{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/952", "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": 952, "subject": "Regency Plot 2", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "1998-07-10T14:53:44+00:00", "last": "1998-07-10T17:42:00+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "m.driussi", "address": "m.driussi at genie.com" }, "date": "1998-07-10T17:42:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Regency Plot 2", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Whoops--Eata says that some of the gold coins had Severian's face and\nsome had Valeria's face, \"or anyway some woman's.\"\n\n(So it wasn't two faces on one coin as I misremembered; and the fuzzy\nface wasn't \"some man's,\" i.e., Dux Caesidus's.)\n\nThis detail sparks other associations: for the current inquiry we\nwill assume that the coins have Valeria's face. However, the\nmysterious coin of TBOTNS, which had a womanly face on it from a\nmodel never really identified, a coin given by Vodalus to Severian,\nturned out to be a fake coin. Who was the model? (People seem to\nassume that it is the old Autarch, unmanned and androgynous.\nPersonally I think it is more likely to be Tzadkiel.) Are all\n\"woman faced\" coins therefore assumed to be counterfeit, or are\nthey just based upon the coins minted by the self-effacing old\nAutarch? (Seeing how much trouble Severian's portraiture causes,\nin Typhon's era as well as after the Deluge, one can openly applaud\nthe old Autarch's strategy!) And does the fake coin somehow point\ntoward Valeria's (future) counterfeiting ?\n\nAnyway, applying details from \"The Map\" to Eata's tale in URTH, we\nfind that \"The Map\" must be taking place in 8 S.R. or 9 S.R., since\nSeverian is Autarch and \"the law\" (i.e., he hasn't left Urth yet,\nwhich happens in 10 S.R.), Maxellindis is dead (so presumably Eata\nhas already been arrested, served on the ship, jumped ship in Xanthic\nLands, spent two years there, then returned to the Commonwealth;\nsince Maxellindis drowned avoiding the arrest), Severian's face is on\nnewly minted silver coins.\n\nSince Eata's tale is being shaped by Severian's prompting, let alone\nhis recording, it is as unreliable as ever. But if we take the low\nnumbers he gives, then Eata could have returned to the Commonwealth\nby 8 S.R. Making it a lie that Severian was gone when Eata returned.\n\nAnd who knows how quickly Valeria remarried? It may be that\nSeverian's subconscious mind wants to paint her black after her\nassassination/execution, as if to justify to himself his own\nunconscious part. So Eata's tale makes it seem as if she only waited\na year, or maybe two, before seizing power and then elevating her\nlover to consort.\n\nIt might have been five years, or ten years, or twenty years. Who\nknows? These amounts of time might mitigate, might soften the\njudgment against Valeria. But to the heart, they don't really\nmatter--the crime was committed (women who wound Severian's heart\n=die=). So the two guys talking cobble together a scenario wherein\nit looks like practically the day after Severian left, his wife made\nher VictoriEvita coup, and then the next week married her Fabio\nconsort, while Inire pushed up daisies or wrung his wrinkled little\nhands.\n\n=mantis=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Mark Millman", "address": "mark_millman at hmco.com" }, "date": "1998-07-10T14:53:44+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Regency Plot 2", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "On 10 July 1998 at 5:42 pm GMT mantis sez:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Anyway, applying details from \"The Map\" to\nEata's tale in URTH, we find that \"The Map\"\nmust be taking place in 8 S.R. or 9 S.R., since\nSeverian is Autarch and \"the law\" (i.e., he\nhasn't left Urth yet, which happens in 10 S.R.),\nMaxellindis is dead (so presumably Eata has\nalready been arrested, served on the ship,\njumped ship in Xanthic Lands, spent two years\nthere, then returned to the Commonwealth;\nsince Maxellindis drowned avoiding the arrest),\nSeverian's face is on newly minted silver coins." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "But a close reading of \"The Map\" will convince you\nthat it's set immediately after Maxellindis' death; in\nfact, the corpse that Eata fishes out of Gyoll with his\nboat-hook doesn't make him cry because it reminds\nhim of her; it makes him cry because it is her.\n\nI think that Eata's story in _Urth_ is the story as he\nhas convinced himself it should be. Maxellindis,\nin Eata's version of events, wasn't unfaithful to him\nand didn't betray him, and, perhaps most import-\nantly, wasn't casually killed by her lover right after\nthe theft of the map.\n\nThis suggests that Eata could indeed have returned\nfrom the Xanthic Lands after Severian's departure\n(in fact, I believe that Eata leaves soon after this very\nepisode; his rejection of the steady job is suggestive),\nthough it doesn't mean that Severian couldn't have\ninterpreted the story that Eata in fact tells in such a\nway as to convince himself that Eata returned before\nSeverian's own departure. And it doesn't in any way\ninvalidate your conclusion, mantis. Indeed, if any-\nthing, I'd say it strengthens it, since it introduces a\nparallel situation, i.e.,\n\n Valeria : Severian :: Maxellindis : Eata.\n\nThough I would like to know something more about\nthe relative timing of the composition of _Urth_ and\nof \"The Map\".\n\nMark Millman" } ] } ] }