Subject: (urth) Severian = Conciliator hint in BOTNS

From: Dan Rabin <danrabin at a.crl.com>
Date: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 17:46:16 +0000

We have recently been discussing whether the identity of Severian, the New
Sun, and the Conciliator is deducible from _The Book of the New Sun_.

I offer the following citations:

_Citadel_, X, end of chapter:

As Ava prays, Severian remarks:

``I, knowing no prayers, spoke without sound to someone who seemed at times
within me and at times, as the angel had said, infinitely remote.''

_Citadel_, XIV, 8th and 9th paragraphs:

Severian prays (just before affixing the Claw to the altar of the Pelerines
in the lazaret), and describes the experience thus:

``... I remained conscious of my kneeling body, but only as a peripheral
burden.  My mind was among the starry wastes, far from Urth and indeed far
from Urth's archipelago of island worlds, and it seemed to me that that to
which I spoke was farther still--I had come, as it were, to the walls of
the universe, and now shouted through the walls to one who waited outside.

  `Shouted,' I said, but perhaps that is the wrong word
[...]
I asked only that I might lead myself; and as I did so, I seemed to see,
with a vision increasingly clear, through the chink in the universe to a
new universe bathed in golden light, where my listener knelt to hear me.
What had seemed a crevice in the world had expanded until I could see a
face and folded hands, and the opening, like a tunnel, running deep into a
human head that for a time seemed larger than the head of Typhon carved
upon the mountain.  I was whispering into my own ear, and when I realized
it I flew into it like a bee and stood up.''

The latter passage is a personal favorite.  I tend to skip the hard parts
on first reading, and it seems like a typical Wolfean paradox on light
reading, like the Botanical Gardens transcending space and time.  The first
time I read it after reading _The Urth of the New Sun_, of course, it hit
me like a bolt of lightning (and a breath of air from Yesod).

The bit about locating his consciousness in a remote location is clearly
the same as the portrayal in _Urth_.  The second paragraph contains a sort
of Enlightenment, granted in response to the humility of Severian's
petition.  And it's all hidden in this reflective moment before the plot
resumes.

  -- Dan Rabin

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/

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From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 09:30:13 +0000

> within me and at times, as the angel had said, infinitely remote.''

I don't think this bit says much about Severian's identity.  It sounds to
me like the way many people might describe their experience of prayer, but
few if any would mean by it that they are themselves Jesus.  It seems to
me more an expression of the paradox of God's immanence and transcendence.

> it I flew into it like a bee and stood up.''

This part takes on lots of significance in retrospect having read Urth,
but again, I can think of several ways to interpret it other than
"Severian will leave the universe, become the New Sun, then go back in
time to become the Concilator."  I think alga would have labeled that "fan
fiction" back before Urth came out. 

So far, the parallelism of the titles seems like the most concrete clue to
Severian's destiny.  But even with that, I can see imagining that the
title of CLAW refers to Severian following in the footsteps of the
Conciliator, doing deeds like his, rather than thinking Severian would
eventually go back and be the Conciliator. 

-Rostrum

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From: Tony Ellis <tony.ellis at futurenet.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 16:05:19 +0000

> eventually go back and be the Conciliator. 

I can clearly remember appreciating that Severian was both Conciliator
and New Sun long before URTH was even published. For me, all the
conclusive evidence was in the chapter entitled "The Key to the
Universe", which effectively says that in the future Severian "already
has" brought the New Sun, and that he will acquire the power to walk the
corridors of time.

It may have helped that I have never distinguished between New Sun and
Conciliator. For me they were always two different names for the same
thing: the Conciliator was the New Sun in the past, the New Sun was the
Conciliator come again.