{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/646",
    "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": 646,
    "subject": "Shadow + Claw",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "1998-05-21T07:46:31+00:00",
    "last": "1998-05-21T10:10:01+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0011-0081@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Peter Stephenson",
        "address": "pws at ifh.de"
      },
      "date": "1998-05-21T07:46:31+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Shadow + Claw",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "The Shadow here is VRT's (or the Shadow Child[ren] if you prefer): I\nlike `Roy' for the middle name for the Celtic clues.  However, given\nthe Proust links it would have been nice if it were Robert, which\nwould fit in with Proust's Robert de St. Loup (`Robert of St. Wolfe[e]').\nIs there another Robert?  (Did someone else point this out?)\n\nThe Claw is the Claw:  is it possible that Severian finds a real\nlive thorn in Citadel, which comes back with him in Urth to become the\nactual Claw?  Are there enough clues for or against to decide this?\n\npws"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0011-0083@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Michael Straight",
        "address": "straight at email.unc.edu"
      },
      "date": "1998-05-21T10:10:01+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (urth) Shadow + Claw",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0011-0081@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "On Thu, 21 May 1998, Peter Stephenson wrote:\nThe Claw is the Claw:  is it possible that Severian finds a real\nlive thorn in Citadel, which comes back with him in Urth to become the\nactual Claw?  Are there enough clues for or against to decide this?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "There's the passage (in Citadel?) where Severian is on the beach and comes\nacross the rose bushes and sees that the thorns all look just like the\nClaw and he removes his boots recognizing that he is always standing on\nholy ground, everything is holy, all thorns are the Claw.   \n\nOr maybe a better way to put it is that the Claw was not itself \"magical\" \nrather it was special because it was the particular thorn the Increate\nused to exercise his power (via the white fountain, via Severian), and\nthat any thorn, any ground is holy because it is the creation of the\nIncreate and a potential vehicle for his grace.  (Or maybe I'm reading too\nmuch of my own sacramental/incarnational theology into it.) \n\nSo, to answer your question, I take this passage as saying, yes, any thorn\nthat Severian picked up and brought back in time would become the Claw.\n\n-Rostrum"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}