{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/777",
    "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": 777,
    "subject": "potpouri",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1998-06-14T11:14:00+00:00",
    "last": "1998-06-14T11:14:00+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0013-0045@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "J. Schultz",
        "address": "jschultz at wcnet.org"
      },
      "date": "1998-06-14T11:14:00+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) potpouri",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Hello,\nI'm back now that discussion has turned back to TBOTNS since I haven't read\n5head.\nAs the title suggests this is to hit on a couple of subjects that still\ntrouble me.\n\nThe discussion about the mine and the \"creature\" awakened has been\ninteresting.  While some have suggested its Tolkien flavor, I saw a\ndifferent author invoked.  Because of this I came to a slightly different\nconclusion about the nature of the 'beastie.'  If you turned Severian into a\ngentleman from New England at the turn of the century and called the account\nat the mine \"The Saultus Horror\" it would be indistinguishable from a work\nof H P Lovecraft's.  Beastmen, ancient cities, dark passages, and an\nextremely large, ominous, demonic creature that is never seen but invokes\nsheer terror in the protagonist.  Because I see the Lovecraft connection I\nhave always seen the \"creature\" as being malignant and in league with Abia\n(who has more than a passing similarity to Chthulu).  Severian hints at the\npossiblity (although he could be wrong, as he so often is) that the creature\nis: 1) ancient  2)  asleep for ages  3)  woken by the claw.  The question is\nwhether the creature is awakened in the same spirit of the man-apes, in\norder to serve the Conciliator.  OR  whether the creature is awakened by the\npresence of something it wishes to destroy, its old enemy the Conciliator\n(much like the salamander was attracted to the claw).  I find the latter\nmore plausible.  The fact that the ancient town and the man-apes are the\nproperty of the autarch and F. Inire does not mean that the \"creature\" must\nalso be.  The burried town existed long before both the autarch and Inire\nand its not hard to picture its halls being the home of some \"ancient,\nsleeping evil.  Too powerful to be removed by Inire, yet sleeping and\ncausing no worries.  I believe, as others have stated, that it may be Scylla\nor Arioch.  More likely Arioch.  Because.......\n\nA theory about Scylla,\nKeep in mind I have not finished reading the Whorl, and have not read any\ndiscussions in the other mailing list.  Forgive me if I am repeating things\ndiscussed elsewhere.\n\nHas anyone wondered if the Scylla mentioned in TBOTNS to be the same as the\nScylla whose personality has been programed into the whorl's computer?  This\nmay be a jump in logic, but considering GW's habit of making unrelated\ncharacters and events tie in it seems a possibility.\nIt's hinted that rebellion against Typhon was in part led by his children.\nAnd while Scylla is not the true name of his first born it is not unlikely\nthat she could have chosen to be called that on Urth as well as in the\nWhorl.  Could it be that after the defeat of Typhon she took the route of\nBaldanders?  Becoming so large that the Urth could not hold her anymore and\nmoving into the ocean?  She seems a likely person to oppose the coming of\nthe new sun.\nOR...\nCould Scylla be the young girl in the story that Jonas tells inside the wall\nof Nessus?  The girl in the story is opposed to the Monarch yet carries with\nher small black seeds.  She tells people to follow her or she'll drop the\nseeds in the ocean and destroy the Urth.  Could the seeds be the embryos\n(larvae, or whatever) or Abaia and Erebrus?  Casting them in the ocean would\neventually bring about the end of the Urth, in a sense.  In the story she is\ntorn apart by the mob, but we don't know what becomes of her seeds.  Could\nit be that in some myths she is mentioned as Scylla, mother of Abaia and\nErebrus?  It is a very interesting possiblity.\n\nFunkMonkey\nJ. Schutlz\njschultz at wcnet.org"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}