That's the thing about Severian, isn't it? As risk of evoking Dionysus and getting Lee all stirred up <wink>, he's just that sort of character. If sailors come up against him, the masts might turn to snakes, the ship fill with ivy, and the sailors go mad and turn into dolphins. Every part of the book occurs in Severian's presence and anything can happen when he is there.
However, the following is Severian's perspective on the event and it
DOES seem to suggest that what is happening with Becan Alzabo is the merging of logic and instinct, of the interests of the soul and the body:
"When the alzabo rushed at the zoanthrops, its instinct commanded it to preserve its prey from others; when Becan did so, his instinct, I believe, was to preserve his wife and child. Both performed the same act, and they actually performed it in the same body. Did the higher and lower instinct join hands at the back of reason? Or is there but one instinct standing behind all reason, so that reason sees a hand to either side?"
Consider that the Becan Alzabo did not see the zoanthrops as food requiring protection. Only Casdoe and Little Severian.
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