The Tomb of the Unknown Severian

stoneox17 at aol.com · 19 Dec 2007, 05:17 · from 2007-December.txt.gz

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From: stoneox17 at aol.com (stoneox17 at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 00:17:57 -0500
Subject: (urth) The Tomb of the Unknown Severian
In-Reply-To: <000e01c841fb$bcdc2580$63cb5a42 at rclackey.stic.net>
References: <000e01c841fb$bcdc2580$63cb5a42 at rclackey.stic.net>
Message-ID: <8CA1015A679202C-ADC-1D7 at webmail-md20.sysops.aol.com>

Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net> wrote

>Joel Sieh wrote:
>>It could also be a tomb fashioned by the "original" Severian, the
>>Severian who failed the test in UotNS, went back in time, and modified
>>events (e.g. sending Juturna to rescue his boyhood self after falling
>>in the river IIRC) so that he would later succeed at the test instead
>>of failing.  Sev goes on a bit about this at the end of UotNS.

>I don't care about the mausoleum stuff, but the Juturna part intrigues 
me.
>The problem with the above is that it was Sev2 (our narrator Severian) 
who
>spoke with Juturna in the throne room near the end of Book V about the
>boyhood near-drowning incident. Near the end of Book IV is where Sev2 
spoke
>of Sev1 (the "first Severian"). There, Sev2 said that Sev1 hadn't 
drowned
>either, because someone was already messing around in his (their) life 
by
>that point. So, when Sev2 spoke to Juturna about her having saved his 
life
>when he was a boy (though she had not yet saved him in her own backward
>personal timeline, but never mind), he was referring to the incident 
at the
>beginning of Book I when he shot out of the river propelled by her 
hand,
>obviously. Yet, if Sev1 didn't drown either -- and he obviously didn't,
>since he went on to become autarch -- who saved *him*? You can't say 
that
>time-walking Sev1 saved himself as a boy -- he wouldn't have been 
alive to
>become a time walker. Care to speculate?

The green man is wandering through the corridors of time looking for a
situation where Sev is captive so that he can free him. He seems to save
him from Hethor's monster in the Antechamber, although he doesn't free
him then -- Thecla does that.  Could the green man have freed Sev1 here?

-Peter S.




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