{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/950",
    "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": 950,
    "subject": "Regency Plot Thickens",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "1998-07-10T14:23:00+00:00",
    "last": "1998-07-11T11:04:46+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0016-0039@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "m.driussi",
        "address": "m.driussi at genie.com"
      },
      "date": "1998-07-10T14:23:00+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Regency Plot Thickens",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Okay, things become more complicated!\n\nThe quote raster mentions (ch. 34 in URTH) has a context: Severian\nstill thinks he has returned to his era (he doesn't guess he is in\nTyphon's); he has a sense of failure (since the white fountain cannot\narrive to his era in time); and he is wondering about this \"Monarch\"\npeople are talking about, thinking that Inire wouldn't do such a\nthing.  (In a real sense, a presentiment of what he will find when he\ngets closer to home-time.)  (We will skip over all possible excuses,\nlike: Severian, hearing a masculine title \"Monarch,\" envisions the\nfirst =male= candidate of succession, Inire, rather than the first\ncandidate, Valeria.)\n\nOf course I may be over-reading raster (throw me a bone!), but the\nsuggestion is (I believe):\n\n     Severian's Reign from 1 S.R. to 10 S.R.\n\n     Inire's Regency from 10 S.R. to — S.R.\n\n     Valeria's \"pseudo-autarchy\" from — S.R. to 50 S.R.\n\n     Severian returns 50 S.R.\n\nFirst of all, let me point out the \"Odysseus Returns to Ithaca\" mode\nat work in Severian's return to Urth.  He becomes angry because his\nPenelope has usurped his throne and married again--his \"Id Monster\"\nreanimates the dead assassin before he understands that he has been\ngone forty years rather than the hundred days he has experienced;\nValeria is killed for her infidelities.\n\nWith that out of the way--Inire as regent: what a dumb idea!  Poor\nlittle wry-neck Inire, ancient and twisted!  They only live a score\nof years!  (That's 20, for you ultramoderns--so Inire is what, 19 or\n21 already?)  Serving autarchs since Ymar, skipping through the\ncorridors of time!  All reinforcing the notion that the trip to Yesod\nwas thought to take less than a year.\n\nWe need dates here.  Is there any suggestion in the text that Inire\ndied--if so, when?  Can we date Valeria's rise to the throne?  Is\nthere some text to support Feeley's notion that Valeria's time on the\nthrone lasts only ten years: from 40 S.R. to 50 S.R. (I will be\nsurprised, since I've voiced to him disagreement on that point and he\nnever provided text, nor brought up this Inire angle).\n\nOdilo's tale (ch 44, URTH) makes mention of Inire, but no word of his\ndemise.\n\nEata's tale (ch. 46, URTH) strongly suggests that Valeria was on the\nthrone and gold coins had her face and some man's on them when Eata\ngot back from the Xanthic Lands circa 10 S.R.  The feast on Iubar\nStreet might have been a wedding feast celebrating Valeria's\nremarriage (what else could it have been--the annual \"bread and\ncircuses\" block party?).\n\nIF Valeria's reign is from 10 S.R. to 50 S.R., then the argument\nboils down to simply the use of the term \"regency\" (as committed by\nFeeley and myself) rather than some more-accurate-but-not-yet-\nspecified word.\n\n=mantis="
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0016-0054@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "adam louis stephanides",
        "address": "astephan at students.uiuc.edu"
      },
      "date": "1998-07-11T11:04:46+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Regency Plot Thickens",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0016-0039@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "On Fri, 10 Jul 1998 mantis wrote:\nFirst of all, let me point out the \"Odysseus Returns to Ithaca\" mode\nat work in Severian's return to Urth.  He becomes angry because his\nPenelope has usurped his throne and married again--his \"Id Monster\"\nreanimates the dead assassin before he understands that he has been\ngone forty years rather than the hundred days he has experienced;\nValeria is killed for her infidelities."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "But when the assassin is reanimated, Severian has no idea that Valeria is\nAutarch or has remarried; he doesn't even know if she's still alive.  Or\nis the idea that Severian's unconscious somehow knows the future?  If so,\nthis would be ironic, since his conscious guesses as to the future are\ngenerally wrong.\n\nIncidentally, as long as we're on this chapter (41) who is the mysterious\nlovely woman Severian sees in the Secret House?  (I just came across this\npassage by chance, so maybe the answer is made obvious elsewhere in the\nbook, or maybe it's been discussed on this list; if so, I apologize.)\n\n--Adam"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}