The Tomb of the Unknown Severian

Tony Ellis · 22 Dec 2007, 15:27 · from 2007-December.txt.gz

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From: tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com (Tony Ellis)
Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 15:27:24 +0000
Subject: (urth) The Tomb of the Unknown Severian
Message-ID: <9a33123d0712220727y4bab3c59xb9a5c46b2659dfc0 at mail.gmail.com>

Roy wrote:
>Tony is right about Sev1 walking in time, if that's what you're asking
>(CITADEL, last chapter). But it still seems almost axiomatic to me that Sev1
>did not do whatever was necessary in Yesod to win a new sun. We are told
>that only two other autarchs, Ymar and the Old Autarch, even made the
>attempt before our narrator of URTH, Sev2, went there and succeeded.

...Yet Sev1 had the chutzpah to try, just like Sev2. If they're both
men-in-a-million in that respect, why not in another?

>If Sev1, sans Claw, had succeeded, why would agents of Yesod have gone back
>in time to change anything? Why mess with success? They could only screw it
>up.

I'm not sure I know what you mean by the agents of Yesod going back in
time to change things - isn't that rather what the agents of Abaia do?
But in any case, simply to bring the New Sun isn't a perfect outcome
that can't be improved upon. There could be a thousand possible New
Sun futures, some better than others. If, for example, Sev1 brought
the New Sun but failed to create a future humanity with a high
probability of one day creating the Hierogrammates, that would be an
excellent reason for them to go back and have another roll of the
dice.

>Not to mention the paradoxes. Had Sev1 succeeded, then the white fountain, a
>white hole whose light first reached Urth in Apu's era, would have covered a
>minimum of 99.9% of its journey to the Red Sun by the time our narrator was
>born. There would be no need for Sev2 to do what had already been done.

Ah, but Sev1 doesn't exist in the universe this narrative is set in -
young Severian became Sev2 instead. So his New Sun doesn't exist in
this universe either. There presumably *is* a  white fountain 99.9% of
its way to the Red Sun by the time our narrator is born - but it's
Sev2's white fountain, the one he will later go to fetch.

But all this is by-the-by. The bottom line is this: Sev2 went to
Yesod, passed the test, and as a result acquired the power to travel
time. The Old Autarch went to Yesod, failed the test, and as a result
was sent back to Urth a eunuch. Sev1 went to Yesod, and acquired the
power to travel time. What is a reasonable conclusion to make as to
whether or not he passed the test?

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