{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/534", "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": 534, "subject": "The Two Severians, a Second Look, with mantic asides.", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "1998-05-01T17:05:10+00:00", "last": "1998-05-02T02:22:55+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "David_Lebling", "address": "david_lebling at avid.com" }, "date": "1998-05-01T17:05:10+00:00", "subject": "(urth) The Two Severians, a Second Look, with mantic asides.", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Back in January we got ourselves into some serious knots over the\nquestion of how many Severians there were, and which did what, and to\nwhom. This went on for several weeks (you could look it up).\n\nI was looking at this today and chanced upon a remark of mantis's that\nwasn't elaborated on:\n\n\"Of course you don't have to believe me, but if the first Severian\n=didn't= bring the New Sun, then what is powering the Claw ... ?\"\n\nI didn't have an answer to that one at the time, but I'd like to propose\none.\n\nI think that Severian gets his power from the White Fountain throughout\nhis career. He has that power because he ultimately succeeded in\ncreating it, but of course it was created in his own past as it needed\nthe intervening time to traverse the distance to the Old Sun and\nincidentally power the Claw so Severian could work his miracles and\nbring the White Fountain in the first (last?) place. Following so far?\n\nA simple additional comment would be that this is commonly how time\ntravel paradoxes work in SF. A more interesting overlay is that this\nhas the property of adding the ideas of predestination (which mantis\nmentions) and free will to the mixture. That is, in some sense Severian\nis predestined to bring the New Sun because (a) he prophesied it in his\nincarnation as the Conciliator, (b) he already succeeded in bringing it\nas it's there powering the Claw. But, in another view, free will enters\nin because he might still perform actions that would make the New Sun\nnot come, which is why we can see time travellers from the two alternate\nfutures meet him. (Again, this is another common way of looking at time\ntravel paradoxes. I recall in [maybe?] Poul Anderson's Time Patrol\nstories, a case where the bad guys did somethat that wiped out the\nfuture in which the Time Patrol existed, but the the change propagated\nthrough time slowly enough that the good guys still had time to fix it\nbefore they were paradoxed out of existence. This is not unlike\nmantis's \"probability futures.\") I think Ash comes from a future in\nwhich only the first Severian, who I argue didn't bring the New Sun,\nexisted. That future, in the tangled web of Severian's worldlines, is\nstill possible when Severian meets him at the Last House, but becomes\nimpossible in the meeting's denouement, and Ash fades away.\n\nThere are several instances in the five books where future actions\ncreate effects in the past which then go on to create the actions which\ncreated them in the present. (The whole story of Gunny / Burgundofara\nis one of these.) mantis brings up different \"probability futures,\" and\nit's really all pretty quantum mechanical, dead cats and all. This view\npresupposes a particular idea of how time travel works (e.g., no _Worlds\nof the Imperium_, no many-worlds, branching time-lines). It's more like\nthe way precognition worked in Dick's _The World Jones Made_, with\nfuture events becoming more certain as you approach them.\n\nLooking back at the archives is fun.\n\n --viz\n (david_lebling at avid.com)" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "C R Culver", "address": "crculver at aol.com" }, "date": "1998-05-02T02:22:55+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) The Two Severians, a Second Look, with mantic asides.", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Viz said:\n<(b) he already succeeded in bringing it as it's there powering the Claw.>\n\nI've always thought that the Claw was powered, not by the White Fountain, but\nby the will of the Pancreator, as hinted in Severian's absolutely stunning\nelucidation in the Sand Garden: \"What struck me\non that beach, and it struck me indeed..\"\n\nChristopher R. Culver \nhttp://members.aol.com/crculver/index.html" } ] } ] }