Black hole timing, "punishment" etc

Dave Tallman · 11 Jun 2008, 18:19 · from 2008-June.txt.gz

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From: davetallman at msn.com (Dave Tallman)
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 12:19:38 -0600
Subject: (urth)  Black hole timing, "punishment" etc
Message-ID: <1bf4dd40806111119y51efb79ew392d9923ec187fa3 at mail.gmail.com>

>
> Sorry, that doesn;t work. You can't just point to descriptions of
> bright sunshine, or things shining in the sun; these occur in Sev's
> time as well.
>
>
All right, how about this explanation? The old man in Casdoe's house
(Sword  XV)  says "That was the brightest day I've ever seen. The sun had
new life to him, the way a man will when he was sick yesterday and will be
sick tomorrow, but today he walks around and laughs so that if a stranger
was to come he'd think there was nothing wrong... They always say in prayers
that the New Sun will be too bright to look at... But that day I learned it
was all true..."

If the sun's output was variable within the old man's lifetime, it might
also have been in Severian's. Then Sev might not find it remarkable to see a
bright day at times. Most of the days he spent as Conciliator were cloudy,
anyway.

By the way, have you noticed how the life of Ymar the Almost Just parallels
the life of Severian? He's an apprentice torturer who becomes autarch, and
his career is jump-started by miraculous intervention. He underwent the
trial, too. Could early interventions by the Hiero-dudes in Reechy's life
have formed the basis for a Conciliator-like legend before Sev became
Conciliator?

It's vital for Sev's history that the guild start taking the children of
women who fall into their hands instead of having their own children (Shadow
II). And Ymar apparently did this because of his own personal experience in
seeing how Madame Prefect Prisca behaved. If someone else became autarch it
might not have happened. This is just one of many self-fulfilling time loops
in UotNS. Another fun one is Juturna's saving Sev from drowning "because you
spoke" (Urth XLIII).
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