Subject: (urth) On the allocation of blankets

From: Tony Ellis <tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com>
Date: Wed, 02 Jun 2010 18:14:37 +0000

I really don't think it's that convoluted. Everyone except Thais can
see that it is only Odilo's old-fashioned gallantry that is making him
refuse the blanket he badly needs. Severian's "why don't you use it
until I'm ready for it?" is transparently a way of getting him to take
it without losing face.

Thais doesn't say anything until Severian has said this, so most
likely she was about to say "I could do with another blanket, if it's
going spare."

Odilo would never have accepted the blanket after that, so the
compassionate Pega, who has already taken a shine to him, quickly
shuts Thais up.

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From: Scott Cooper <sec6 at adelphia.net>
Date: Wed, 02 Jun 2010 23:05:24 +0000

I strongly agree with that.

I hadn't thought of your interpretation, and it fits the text well.   
What's more, it explains why the first word out of her mouth was "I,"  
and relates it to the foregoing passage where Pega is talking to Odilo  
in a low voice.  On the other hand, asking for a *second* blanket  
would have been extraordinarily selfish.  Do we really have any  
indication she's -- not just that selfish, but that indifferent to  
what people think of her selfishness?  She'd be like Jolenta, in that  
case.

If we're going with a "not convoluted" explanation, then I'd go with  
my #3, i.e. what she's about to say is "You can share MY blanket any  
time, big boy" or words to that effect.

My reason for thinking there might be a "convoluted" interpretation  
was the following principle of Lupine exegesis:  where there's a  
mystery, there's a clue.  I think we can agree there's some mystery  
about Thais. The typical Wolfe clue is (I assert) a minor detail  
which, if you even notice it makes you ask "why did he even include  
that?"  The whole Odilo/Pega/Thais episode only occupies a few pages,  
and, looking within it for such a detail, I found the elbow-in-the- 
ribs episode.  That's why I thought it a question worth asking.

Also, incidentally:
Are you sure old fashioned gallantry would have prevented Odilo from  
accepting the blanket after Thais asked for it?  What he's displayed  
towards her up to that point isn't gallantry -- it's irritation.  I  
think a more likely explanation why he wouldn't accept the blanket if  
she asked for it is that he suspects she's of exultant caste (but  
suspects, too, that she's only pretending to be.)  I think his  
irritation's provoked by that ambiguity:  it's just the sort of thing  
that would get on his nerves.

On 6/2/10, at 2:14 PM, Tony Ellis wrote:

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From: Tony Ellis <tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com>
Date: Thu, 03 Jun 2010 11:02:09 +0000

>Do we really have any
>what people think of her selfishness?

She's cynical, secretive... and a prostitute, with all the hardened
self-interest that implies. Works for me.

>time, big boy" or words to that effect.

Also a good explanation. But as I say, Thais doesn't start to speak
until *after* Severian has said he doesn't need his blanket — whereas
if Wolfe only wanted to show that blanket-sharing was her agenda, he
could have had her speak up before. The implication is that whatever
she was about to say was prompted by the possibility of a spare
blanket.

There's also the matter of aesthetics. Pega has taken a fancy to
Odilo. Pega protecting Odilo, with a sharp elbow to the ribs of the
self-interested Thais, is a nice payoff to this little vignette. Pega
elbowing Thais simply for impropriety... is not.

>accepting the blanket after Thais asked for it?

That's how Odilo seems to me - but it's how Odilo seems to Pega that matters.