{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/5849", "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": 5849, "subject": "Urth Digest, Vol 76, Issue 173", "messages": 13, "voices": 6, "first": "2010-12-21T18:18:08+00:00", "last": "2010-12-22T17:30:02+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Andrew Mason", "address": "andrew.mason53 at googlemail.com" }, "date": "2010-12-21T18:18:08+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Urth Digest, Vol 76, Issue 173", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "James Wynn wrote:\n\n. (We know of Catherine only through Ouen; and Ouen only" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "seems significant because of his similarity to Severian, both\nphysically and in powers of memory, ?so if they're not Severian's\nbiological parents, that whole episode becomes pointless.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It's not pointless. It connects Severian to Dorcas." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm feeling lost here. How does it connect Severian to Dorcas? It can\ndo so only through Ouen, but what reason is there to connect Severian\nwith Ouen if he is not his biological father? He sets out to look for\nOuen purely because he has worked out that he is Dorcas's son, and he\nthinks Dorcas needs a protector. Then the innkeeper mentions that they\nlook alike, and his brain starts whirring. If he's not actually Ouen's\nson, this is just a mistake - there's no reason to think he's\nconnected with Dorcas at all.\n\nBut Severian helping" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "his biological father find his mother, but never finding his his\nbiological mother strikes me as really weird story-telling. Wolfe thinks\nthe The Book of the Short Sun would be \"lame\" if, once we know the Rajan\ncan travel to Urth, he does not meet with Severian. But it seems fine to\nhim that his mother is just a name? I don't buy it. If people are\nsuspicious, they should be." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Of course they should be. But I think that suspicion should lead us to\nfind out more about Catherine. The connection with the names of Holy\nKatharine and Contessa Carina, the connection with the Pelerines, who\nkeep turning up throughout the series, the link with the story of\nFrog, whose mother was also a virgin priestess - these all make her\nsignificant. There is probably a clue, which Wolfe considers very\nobvious, that tells us exactly who she was, but no one has spotted it\nyet." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "If Severian is understood as somehow directly associated with the myths\nin the Brown Book, it restores a scattered unfocused unedited brain dump\nback to a comprehensible narrative." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "He is associated with the myths of the brown book; but they are not,\nas I read them, straightforward reports of his ancestry; they are\nmyths, and he is their fulfilment." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "That he's the father of Typhon is not\nproblematic in the same way (though it would have to be reconciled\nsomehow with Typhon's claim that he he was not born)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I'm curious why you think this would not \"mess the story up\" as well." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Because it would not conflict with what the narrative seems to tell us\nabout his parentage. (It would have to be a time-travlling Severian\nwho becomes Typhon's father, of course. I've no attachment to this\ntheory; I'm just saying it produces less of an obvious conflict.) And\nI didn't say 'the story'; I said 'this story'. I proposed a specific\nstory about Severian's ancestry and its significance; I think it helps\nto make the work a coherent one; it shows how the world is being\nguided - whether by an actual conspiracy or by the Increate - towards\nthe birth of the New Sun. This story is spoiled by making him a clone." } ] }, { "message_id": "<9B8BF4A6-BBD4-414A-9868-017D6CF5A5D5@butcherbaker.org>", "from": { "name": "Son of Witz", "address": "sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org" }, "date": "2010-12-21T18:44:24+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Urth Digest, Vol 76, Issue 173", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I have \"aesthetic blowback\" to the idea of Severian as a clone as well.\nHere is an idea:\nSpring Wind and Bird of the Wood have a sort of tryst, a brief encounter when he comes to Urth. If S.W. Is Typhon, couldn't BotW be Catherine the tim travelling Contessa, shuttered back to Typhon's era for an engineered tryst, then she is back through the corridors of time, or the mirrors, to birth in Severian's era.\nFish and Frog are set adrift on a STREAM. I think thys is a metonymic relation to The Brook Madrigot, and the story reads, \"Far that basket sailed...\" perhaps the womb-basket sailed up the stream of time.\n\nAll I'm saying is the potential exists for Severian to be Typhon's son without cloning, and without needing to be Typhon's father. I'm not suggesting that this IS what happened. Just an idea that came to me that seems to fit within the given limitations." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Dec 21, 2010, at 10:18 AM, Andrew Mason wrote:\nBecause it would not conflict with what the narrative seems to tell us\nabout his parentage. (It would have to be a time-travlling Severian\nwho becomes Typhon's father, of course. I've no attachment to this\ntheory; I'm just saying it produces less of an obvious conflict.) And\nI didn't say 'the story'; I said 'this story'. I proposed a specific\nstory about Severian's ancestry and its significance; I think it helps\nto make the work a coherent one; it shows how the world is being\nguided - whether by an actual conspiracy or by the Increate - towards\nthe birth of the New Sun. This story is spoiled by making him a clone." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D10FD4E.60708@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-12-21T19:17:34+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Urth Digest, Vol 76, Issue 173", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Andrew Mason-\n(We know of Catherine only through Ouen; and Ouen only\nseems significant because of his similarity to Severian, both\nphysically and in powers of memory, so if they're not Severian's\nbiological parents, that whole episode becomes pointless.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "James Wynn-\nIt's not pointless. It connects Severian to Dorcas." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Andrew Mason-\nI'm feeling lost here. How does it connect Severian to Dorcas? It can\ndo so only through Ouen, but what reason is there to connect Severian\nwith Ouen if he is not his biological father?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Severian knew Dorcas before he knew Ouen. They might have even been \nlovers before he met Ouen.\nSo why bring up Ouen at all? Well, appearance suggests they /are/ \nconnected. But another answer to your question might be that Dorcas is \nthe /only/ one who is important, and Ouen is her son. And in some sense \nby reuniting the two of them, Severian is reuniting himself to Dorcas. \nAgain, that's an off-hand supposition. It is worth noting that false \nfamiliar ties is a staple of Wolfe. The Rajan calls Hoof, Hide, and \nSinew his sons. He warns Hide that Jahlee (in soul travel and bearing \nthe soul of Chenille) could be his \"sister or aunt\". Resurrected Horn \naccepts an inhumu bearing Sinew's soul as his son. Number Five calls \nMatre his father. This is all very mythological in that gods become the \nchildren and relatives of each other as told by mythographers although \nhistorically they were unrelated." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "James Wynn-\nWolfe thinks\nthe The Book of the Short Sun would be \"lame\" if, once we know the Rajan\ncan travel to Urth, he does not meet with Severian. But it seems fine to\nhim that his mother is just a name? I don't buy it. If people are\nsuspicious, they should be." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Andrew Mason-\nOf course they should be. But I think that suspicion should lead us to\nfind out more about Catherine. The connection with the names of Holy\nKatharine and Contessa Carina, the connection with the Pelerines, who\nkeep turning up throughout the series, the link with the story of\nFrog, whose mother was also a virgin priestess - these all make her\nsignificant. There is probably a clue, which Wolfe considers very\nobvious, that tells us exactly who she was, but no one has spotted it\nyet." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I take it differently. I take Catherine's absence as evidence of a feint.\nEITHER:\nShe has been sitting in plain view all the time (for example, she's \nDorcas or Jolenta -- I'm not saying that's the case, I'm saying that's \nthe sort of thing I expect if she's been in plain view). This is common \nfor Wolfe. I remember getting to the end of \"Peace\" and say \"Wha???\" \nThen I thought about it for two days and realized most of my biggest \nquestions had already been answered.\n\nOR\n\nFor some reason, she's not really as important as we naturally thought \nshe would be." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "James Wynn-\nIf Severian is understood as somehow directly associated with the myths\nin the Brown Book, it restores a scattered unfocused unedited brain dump\nback to a comprehensible narrative." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Andrew Mason-\nHe is associated with the myths of the brown book; but they are not,\nas I read them, straightforward reports of his ancestry; they are\nmyths, and he is their fulfilment." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In what way? Remember that the myths are very detailed. And if Severian \nfulfills them, I expect a detailed fulfillment." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "James Wynn-\nThat he's the father of Typhon is not\nproblematic in the same way (though it would have to be reconciled\nsomehow with Typhon's claim that he he was not born)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Andrew Mason-\nI'm curious why you think this would not \"mess the story up\" as well." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Because it would not conflict with what the narrative seems to tell us\nabout his parentage. (It would have to be a time-travlling Severian\nwho becomes Typhon's father, of course. I've no attachment to this\ntheory; I'm just saying it produces less of an obvious conflict.) And\nI didn't say 'the story'; I said 'this story'. I proposed a specific\nstory about Severian's ancestry and its significance; I think it helps\nto make the work a coherent one; it shows how the world is being\nguided - whether by an actual conspiracy or by the Increate - towards\nthe birth of the New Sun. This story is spoiled by making him a clone." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I agree it complicates matters regarding Ouen. But Time-traveling is \nworse in some ways. You put your finger on probably the most unsavory \naspect of the Clone Solution. It makes the story not just Deterministic, \nbut Super-Deterministic. Severian is not just destined to be the New \nSun. He was existentially designed for it. That's probably the aspect of \nthe The Book of the New Sun that I like the least: The entire race of \nthe Hierogrammates. But Time-traveling over-determines, and \n/incestuates/ the story in the same way. And even when I understand that \nthe H's are always behind the curtain --nudging Severian like NASA \nnudging Voyager around Jupiter, and even rebooting him when he \ncatastrophically dies-- I'm still left with the feeling of something \ngoing on just beyond my field of vision. I'm not so attached to the \nClone Solution. It's just the simplest path to get there. If there were \nevidence of a more complicated solution --if it answered an open \nquestion for me-- I'd probably go for that solution.\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-12-21T19:46:48+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Urth Digest, Vol 76, Issue 173", "in_reply_to": "<4D10FD4E.60708@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Both time travel and cloning are invoked in BotNS but time travel is explored in far\nmore detail and in connection to Severian. So I'd lean toward time travel for explanations\nbut I think maybe we aren't really supposed to know. What is more important is whether he\nwas there, not how he got there." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "James Wynn: The Rajan calls Hoof, Hide, and Sinew his sons. He warns Hide that Jahlee \n(in soul travel and bearing the soul of Chenille) could be his \"sister or aunt\". Resurrected \nHorn accepts an inhumu bearing Sinew's soul as his son." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nIn your theory, Horn also becomes enjoined with a Neighbor named Greenbuck? In conjoining all\nthese ungulate animal parts and humans, inhumi and Neighbors into his family, what exactly is \nthe Narrator creating? " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Parke in Festivals of the Athenians describes a women-only midwinter festival, the Lenaia, \nwhich honored Dionysos. On this night, Graves calls it the Lenaea, the Festival of Wild Women. \nHe says a bull, representing Dionysus, was cut into nine pieces, with one piece being burned \nand the rest consumed raw by the worshippers. Dionysus was born in winter, crowned with serpents, \nbecame a lion in the spring and was sacrificed as a bull (stag or goat) in the summer..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nhttp://www.schooloftheseasons.com/celsolstice.html\n \n \nPerhaps..The Outsider? \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D110CD2.8000308@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-12-21T20:23:46+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Urth Digest, Vol 76, Issue 173", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "James Wynn:\nThe Rajan calls Hoof, Hide, and Sinew his sons. He warns Hide that Jahlee\n(in soul travel and bearing the soul of Chenille) could be his \"sister or aunt\".\nResurrectedHorn accepts an inhumu bearing Sinew's soul as his son." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Lee Berman-\nIn your theory, Horn also becomes enjoined with a Neighbor named Greenbuck?\nIn conjoining all these ungulate animal parts and humans, inhumi and\nNeighbors into his family, what exactly is the Narrator creating?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, he /was/ a greenbuck. I don't know his name or whether such \nconcepts are valid for Neighbors. The Not Horn becomes the father of the \nNot Sinew. But in a sense, they were father and son. The connection was \nthere.\n\nI think Wolfe is, again, exploring the nature of identity. He destroys \nand refabricates Pas through Jerboa and Sand (and Oreb, says I), he \nrefabricates Chenille through Jahlee, refabricates Horn in the pit and \nthen through Silk, he refabricates Silk in a variety of ways. I think \nhe refabs several other characters throughout the books but lets not get \ninto that. He obliterates these identities and restores them to see how \nthey react like some evil scientist in his tower.\n\nWhat what am I beyond my memories? What are we to God? I could see this \nbeing a very important personal question to Wolfe. Additionally, \nfamilial titles are a key theological/mythological issue. The Christ is \ncalled The Son of God (a concept systematically described by the early \nfirst century Jewish philosopher Philo), but it is a mistake to think of \nhim as God Jr. By the same token we call God our Father; Roman Catholics \nmake free use of the terms Father, Mother, Sister, Brother; Evangelical \nChristians call each other Brother and Sister. What are the values of \nsuch relationships (real or titular) to one stripped of physicalities \nsuch as memory.\n\nIn short, Wolfe has many angles. He is accomplishing many different things.\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Adam Thornton IO", "address": "adam at io.com" }, "date": "2010-12-21T21:52:27+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Urth Digest, Vol 76, Issue 173", "in_reply_to": "<9B8BF4A6-BBD4-414A-9868-017D6CF5A5D5@butcherbaker.org>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Tue, 21 Dec 2010 10:44:24 -0800, Son of Witz\n wrote:\nAll I'm saying is the potential exists for Severian to be Typhon's son\nwithout cloning, and without needing to be Typhon's father. I'm not\nsuggesting that this IS what happened. Just an idea that came to me that\nseems to fit within the given limitations." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Since we have time-travel and reincarnation, we could just take this to\nthe logical conclusion and posit that everyone in UotNS--male, female,\ncacogen--is one incarnation or another of Severian." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From there it's only a short step to say that he's everyone in all Wolfe's\nstories." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, except Mr. Million. That'd be weird.\n\nAdam" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D112784.3000403@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-12-21T22:17:40+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Urth Digest, Vol 76, Issue 173", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Son of Witz-\nAll I'm saying is the potential exists for Severian to be Typhon's son\nwithout cloning, and without needing to be Typhon's father. I'm not\nsuggesting that this IS what happened. Just an idea that came to me that\nseems to fit within the given limitations." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Adam Thornton-\nSince we have time-travel and reincarnation, we could just take this to\nthe logical conclusion and posit that everyone in UotNS--male, female,\ncacogen--is one incarnation or another of Severian." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That's not a logical conclusion by any stretch of what I've said or \nanyone I've read. Nor it is anything like what I've posited. By the same \ntoken, I could take your sarcasm to the \"logical conclusion\" and \nreductio ad absurdum suppose you are really saying \"The New Sun\" is \nabout nothing but the affirmation of sadism or only about descriptions \nof pretty ponies ." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " From there it's only a short step to say that he's everyone in all Wolfe's\nstories. Well, except Mr. Million. That'd be weird." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Carried to it's logical conclusion, you seem to be constantly only one \nshort step away from saying something ridiculous.\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "<032afb681f09b969b32b5992cca8dcbf@imap.io.com>", "from": { "name": "Adam Thornton IO", "address": "adam at io.com" }, "date": "2010-12-21T22:20:36+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Urth Digest, Vol 76, Issue 173", "in_reply_to": "<4D112784.3000403@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Tue, 21 Dec 2010 16:17:40 -0600, James Wynn wrote:\nCarried to it's logical conclusion, you seem to be constantly only one \nshort step away from saying something ridiculous." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Damn Zeno and his paradoxes! I can never quite get there!" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D112D09.1080101@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-12-21T22:41:13+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Urth Digest, Vol 76, Issue 173", "in_reply_to": "<032afb681f09b969b32b5992cca8dcbf@imap.io.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Carried to it's logical conclusion, you seem to be constantly only one\nshort step away from saying something ridiculous." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Damn Zeno and his paradoxes! I can never quite get there!" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Ha ha! I wouldn't worry about it. You can take a load off and sit here \nnext to me. Your journey has ended.\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D116F33.3010409@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2010-12-22T03:23:31+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Urth Digest, Vol 76, Issue 173", "in_reply_to": "<4D10FD4E.60708@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 12/21/2010 1:17 PM, James Wynn wrote:\nI agree it complicates matters regarding Ouen. But Time-traveling is\nworse in some ways. You put your finger on probably the most unsavory\naspect of the Clone Solution. It makes the story not just Deterministic,\nbut Super-Deterministic. Severian is not just destined to be the New\nSun. He was existentially designed for it. That's probably the aspect of\nthe The Book of the New Sun that I like the least: The entire race of\nthe Hierogrammates. But Time-traveling over-determines, and\n/incestuates/ the story in the same way. And even when I understand that\nthe H's are always behind the curtain --nudging Severian like NASA\nnudging Voyager around Jupiter, and even rebooting him when he\ncatastrophically dies-- I'm still left with the feeling of something\ngoing on just beyond my field of vision. I'm not so attached to the\nClone Solution. It's just the simplest path to get there. If there were\nevidence of a more complicated solution --if it answered an open\nquestion for me-- I'd probably go for that solution." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It's still a a struggle for Severian, though...and as it gradually \nbecomes apparent he is being manipulated, and the manipulation \ncrescendos into being part of an entire manipulated world, and the \nmanipulated world crescendos into a play being put on for the benefit of \nforces yet more mysterious, and so on...it's still a valid story of how \nSev handles all this. And I think the meta-meta-metafictional subtext is \nuseful because we really can say how likely a given explanation is based \nat least somewhat on how successfully it makes an entertaining story, \nbecause we represent the mysterious audience." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nComputational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana\n< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D117C57.6040702@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-12-22T04:19:35+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Urth Digest, Vol 76, Issue 173", "in_reply_to": "<9B8BF4A6-BBD4-414A-9868-017D6CF5A5D5@butcherbaker.org>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Son of Witz-\nHere is an idea:\nSpring Wind and Bird of the Wood have a sort of tryst, a brief encounter when he comes to Urth. If S.W. Is Typhon, couldn't BotW be Catherine the tim travelling Contessa, shuttered back to Typhon's era for an engineered tryst, then she is back through the corridors of time, or the mirrors, to birth in Severian's era.\nFish and Frog are set adrift on a STREAM. I think thys is a metonymic relation to The Brook Madrigot, and the story reads, \"Far that basket sailed...\" perhaps the womb-basket sailed up the stream of time." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I like the idea of the stream as Brook Madrigot. In fact, that \ninterpretation seems obvious now. If Catherine were a time traveller, it \nexplains where she's got to. But if Sev's followers kill his brother, \nthat event should be easy to identify.\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D12237A.9090809@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-12-22T16:12:42+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Urth Digest, Vol 76, Issue 173", "in_reply_to": "<4D117C57.6040702@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Son of Witz-\nHere is an idea:\nSpring Wind and Bird of the Wood have a sort of tryst, a brief \nencounter when he comes to Urth. If S.W. Is Typhon, couldn't BotW be \nCatherine the tim travelling Contessa, shuttered back to Typhon's era \nfor an engineered tryst, then she is back through the corridors of \ntime, or the mirrors, to birth in Severian's era.\nFish and Frog are set adrift on a STREAM. I think thys is a metonymic \nrelation to The Brook Madrigot, and the story reads, \"Far that basket \nsailed...\" perhaps the womb-basket sailed up the stream of time." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "James Wynn-\nI like the idea of the stream as Brook Madrigot. In fact, that \ninterpretation seems obvious now. If Catherine were a time traveller, \nit explains where she's got to. But if Sev's followers kill his \nbrother, that event should be easy to identify." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I just remembered that there IS cloning in tBotNS. The House Azure, right?\n\nu+16b9" } ] }, { "message_id": "<26A8DD7D-C269-4F6A-9A10-5802A070B829@butcherbaker.org>", "from": { "name": "Son of Witz", "address": "sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org" }, "date": "2010-12-22T17:30:02+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Urth Digest, Vol 76, Issue 173", "in_reply_to": "<4D12237A.9090809@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Dec 22, 2010, at 8:12 AM, James Wynn wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Son of Witz-\nHere is an idea:\nSpring Wind and Bird of the Wood have a sort of tryst, a brief encounter when he comes to Urth. If S.W. Is Typhon, couldn't BotW be Catherine the tim travelling Contessa, shuttered back to Typhon's era for an engineered tryst, then she is back through the corridors of time, or the mirrors, to birth in Severian's era.\nFish and Frog are set adrift on a STREAM. I think thys is a metonymic relation to The Brook Madrigot, and the story reads, \"Far that basket sailed...\" perhaps the womb-basket sailed up the stream of time." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "James Wynn-\nI like the idea of the stream as Brook Madrigot. In fact, that interpretation seems obvious now. If Catherine were a time traveller, it explains where she's got to. But if Sev's followers kill his brother, that event should be easy to identify." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I just remembered that there IS cloning in tBotNS. The House Azure, right?\n\nu+16b9\n\n_______________________________________________" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes, the Khaibits (sp?) and the soldiers with faces more akin than brothers.\n\nThe stream seems obvious when now, but I hadn't even thought to connect this story to Typhon and Severian." } ] } ] }