabited if he HADN'T come back as\nConcliliator wouldn't have existed as it did, or even close.\n\n\nYou can argue, I guess, that other events could have happened that would\nhave tangentially made all of these other events occur: Maybe his mother\nwas imprisoned another way, or maybe Ymar would have decided to become ruler\nafter all, and Typhon would have been taken down without the need of a myth\nof a Concliliator to rally his foes around. Maybe Ymar would have come up\nwith the idea of Autarchy, or taking the throne. Maybe the guild did\ncontinue to exist, and was ruled by women, or that women continuted to be a\npart, but Severians life was similar enough to come into being anyway, or\nthat women left the guild for some other reason. I think you have to come\nup with a pretty much infinite number of if's in that case though, and the\ncase for an unsuccesful, 'tractable' Severian then becomes waaaaaay more\nimprobable in my mind, based on the facts we know, then an Intractible one." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Sat, Dec 20, 2008 at 11:57 AM, David Stockhoff wrote:\nThe significance of Apu Punchau is a mystery to me. I find it hard to\nbelieve that he's related to the Commonwealth state religion.\nIt's also not clear exactly how the Conciliator myth influences events,\nalthough that's something that can be understood broadly.\nBut you're right about the Guild, whatever form it took---still, if it\nalready existed, then Severian's presence would not have changed things\nsignificantly. Unless we knew exactly what changed---and we don't. Other\nthan the color of their cloaks.\n\nDoes Severian ever hint that the Guild even remembers its role as the\nConciliator's \"hosts\"? (I can't help but think of the Guild as resembling a\n\"sons of the Revolution\" type organization that claims descent from the\nsoldier who stabbed Christ in the thigh---that the Guild might be aware of\nthe necessary role it played the way Pontius Pilate had a necessary role:\nnot an glorious one, but a necessary one and therefore in its way\nhonorable.)\n\nIf none of these 3 things was necessary to Severian's passing the test at\nYesod, then the time loop can't be intractable.\n\nHowever, the loop does seem intended to suggest something important about\nYmar and Severian---the first and the last Autarchs, and the first and last\nto be tested. But what?\n\n\n------------------------------\n\nMessage: 3\nDate: Sat, 20 Dec 2008 19:08:35 +0000\nFrom: \"Son of Witz\" \nSubject: Re: (urth) Particolored Brocade" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Son of Witz", "address": "sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org" }, "date": "2008-12-22T18:40:17+00:00", "subject": "(urth) The argument for Intractability:", "in_reply_to": "<273409710812220946m21f48f66g3f357ed2e7cf29c6@mail.gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think Ymar is a key here.\nyes, he might have come to rule on his own. yes, the Hierodules might \nhave already had the situation set, and the idea of a candidate for \nthe new sun already in place, but Ymar is a real break from the past, \nfrom the Age of the Monarch into the Age of the Autarch, and the \nchange in the guild. With Ymar comes NewSun symbology. The Phoenix \nThrone, etc. there is more there, but I can't remember it now. He is \ninflluential in creating the culture Severian grows into, and it's \nclear that the Conciliator and his actions mean a lot to him from \ntheir brief conversations in the jail.\n\nperhaps Ymar felt that the Conciliator came to set Ymar on the path to \nbe the New Sun and he tried to deal with the hierodules himself. \nSeverian didn't say when the New Sun would come, so perhaps Ymar \nthought he was the one. He's the only other to take the test except \nAppian." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Dec 22, 2008, at 9:46 AM, Jordon Flato wrote:\n\nDavid Said:\n" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think the Conciliator myth is HUGE in influencing events. The New \nSun is said to be the Conciliator Come Again.\nObviously, he is influential in revolt against Typhon, reformation of \nthe Torturers/Jailers, woven into the symbols of the Autarchy, and in \nSeverian's own cosmology to have reverence for the notion of the \nconciliator and his childhood hope/belief in a light that would enoble \nthe world again. The myth is also woven into most of the ordinary \ncitizens cosmologies. All of the characters that are against the \ncoming of the New Sun are aware of that potential coming because of \nthe myth. It's HIGHLY doubtful that average citizens would know about \na New Sun otherwise. They would know there sun is dying, but they \ngenerally seem to be ignorant that the Monarch/Autarch has Hierodules \nbehind them." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "1. Well, for one, Severian would never have been born. His mother \nwas with the Pellerines, who would not have existed if it weren't \nfor Severian becoming the Conciliator. I think it's clear Sev's \nmother ran away from the Pellerines, and again, they wouldn't exist \nwithout a succesfull Severian." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "only flaw there is I believe it was \"Some order of monials\" and not \nmentioned specifically as Pelerines." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "2. The Conciliator and the Guild: Well, the guild was ruled by a \nwoman when Sev met up with them as Concilliator. He killed the \nwoman, and seems to have initiated the time of male only membership \nin the Guild. His actions led to the destruction of part of the \nwall of the citadel and the leaning of the witchtower. Maybe that \nisnt' part of the intractibility, but it shows that Severian BEFORE \nHE DROWNED THE FIRST TIME, and thus apparently before the first \nmuddling with his timeline, had effected tha past by having the wall \nblown up and the witchtower leaning, which shows that when he was \nborn, he had already suceeded as the New Sun." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The wall wouldn't have been broken, yes. I'm not sure how crucial \nthat is, but Severian's Cenotauph would not have existed, which is \nwhere he did a lot of his musing about the \"light that would enoble \nthe world\"\n\nI really think this \"manipulation-free Severian I\" is pure speculation \nby Severian, who probably has a limited, linear notion of time at the \npoint where he writes that. As Apheta points out, events in the \nfuture affect things in the past, it's not strictly linear. \nSeverian is spread out in time. He's not merely human in the way the \nother characters are, he's more like a godling. he's some sort of \nprinciple that gets expressed in various times. While he has a linear \nexperience, as all the characters do, the causality seems to be set up \nin such a way that he was ALWAYS there, always the New Sun. Now, \nthis might seem sort of limiting, and \"why bother with all of the \nplot?\". As Jordon has pointed out before, the period narrated by \nSeverian is where he forged the integrity of character that becomes \nConciliator/NewSun . And, like Jesus, I have a similar question. IF \nhe was always the Son of God, where was the real test? I don't want \nto invite a lot of specific argument about theology, just that there \nis something preordained about his role, and it is his time as a human \nthat is his 'test' the very experience, and he needed to have that \nexperience to fully embody his role. It's about fate & free will here.\n\n\nOn a tangent,\nI think I've come to firmly view Book of the New Sun and Urth of the \nNew Sun as separate books.\nOne one hand because Severian wrote Two Books, Not One. The first book \nis BoTNS, and though not named in Urth, he mentions this manuscript as \nanother work.\nOn the other hand, because BoTNS is a nice daunting puzzle, very \nesoteric, and UotNS is the exoteric explanation of that puzzle.\nWhen Sev wrote BotNS, the mystery was still esoteric for him, mostly \nspeculation \"this seems to be what's going on under all this\", When \nhe wrote UotNS, he's been through it all, and understands it in an \nexoteric \"this is what went on and this is what it meant\" way.\nI was determined to reread BotNS to see if it was \"all there\" in the \nfour books, and it pretty much is. I probably would have been too \nmuch of a knucklehead to get it without Urth though. I guess Wolfe \nwrote Urth after seeing how few people actually got what he was \nhinting at. As if too prove those critics who said that there was \n\"nothing in the elaborate puzzle worth working out\" Urth makes it \nobvious that the puzzle is loaded quite nicely.\n\n~witz" } ] } ] }