Sev as the avatar of Abaia

thalassocrat at nym.hush.com · 06 Apr 2006, 02:03 · from 2006-April.txt.gz

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From: thalassocrat at nym.hush.com (thalassocrat at nym.hush.com)
Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 12:03:42 +1000
Subject: (urth) Sev as the avatar of Abaia
Message-ID: <20060406020343.358D7DA838 at mailserver6.hushmail.com>



On Thu, 06 Apr 2006 01:52:17 +1000 Dan'l Danehy-Oakes 
<danldo at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Is it possible that we have here the real reason for SilkHorn 
>and
>> Sev meeting in Long Sun? Perhaps the meeting spawns a new,
>> fundamentally changed iteration of the Sev time-line. Most 
>people
>> change after meeting SilkHorn; is it unlikely that Sev does 
>also?
>
>I think you've hit on something big here. We are explicitly shown
>that by his manifestations, the Narrator can not only change a
>person, but even change that person's _past_. It is entirely
>possible that a "better" Severian than the one we know from
>tBotNS will come from this encounter.
>
>Contrariwise, it is also possible that this meeting was why
>Severian became the person we know from tBotNS, why he
>was able to be the Epitome that could bring the New Sun. I
>see no explicit reason in the text to prefer either 
>interpretation.

That is the other main possibility, of course. But I think that if 
there's some reasonably concrete evidence that Sev's story has 
changed at all because of the meetings with SilkHorn (ie Merryn, 
Triskele), then it launches you down a slippery slope of thinking 
about whether the story has now changed in a *big* way. 

>> ignore: Merryn. When Sev meets her & the Cumaean in Stone Town,
>> they don't recognize each other. But in Long Sun, Sev fetches
>> Merryn to meet with Jahlee; after that, at any rate, they *must*
>> know each other. Something has definitely changed.
>
>Not clear. Granted Severian's trick memory, some years pass
>between this and the Stone Town. How much has Merryn changed
>in that time? And we've seen that, while Sev doesn't "forget" 
>(except
>when he does), things can slip his mind. For him not to recognize
>someone he hasn't seen in several years (during which time both
>have grown from preadolescence to adulthood) doesn't seem too
>improbable.

I don't buy that. As Roy points out, the time between the two 
meetings would have to be quite short, and in Long Sun they meet 
under very unusual circumstances, which would surely tend to 
reinforce the memory, if that were needed. 

>> BTW, I find it easy to discount Sev's statement in Long Sun that 

>he
>> won't write about SilkHorn, because nobody would believe him. 
>Such
>> a jarringly inept piece of story-stitching, taken at face value;
>> much easier to believe it's a sly, backhand Wolfean clue.
>
>There's clearly _something_ going on there, since Sev at this time
>would have no reason to believe that he would ever have cause to
>write an autobiography. He expects to be an ordinary, pretty much
>anonymous, member of his Order.

Actually, i think that part's covered - remember that SilkHorn has 
spent a long time talking to him about writing, and Sev says that 
he will write down his story when he has something to say (or 
something like that).

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