{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/537", "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": 537, "subject": "The Two Severians", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "1998-05-01T21:46:28+00:00", "last": "1998-05-02T02:22:40+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "m.driussi", "address": "m.driussi at genie.geis.com" }, "date": "1998-05-02T01:04:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) The Two Severians", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "vizcacha,\n\nWe are on the same page here.\n\nYes, even with the Claw and all bells and whistles, Severian can\nstill blow it. Sometimes he does right all on his own, like refusing\nto kill Agia. At other times, just when he is about to blow it,\ndeux ex machina saves the day: in the commotion at the gate of Nessus,\nfor example, where he was about to grusomely kill the drover whose\nwhip had struck Dorcas, drover killed by his own horses.\n\nThe next question we have to tackle is: where is the \"present\" in\nsuch a system where future is so looped into past? The reason why\nI ask is that it seems that TBOTNS is always a step back from the\n\"present\" (ignoring the fact that it is a memoir, etc.).\n\nSee, it appears to take time to pass in the Urth Cycle, and time\nflows evenly (at the same rate) in the ages Severian visits. When\nSeverian walks from Typhon Era to Valeria's Reign, he stops boom!\nRight at the deluge of the House Absolute. When Sev runs back into\nthe deep past so very fast, he overshoots his white fountain link\nand is catapulted a bit further before emerging in real time. He has\nto wait decades (a hundred years?) before the light of the white\nfountain finally hits Urth, then he runs into the future to boom!\nUshas. Where it seems that the same amount of time has flowed by (a\nhundred years?).\n\nSo. The white fountain forms endpoints for Severian's travel (since\nhe is using white fountain energy to travel). He can only go so far\ninto the past as the moment white fountain light hit Urth (plus a\nhundred years if \"time velocity\" is high enough to long jump), and he\ncan't go into the future at all . . . he can only go to the Present\nas defined by the white fountain!\n\n(That trip in the Last House was done using somebody else's machine.)\n\nAnyway, for most of the Urth Cycle Severian is acting in a local\npresent that is slightly behind the Real Present. But then in URTH,\nwhen he tells Juturna that she rescued him in the river (I, ch. 2),\nshe says no I didn't but I will now. At that moment, it seems to me,\nSeverian2 has become Severian1: he is clearly triggering an event\nwhich will shape his own past; he has finally come up to the Real\nPresent. (This sense is reinforced by the notion that he just time\nwalked to that time--it isn't the time he was born in, it is the\nfuture.) Up until that moment, the shade of some other future\nSeverian, just over the time horizon, has been altering and shaping\nthings. But maybe it is just a milestone rather than a real arrival\nat a new state.\n\nThen there is the enigma of the Atrium of Time. Perhaps it resides\nin the Real Present . . .\n\n=mantis=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "C R Culver", "address": "crculver at aol.com" }, "date": "1998-05-02T02:22:40+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) The Two Severians", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Mantis hypothesised:\n drover killed by his own horses.>\n\nI think myself that that was a more merciful death than the \"two apricots.\"\n\n\n< Where it seems that the same amount of time has flowed by (a\nhundred years?).>\n\nCan it be that long? How have Odilo and Pega and the other lass lived so long?\n\n\n\n\nThat is, perhaps, because the future hasn't happened yet, and a Severian3\nhasn't come about.\n\n\n\n\nIt's ever so nice to see you using my terminology, Mantis \n\n\n\n\nI've always thought of the AoT as being the same kid of place that Madregot\nflows through, i.e. outside the general scheme of Time. But, those people and\nhouses had to come from somewhere.\n\nChristopher R. Culver \nhttp://members.aol.com/crculver/index.html" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "David Rolsky", "address": "grimes at waste.org" }, "date": "1998-05-01T21:46:28+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) The Two Severians", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 10:22 PM 5/1/98 -0400, you wrote:\n< Where it seems that the same amount of time has flowed by (a\nhundred years?).>\n\nCan it be that long? How have Odilo and Pega and the other lass lived so\nlong?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't think that they are actually alive. First of all, the Sleeper's\npriest says that he is the grandchild of the first people who came to Ushas\n(UOTNS, ch. 51. page 369 of the Tor paperback). Severian asks the priest\n\"Was it you who came to Ushas?\"\n\nThe priest shakes his head and responds \"My father's father and my mother's\nmother.\"\n\nWe don't really get any idea how old the priest is but assuming that he is\neven just 20 (which seems young for a priest) and his progenitors each had\nkids at 20 years old then at least 60 years have passed since the coming of\nthe New Sun. Given the fact that Odilo was at least in his 30s (given the\nlife experiences he descibes while on the raft) he'd have to be 90 when\nSeverian returns.\n\nNow lets assume that Odilo was in his 40s, as is the priest, and that the\npriest's progenitors were 28 when they had their respective children. This\nwould make Odilo something around 106. Given the apparent low tech level\nof this culture, it seems very unlikely.\n\nI think that when the priest says \"There the other gods sleep\" (last line\nof UOTNS) referring to the bowers he is speaking metaphorically and that\nthese are the tombs of Odilo, Pega, & Thais, or at least monuments to them.\n This would make sense since Severian's bower is said to look much the\nsame, and its obviously a monument to his death, since it is believed that\nhe drowned.\n\nPlus think how much more interesting it is for Severian to return to a time\nwhere he has already passed into mythology (ok, that's not an argument for\nanything but I still think its cool).\n\n-Dave" } ] } ] }