Piteous Gate- one last rehash

mournings glory · 15 May 2006, 05:15 · from 2006-May.txt.gz

This is the message as the crawl holds it, before anything here touched it. What the conversation shows has been through ingest: transfer encodings decoded, attachments dropped, quote markers repaired, and the archiver’s ? resolved into quotation marks and dashes. Those repairs are judgements and some of them are wrong, which is what this page is for. Email addresses are obscured here as they are everywhere else on the site, so it is before our repairs rather than byte for byte.

From: mourningsglory at hotmail.com (mournings glory)
Date: Mon, 15 May 2006 05:15:12 +0000
Subject: (urth) Piteous Gate- one last rehash
In-Reply-To: <BAY103-F1026AA391B244DF2CCAC43D7A30 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <BAY107-F22BE5CF1D29074604E4CF8D8A30 at phx.gbl>


>From: "b sharp" <bsharporflat at hotmail.com>
>
>In the vaults of this archinve there has been a fair amount of discussion
>centered on the disturbance at the Piteous Gate that ends Shadow.  I had
>always felt it was something mysterious and worth knowing, as did some
>others.

Agreed, and perhaps exactly what is meant when Severian writes about 
"certain dramatic pauses which shall signal to you that something of import 
is about to occur."

>I found a passage which convinces me otherwise.  When Severian first talks
>to Agia in Casdoe's cottage in Sword, they have this exchange:
>
>S- "You've been trying to kill me ever since I glimpsed you in the crowd at
>Saltus"
>A- " Is that an accusation?  Yes."
>S- "You're lying."
>A- "What do you mean?"
>S- "Only that you were trying to kill me before Saltus"
>A- "With the avern. Yes, of course"
>S- "And afterward. Agia, I know who Hethor is"
>
>I think this is author misdirection because on first reading I know I was
>then more interested in Severian's extended insight about Hethor.  But the
>first part of that sentence says that Agia (with Hethor's help implied)
>tried to kill Severian somewhere in the time between the avern duel and
>Saltus Fair, which she doesn't deny.
>
>I find no plausible setting for this attempt except the disturbance at the
>Piteous Gate.  So  Severian, in retrospect, has deduced that the cause of
>the disturbance, the appearance of some undescribed creature, was an 
>attempt
>on his life by Agia and Hethor.   Is there another possible interpretation?

I believe Mr. Lackey has postulated similarly, and while I think it's as 
credible as any other theory, I'm not sure your particular quote bolsters it 
in any fashion. You're assuming, I believe, that "afterward" comes 
relatively soon after the avern episode, whereas I believe it's referring to 
"after" the Saltus fair, when Severian and Jonas are attacked by Hethor's 
notules.

em

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