Subject: (urth) Digest Urth, or brains thereof

From: Charles Dye <raster at highfiber.com>
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 1998 15:57:05 +0000

adam louis stephanides <astephan at students.uiuc.edu> explicates:

>raster argued that, as long as Severian was still alive or if he'd been
>lost at sea, nobody could be a legitimate Autarch.  It's not clear to me
>whether this is because a legitimate Autarch must eat his predecessor's
>brains ...

Such an ugly phrase, that.  Can't we come up with some polite euphemism?
"Breakfast for your head" ... no, wait, I like "eating brains" better.
Never mind.  Yes, that was my point:  you need a body for succession to
proceed.

> ... or simply that a legitimate Autarch must be chosen by his
>predecessor.  If the former, it would seem that the Autarchy runs a
>grave risk of being permanently lost, either through the Autarch being
>captured by the enemy, or killed in battle or by assassination with
>the designated successor unable to arrive in time.  

But note that ol' Appian has been captured by the enemy!  It's made
pretty clear that Severian is the "designated successor," but I'm not
certain that there always is one.  Alls ya needs is a corpse, a knife,
and the drug -- all provided by Appian -- and instructions, which
presumably Inire would have provided had A been unable to.  The next-
in-line may be a randomly chosen bystander, if you don't have a
designated successor handy.

(You'll notice that after Appian's injury and capture, Inire can be
seen skulking about.  Severian thinks he's trying to carry out a
rescue.  Fat chance -- Appian's as good as dead.  I believe Inire is
there to ensure the continued dynasty.)

That said, yes, the regime does have some problems.  It also has a
few advantages.  Fr'instance, it's easy to decide whether or not an
individual claiming the Autarchy is the real McCoy.  He knows the
words!

m.driussi at genie.com writes:

>Actually I believe raster's primary concern re: authentic autarchs is
>the same as my own--the brain eating bit.  It seems to define
>"autarch" as distinct from "monarch," "suzerain," "dictator of the
>proletariate," etc.; it also seems to figure into the equation of
>"how one person can represent many" in a concrete way rather than
>just the lip-service paid by representative democracy.  The autarch
>=is= legion--it isn't just a metaphor.

And also provides a slick justification for the royal plural.

>So yes, yes, very rickety.  I imagine Inire stepping out of the
>shadows to help along a situation that requires a deus ex
>machina to deliver a brain-eater--that is, Inire won't allow the
>system to fail; the autarch breaks his neck, a scullary maid becomes
>Autarch.  

Or a honey steward, of course.

mary whalen -- well, okay, prion -- notes:

>Has anyone noticed that the Autarch Appian's name is a homophone for
>apian (bee-like)?  Any connection with the Honey Steward?

Bingo!  Name pun -- Wolfe loves 'em.  Also, of course, another Claudian
reference.

raster at highfiber.com

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

---

From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 1998 11:17:07 +0000

> individual claiming the Autarchy is the real McCoy.  He knows the

I have to admit some confusion on that point.  Wouldn't anyone judging the
Autarch also have to know the words in order to recognize them?  Shouldn't
any such person be able to speak "the words" and pose as the Autarch?

Are they perhaps some sort of hypnotic triggers that people recognize but
are unable to remember?

-Rostrum

---

From: Mark Millman <mark_millman at hmco.com>
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 1998 12:04:38 +0000

On Wednesday 15 July 1998, Rostrum wrote:

> > That said, yes, the regime does have
> > some problems.  It also has a few ad-
> > vantages.  Fr'instance, it's easy to de-
> > cide whether or not an individual claim-
> > ing the Autarchy is the real McCoy.  He
> > knows the words!
>
> I have to admit some confusion on that point.
> Wouldn't anyone judging the Autarch also
> have to know the words in order to recognize
> them?  Shouldn't any such person be able to
> speak "the words" and pose as the Autarch?
>
> Are they perhaps some sort of hypnotic
> triggers that people recognize but are unable
> to remember?
>
> -Rostrum

This seems entirely possible, though if I recall (and you've
all just had a taste of how bad my memory can be) we're
really given no evidence of how the castellan of the Citadel
reacts to Severian's word of command--whether, that is, he
jumps to an implanted compulsion or simply recognizes
the password, as it were (ignoring the possibility you raise,
Rostrum, that he recognizes a word that deliberately has
been made unavailable to his conscious mind, which I'd
call a special case of the latter situation).

However, I don't think this is an insuperable obstacle.  For
one thing, many of the words command mechanical contri-
vances, so all a putative Autarch would have to do, for ex-
ample, would be to open the door behind the throne and
maybe operate a couple of other devices to prove his or
her legitimacy.  Or the words of command for three or four
subordinates could be employed; even if the officers are
consciously aware of their passwords, they may only be
inherited, so to speak, in the line of succession for each
office.  The person who knows several must therefore be
the Autarch.

Or (and to me this seems most likely) Inire, who seems to
be as ubiquitous as flan in Spanish restaurants, could
assert the legitimacy of each successor based either on
his having witnessed the essential act of succession or on
a test of the individual in question.  It seems as though he
must know a great many, if not all, of the words of power;
and one would think him, in this context at least, to be for all
practical purposes incorruptible.

Mark Millman