{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/961",
    "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": 961,
    "subject": "Digest urth.v016.n002",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1998-07-11T10:34:01+00:00",
    "last": "1998-07-11T10:34:01+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0016-0053@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "adam louis stephanides",
        "address": "astephan at students.uiuc.edu"
      },
      "date": "1998-07-11T10:34:01+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Re: Digest urth.v016.n002",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "What a daunting task, pitting my feeble knowledge of the New Sun cycle\nagainst mantis's!  But I still think I'm correct on the regency issue."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "On Thu, 9 Jul 1998 mantis wrote:\nRe: Valeria's Regency in the Valeria entry.  Do you consider it an error\nbecause technically she became regent the moment Severian left Urth?\nRather than \"during the decades of [Severian's] absence\" (which sounds\nvague and gradual)?  Your question makes it seem more likely that you\ndoubt Valeria was his regent while he was visiting Yesod."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Since I believe that Severian stopped being Autarch when he left Urth, I\ndon't think he had a regent, neither Valeria, Father Inire, or anyone\nelse."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "I'm nearly positive that Severian uses the term \"regent\" or\n\"Valeria's regency\" somewhere in URTH."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Possibly, but scanning the pages following Severian's discovery of Valeria\non the Phoenix Throne, I didn't find any reference to Valeria being a\nregent.  Nor is it likely that there would have been such references\nbefore, since not Valeria but Father Inire was Severian's designated\nsuccessor (despite your cryptic comments in \"Regency Plot Thickens\").\n\nNor am I convinced by your ingenious analogies to show that Severian could\nhave still been Autarch even though he speaks (on board the ship) of his\nAutarchy in the past tense."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "In the general case, again using the analogy of a king going by ship\nto the holy land:\n\nPassenger: \"So you still claim to be king of England while you are on\nthis ship out in the middle of the Mediterranean?\"\n\nKing: \"I was king--now I'm on holiday, so I'm the grand poobah of\npartydom.  Good thing my regent is minding the kingdom while I'm away!\""
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I think the king, if he had not abdicated, would have said he was still\nking.  If someone had asked Clinton, in China, \"Are you the President of\nthe United States?\" would he answer \"I was\" or \"I am\"?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Or, to put it in a skiffy way: if John F. Kennedy gets into a time\nmachine and travels to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, is\nhe still \"President\" while he sits there eating his meal and watching\nthe universe collapse in the Grand Gnab?  His nation is gone, his\nplanet is gone, his solar system is gone."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "This idea--that Severian is taking time-travel into account and being\npedantic--is one I hadn't thought of, but I'm inclined to reject it, for\nthree reasons.  First, when Gunnie asks Severian if he's aware of the\nship's time-travelling properties, Severian says \"'Yes, I'm coming to\nunderstand so.'\" (ch.16, p. 116), with the implication (at least to my\nears) that this \"understanding\" is recent. But Severian first refers to\nhis Autarchy in the past on p. 20.  Was he aware of the time-travel\naspects then?  Second, does Severian know--can he know--that the\nCommonwealth is in the ship's past, if in fact it is?  My impression is\nthat it goes both forward and backward relative to Briah's time.  Third,\nand thisis vaguer than my other points, my feeling is that if Severian\nwere going to make this sort of pedantic distinction, he would say so:\nsomething like \"'I am the Autarch--or rather, I was, but in this time my\nrealm doesn't exist.'\"\n\nAnd as for the pharoah analogy you use later, Severian doesn't regard his\nAutarchy, or former Autarchy, as \"just another prop\" to be let go of in\nYesod. On the contrary, his Autarchy is the reason he's facing\n\"trial,\" and he knows it.  And he's careful to make clear to Gunnie that\nhe \"'was the legitimate head of the whole of'\" Urth, despite the de facto\nlimits of his rule. (ch. 3, p. 20)\n\nAs for how to designate Valeria (and Father Inire): well, Father Inire has\nobviously not eaten Severian's brains; and Severian never refers to him as\nAutarch, so maybe there's a specific title we never hear of for those who\nrule the Commonwealth without being full-fledged Autarchs.  OTOH, Severian\nhas no qualms in referring to Valeria as Autarch (ch. 42, p. 298; ch. 44,\np. 315), even though she hasn't received her predecessor's memories and\ndoesn't know the words. He knows more about the constitutional\narrangements of the Commonwealth than we ever will, so maybe we should\nfollow his example.\n\n--Adam"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}