{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/5904", "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": 5904, "subject": "(no subject)", "messages": 7, "voices": 6, "first": "2011-01-14T21:59:02+00:00", "last": "2011-01-16T18:23:41+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Andrew Mason", "address": "andrew.mason53 at googlemail.com" }, "date": "2011-01-14T21:59:02+00:00", "subject": "(urth) (no subject)", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Gerry Quinn wrote:\n\nIf all Severian's lovers in BotNS are close relatives, his family would seem\nto be extraordinarily diverse and geographically dispersed. ?His lovers are\nspread (so to speak) ?from the slums of Nessus to the Autarch's Palace to\nvillages in the interior and the minor aristocracy of provincial towns. They\ninclude pureborn exultants and those who are apparently lowborn, and some\nwho are in between. ?If we include UotNS, we may add a woman from thousands\nof years in the past, and a female creature not borm on Urth, nor even in\nUrth's universe. ?But even leaving these two ?aside, the thesis seems\nimprobable to say the least." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I suspect that Severian's lovers represent the different classes of\nthe Commonwealth, linking him to all of them.\n\nThecla - exultant.\nValeria - armiger.\nDorcas - optimate.\nJolenta - commonalty.\nCyriaca - (former) religious.\nDaria - servant of the throne.\nApheta - cacogen. (She would certainly be called that if she came to Urth.)\n\n(The first four are explicitly listed as examples of those classes in\nthe appendix to COTC. The others have not yet been introduced.)\n\nThecla's khaibit represents an anomalous group who don't really fit\ninto the classification. Pia represents autochthons, a group which\nhasn't been highlighted when the classification is given.\nGunnie/Burgunadofara can be seen as representing off-Urth humans, and\nthe tall woman was born millions of years before the Commonwealth\nexisted." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Furthermore, apart from Dorcas there is just one woman mentioned in the\nstory whom most agree is plausibly a close relative of Severian's. ?That is\nMerryn - and there is no indication that Severian has sexual relations with\nher. ?If Wolfe intended to indicate that Severian's lovers were hidden\nrelatives, leaving Merryn out appears rather bizarre!" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "There is also a fair chance that Casdoe is a relation of his - likewise." } ] }, { "message_id": "<950639CE-218A-4077-9950-4DEEECBA038D@butcherbaker.org>", "from": { "name": "Son of Witz", "address": "sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org" }, "date": "2011-01-15T00:22:43+00:00", "subject": "(urth) (no subject)", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Jan 14, 2011, at 1:59 PM, Andrew Mason wrote:\nI suspect that Severian's lovers represent the different classes of\nthe Commonwealth, linking him to all of them.\n\nThecla - exultant.\nValeria - armiger.\nDorcas - optimate.\nJolenta - commonalty.\nCyriaca - (former) religious.\nDaria - servant of the throne.\nApheta - cacogen. (She would certainly be called that if she came to Urth.)\n\n(The first four are explicitly listed as examples of those classes in\nthe appendix to COTC. The others have not yet been introduced.)\n\nThecla's khaibit represents an anomalous group who don't really fit\ninto the classification. Pia represents autochthons, a group which\nhasn't been highlighted when the classification is given.\nGunnie/Burgunadofara can be seen as representing off-Urth humans, and\nthe tall woman was born millions of years before the Commonwealth\nexisted." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "VERY interesting.\nI think you've hit the nail on the head, Andrew.\nI'd say the Khaibit's are more or less their own class. Enslaved Prostitutes." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerryq at indigo.ie" }, "date": "2011-01-15T16:36:51+00:00", "subject": "(urth) (no subject)", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: \"Andrew Mason\" \nI suspect that Severian's lovers represent the different classes of\nthe Commonwealth, linking him to all of them.\n\nThecla - exultant.\nValeria - armiger.\nDorcas - optimate.\nJolenta - commonalty.\nCyriaca - (former) religious.\nDaria - servant of the throne.\nApheta - cacogen. (She would certainly be called that if she came to \nUrth.)\n\n(The first four are explicitly listed as examples of those classes in\nthe appendix to COTC. The others have not yet been introduced.)\n\nThecla's khaibit represents an anomalous group who don't really fit\ninto the classification. Pia represents autochthons, a group which\nhasn't been highlighted when the classification is given.\nGunnie/Burgunadofara can be seen as representing off-Urth humans, and\nthe tall woman was born millions of years before the Commonwealth\nexisted." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That seems reasonable, though it could simply be an artefact of Severian's \nrather extensive... coverage.\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D31D02F.4030702@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2011-01-15T16:49:51+00:00", "subject": "(urth) (no subject)", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Points for difficulty, but a deduction for trying too hard. (^-^)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 1/15/2011 11:36 AM, Gerry Quinn wrote:\nThat seems reasonable, though it could simply be an artefact of \nSeverian's rather extensive... coverage.\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jack Smith", "address": "jack.smith.1946 at gmail.com" }, "date": "2011-01-15T18:11:30+00:00", "subject": "(urth) (no subject)", "in_reply_to": "<4D31D02F.4030702@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Dorcas did not seem like an optimate to me, since optimates were the \"best\"\npeople of the Roman republic and Dorcas never struck me as being what we\nmight call upper or upper middle class. What Wolfe says in the appendix is\nthat \"optimates appear to be more or less wealthy traders...there are some\nhints that Dorcas originally belonged to this class.\" (CotC, appendix) Now\nthat sounds more like it. Dorcas seems somewhat refined (more than Agia)\nand her father appears to have been successful. But her marriage to the old\nboatman brought her down in the world economically, and then led to her\ndeath. A sad figure." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Sat, Jan 15, 2011 at 11:49 AM, David Stockhoff wrote:\nPoints for difficulty, but a deduction for trying too hard. (^-^)\n\n\nOn 1/15/2011 11:36 AM, Gerry Quinn wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "That seems reasonable, though it could simply be an artefact of Severian's\nrather extensive... coverage.\n\n- Gerry Quinn" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "---\navast! Antivirus: Outbound message clean.\nVirus Database (VPS): 110115-0, 01/15/2011\nTested on: 1/15/2011 11:49:51 AM\navast! - copyright (c) 1988-2011 AVAST Software.\nhttp://www.avast.com\n\n\n\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D33252A.1010709@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2011-01-16T17:04:42+00:00", "subject": "(urth) (no subject)", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 1/15/2011 12:11 PM, Jack Smith wrote:\nDorcas did not seem like an optimate to me, since optimates were the\n\"best\" people of the Roman republic and Dorcas never struck me as being\nwhat we might call upper or upper middle class. What Wolfe says in the\nappendix is that \"optimates appear to be more or less wealthy\ntraders...there are some hints that Dorcas originally belonged to this\nclass.\" (CotC, appendix) Now that sounds more like it. Dorcas seems\nsomewhat refined (more than Agia) and her father appears to have been\nsuccessful. But her marriage to the old boatman brought her down in the\nworld economically, and then led to her death. A sad figure." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I got the impression that they were doing okay until she died, then he \nwas okay for a while more until he went into a depression and ended up \nworking as a boatman so he could keep looking for her body every day. \nI'm judging this on the basis that Ouen has a cloisonne of his mother, \napparently a self-portrait since the painting business comes down her \nside of the family and Dorcas does various little artisty things while \nshe's with Severian. The obsessive boatman wouldn't have wanted to part \nwith his last picture of her esp to a child who might lose it, so there \nmust have been another for him to keep somewhere. Ergo, if they could \nafford to devote time and materials to multiple portraits of family \nmembers, they weren't doing too badly." }, { "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": "<4D3337AD.3050006@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2011-01-16T18:23:41+00:00", "subject": "(urth) (no subject)", "in_reply_to": "<950639CE-218A-4077-9950-4DEEECBA038D@butcherbaker.org>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 1/14/2011 6:22 PM, Son of Witz wrote:\n\nOn Jan 14, 2011, at 1:59 PM, Andrew Mason wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I suspect that Severian's lovers represent the different classes of\nthe Commonwealth, linking him to all of them.\n\nThecla - exultant.\nValeria - armiger.\nDorcas - optimate.\nJolenta - commonalty.\nCyriaca - (former) religious.\nDaria - servant of the throne." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Didn't Sev pointedly reject Daria?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Apheta - cacogen. (She would certainly be called that if she came to Urth.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yea and no; \"cacogen\" is Urthspeak for Bug Eyed Monster, and hierodules \nwear scary monster masks when they visit Urth undercover. Apheta, being \na hierarch, doesn't need a disguise because she appears outwardly human \nand if she reveals herself to be an exalted being, well, \"divine \nmessenger\" is right up there just under the Autarch." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "VERY interesting.\nI think you've hit the nail on the head, Andrew.\nI'd say the Khaibit's are more or less their own class. Enslaved Prostitutes." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "They could be the aristocrats of the underpeople, made to pass for human \nunlike the cat women, mastiff men, anpiels, etc." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nComputational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana\n< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >" } ] } ] }