Severian's family tree

Rex Lycanthrosaurus · 25 Aug 2006, 18:08 · from 2006-August.txt.gz

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From: lycanthrosaurus at fastmail.fm (Rex Lycanthrosaurus)
Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2006 13:08:09 -0500
Subject: (urth) Severian's family tree
In-Reply-To: <1f7617370608250938y753934dame0703e641eb95bc4 at mail.gmail.com>
References: <001a01c6c7ff$828ceee0$533ec6d8 at rclackey.stic.net>
	<1f7617370608250938y753934dame0703e641eb95bc4 at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1156529289.773.269429114 at webmail.messagingengine.com>


On Fri, 25 Aug 2006 09:38:09 -0700, "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes"
<danldo at gmail.com> said:
> >
> > >Why do people keep referring to Severian's immediate predecessor
> > >as Appian? Is there some reference I've missed? I thought Appian was
> > >rather further back in the history of the Commonwealth, and that  Sev's
> > >predecessor was (deliberately?) left unnamed.
> >
> > Appian isn't mentioned by name in NEW SUN. The name is used in the related
> > short story "The Cat", in ENDANGERED SPECIES. (p.-215, paperback)
> 
> That story establishes, if I'm not mistaken, the following:
> 
> 1. Odilo the Steward tells the story in the fifth year of Severian's
> reign.
> 2. Odilo is not a young man (he has known Inire for "many years").
> 3. Odilo's father Odilo served the Autarch Appian.
> 
> This implies to me that Appian reigned sometime within the past
> sixty or seventy years. He thus _might_ have been Severian's
> immediate predecessor, but against this I set Severian's mentions
> of Appian in _New Sun_ proper; Severian never says anything that
> can absolutely date Appian, but he speaks of him as in the past
> tense, as one speaks of an honored monarch of the past.

The old autarch was honey steward before his elevation to the Phoenix
Throne. ("Paeon, who trained me, who was honey-steward fifty years gone
by.")

The Latin word for bee is "apis."

The dots seem connectable.

And while ostensibly a similar case could be made for at least one other
saintly exemplar (Melito), when Severian, after being rescued on the
battlefield of Orithyia by the mammoth-riding androgyne, sees "a man
with the horns and muzzled face of a bull," this may be (as Borski
notes) an attempt by Wolfe to further link the old autarch with the
Egyptian ox-god, Apis. 


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  Rex Lycanthrosaurus
  lycanthrosaurus at fastmail.fm

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