{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/593",
    "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": 593,
    "subject": "Strictly FWIW",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1998-05-12T02:31:00+00:00",
    "last": "1998-05-12T02:31:00+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0010-0143@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "m.driussi",
        "address": "m.driussi at genie.geis.com"
      },
      "date": "1998-05-12T02:31:00+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Strictly FWIW",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Re: no monsters at the gate of Nessus, that this is standard\noperating procedure, firing military hardware into the crowd just to\nkeep them off the road, when will they ever learn, setting\nthe wagon on fire, after a few chiliads you'd think evolution would\ntake hold, yawn, just another boring day for the bloodthirsty\nhighway patrol at the Sanguinary Turnstile.  Silly.\n\nRe: the patrol/watchers at the gate have spotted Hethor and want him\nfor questioning at the least (i.e., just like when Severian tried\ncrossing the bridge from the deadish city into the lively city).\nYes.\n\nRe: Hethor as cannibal survivor.  Interesting!  Feeding sick\npets--one continues to wonder: where does he keep these pets; how\ndoes he transport them; if both questions are not answered with \"he\nteleports them in via some obviously very small and portable magic\nmirrors\"?  Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner as well as possibly The\nWandering Jew?\n\nNew maps of the multiverse.  Okay, so there is a region \"between\"\nBriah and Yesod; \"after\" the death of Briah and \"before\" the birth of\nYesod.  This nameless transitional area (limbo) is apparently the\nzone to which Jonas and The Cat go to--it is the misty ghost region.\n(The Cat had no choice, but one continues to wonder what Jonas had in\nmind by stepping into what amounts to being a Suicide Machine.)  It\nmight be that \"apports\" only happen in this region (maybe that is what\nJonas was banking on--that he would be an apport and then get onto\nthe ship and then get to Yesod.  Or appearing in space nearby, the\nsailors would shoot him a line, as happens for Sev and Gunnie when\nthey are teleported into space near the ship).  When Severian opens the\nBook of Mirrors and sees the butterfly woman (Tzadkiel) swimming through\nspace, there is much talk of death--it may be that he is seeing\nTzadkiel in the ghost region (well, that is slightly circular: it is\nthe book of magic teleporting to somewhere mirrors, after all).\nAnyway, that notion that the mirrors of the Book of Mirrors offer him\ndeath; the apparent dissolve of Jonas; and the notion in URTH about a\nregion of mist separating the land of the living from the land of the\ndead, such that a ghost coming through is cloaked in vapor which the\nliving confuse with the spirit itself.\n\nBy the same tangent, the critters from the mirrors may come from the\ngrayzone between subspace and Briah (i.e., the dead of the previous\nuniverse).  Again, this is the notion that mirror traffic is one way,\nlike blackhole in subspace leads to whitehole in Briah, blackhole in\nBriah leads to whitehole in Yesod, etc.\n\nThe importance of memory in summoning.  The way that image preceeds\nexistence: flicker of light becomes the Fish; phantom Malrubius gains\nenough substance to touch.  The miracle of the Stone Town requires the\nftl telephone conferencing with some geezer at Fomalhaut who\n=remembers= ol' Apu.  The belief that memory of the dead means they\naren't entirely dead: the shields of the walrus hunters in Halvard's\ntale (or his joke in OTTER, if that is where it was).\n\nRe: Palaemon's previous adventure as the unwritten novella's story,\nI've thought this for years, myself.\n\nAnd now, a hypothetical sketch of Severian the Cruel.\n\nJoining the rebellion of Vodalus.  Fixating upon the unseen Old\nAutarch as the absent father (his own).\n\nExiled from the guild for killing the prostitute at Echopraxia.\n\nProbably teams up with Agia--she takes the role of Dorcas, but they\nare in a more \"Bonnie and Clyde\" mode.  (Medea-like, she betrays her\nbrother to Severian?  Who knows.  With no Claw to disuade her from\nthe murder plan, the Sanguinary Field scheme remains intact.  With no\nHethor, Agia might be looking for a strong arm to serve and direct.\nWith no Dorcas to interrupt the sexual seduction, maybe such a\njuncture is where new alligences are made: Agia gets soft [aw, but\nhe's so cute]; Severian gets so savage that Agia thinks he will win\nthe contest, and she wants to back a winner.)\n\nFleeing Thrax for killing another prostitute (or Agia).  (He was\nprobably just a \"carnifex\" rather than a journeyman torturer, that is,\nkicked out of the guild for being an algophilist.)  This would mirror\nthe sudden departure of Dorcas.\n\nFinding the Old Autarch, he kills him with OEdipal glee, fulfilling\nthe Vodalarii vow.  But then he turns against Vodalus, now that\nSeverian is autarch.\n\nNo drowning, no fairy godfather, no dog, no Thecla.  No softness, no\nlove, just a savagery approaching that of Jenghis Khan; created from\nhis feelings of rejection from/abandonment by parents, compounded by\nthe nature of his upbringing.\n\nSo they show Sev2: here is your mother, here is your aunt, here is\nyour grandmother, here is your sister; here is a dog; here is your\nfather, here is your grandfather, here is your fairy godfather; here\nis a very bad girl that your grandmother warns you against, and here\nis the good girl next door.\n\n=mantis="
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}