More on Juturna

Roy C. Lackey · 29 Apr 2006, 06:17 · from 2006-April.txt.gz

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From: rclackey at stic.net (Roy C. Lackey)
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 01:17:14 -0500
Subject: (urth) More on Juturna
Message-ID: <001601c66b54$91c883e0$643ec6d8 at rclackey.stic.net>

Aquastor wrote:
> Don't know if anyone's mentioned this yet...but do Juturna & Co.
> necessarily have to possess the power to see the future themselves? What
> I mean is, couldn't someone or something else (cacogens, Abaia, etc.)
> have just *told* various Undines pieces of the future? Why do we need to
> assume the undines have that ability themselves?

Jeff answered your question, so, just because those flood waters had to have
been muddy anyway, I should point out that Juturna is inconsistent. That is,
though her stint as lifeguard in Severian's past was in her future that day
in the throne room, when he next met her *after* the flood, when she was
eating fish in the Citadel, he remarked, "You lived", referring to her
having survived the throne room scene. She answered, "You did not." (URTH,
341) She meant, of course, that he had managed to get himself killed (yet
again!) on that day, whether it was by the knife blade, the poison on it, or
drowning.

My point here is that that day in the throne room was in the past for both
of them.

-Roy

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