Ouen's Catherine

Jeff Wilson · 14 Oct 2006, 22:24 · from 2006-October.txt.gz

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From: jwilson at io.com (Jeff Wilson)
Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2006 17:24:33 -0500
Subject: (urth) Ouen's Catherine
In-Reply-To: <20061014124851.29431DA81F at mailserver7.hushmail.com>
References: <20061014124851.29431DA81F at mailserver7.hushmail.com>
Message-ID: <453163A1.6000400 at io.com>

thalassocrat at nym.hush.com wrote:
> 
> On Sat, 14 Oct 2006 10:59:32 +1000 "Roy C. Lackey" 
> <rclackey at stic.net> wrote:
> 
> 
>> What "dark woman" did Severian have in mind, and what did he know, 
> 
>> or
>> suspect, about her and this look-alike waiter? I can only conclude 
> 
>> that he
>> came to this conversation with a prior notion about a certain dark 
> 
>> woman and
>> her relationship to himself. 
> 
> I took this to be just a simple deduction by Sev: He realizes first 
> that Ouen must be his father, then since Ouen is fair & he (Sev) is 
> dark, Sev's mother must have been dark also (is that valid 
> genetics?).

It is, at least among historical humanity. Dark hair is dominant over 
light, with red incompletely recessive to dark and incompletely dominant 
over light. Of course observed expression is subject to length and 
summer bleaching, though in the time of Urth, you'd need much greater 
exposure to sun for the latter; sailors and fishermen on the water for 
most of each day might qualify, as might people working near 
still-functional lightning-powered machinery, or in well-lit galleries 
of paintings, or making frequent flyer trips above the clouds and ground 
clutter.

You'll need to track eye color as well as well, dark eyes are likewise 
dominant over light, with exotics like violet and hazel similar in role 
to red.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
< http://www.io.com/~jwilson >

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