{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/847", "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": 847, "subject": "Severian as Conciliator", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "1998-06-22T12:30:07+00:00", "last": "1998-06-22T17:33:05+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan Parmenter", "address": "dan at lec.com" }, "date": "1998-06-22T12:30:07+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Severian as Conciliator", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "SWORD OF THE LICTOR\n\nCh. 25 \"Typhon and Piaton\"\n\nTyphon speaks...\n\n\"Then too, a wonder-worker had arisen, as such people do. He wasn't\nreally a trrboublemaker, though some of my ministers said he was. I\nhad withdrawn here until my treatment should be ocmplete, and since\ndiseases and deformities seemed to flee from him, I ordered him\nbrought to me.\"\n\n\"The Conciliator,\" I said, and a moment later could have cut my own\nwrist for it.\n\n\"Yes, that was one of his names. Do you know where he is now?\"\n\n\"He has been dead for many chiliads.\"\n\n\"And yet he remains, I think?\"\n\n*********\n\nLet's give Wolfe the benefit of the doubt and assume that he knew that\nSeverian would meet Typhon again in URTH, which is of course later in\nSeverian's life, but it takes place earlier in Typhon's. Now of\ncourse Typhon could have said \"and that wonder-worker was you!\" but\nthat's not his style really. Perhaps this was his motivation.\nRealizing that the Severian in fromt of him hasn't fully come into his\npower yet, he seeks to either kill him or enslave him, thus preventing\nhim from gaining the power that will ultimately serve to Typhon's hold\nover his \"minions\". Perhaps Piaton remembers as well, which is why he\nsuggests (in his way) to Severian that he punch him (Piaton) in the\nnose.\n\nBy the way, getting back to all those \"mountain autarchs\", I'm\nassuming that Ymar may have become autarch because Severian told\nTyphon's ex-cronies to be on the lookout for Ymar, just shortly after\nhe told Ymar that he might well become a new type of ruler called an\nautarch. Found the autarchy AND your own guild AND thumb your nose at\nthe prevailing monarch whose ass you've already kicked AND do some\nrighteous healing, all in a week!\n\nI wonder if Ymar's mind is among all the other autarch's in suspension\nin the phallus-shaped vial? Severian says that the older autarchs\nminds tend to be somehwat murky to him, though accessible (only Thecla\nand the previous autarch are fully represented). Did Wolfe decide it\nwould simply be too much to have\nSeverian-as-all-autarchs-including-Ymar speak *to* Ymar *as* Ymar,\nwhich would be like an Alzabo eating someone and then going for a\ntime-trip back to speak with the prey's own voice a day earlier.\n\nD" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Straight", "address": "straight at email.unc.edu" }, "date": "1998-06-22T17:33:05+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Severian as Conciliator", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "On Mon, 22 Jun 1998, Dan Parmenter quoted:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"Then too, a wonder-worker had arisen, as such people do. He wasn't\nreally a trrboublemaker, though some of my ministers said he was. I\nhad withdrawn here until my treatment should be ocmplete, and since\ndiseases and deformities seemed to flee from him, I ordered him\nbrought to me.\"\n\n\"The Conciliator,\" I said, and a moment later could have cut my own\nwrist for it.\n\n\"Yes, that was one of his names. Do you know where he is now?\"\n\n\"He has been dead for many chiliads.\"\n\n\"And yet he remains, I think?\"\n\n*********\n\nLet's give Wolfe the benefit of the doubt and assume that he knew that\nSeverian would meet Typhon again in URTH, which is of course later in\nSeverian's life, but it takes place earlier in Typhon's. Now of\ncourse Typhon could have said \"and that wonder-worker was you!\" but\nthat's not his style really. Perhaps this was his motivation.\nRealizing that the Severian in fromt of him hasn't fully come into his\npower yet, he seeks to either kill him or enslave him, thus preventing\nhim from gaining the power that will ultimately serve to Typhon's hold\nover his \"minions\". Perhaps Piaton remembers as well, which is why he\nsuggests (in his way) to Severian that he punch him (Piaton) in the\nnose." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "As I read this (with the hindsight of URTH), Typhon recognizes Severian,\nand thinks Severian is playing coy with him. I doubt Typhon suspects that\nthe Conciliator he met was a future Severian. Rather he might think\nSeverian is some sort of descendant of the Conciliator, or that the\nConcilator is somehow very long-lived. He thinks Severian is either\npretending ignorance of the Concilator, or pretending not to remember\nTyphon. \n\n-Rostrum" } ] } ] }