What's So Great About Ushas?

Dave Tallman · 14 Jun 2008, 13:56 · from 2008-June.txt.gz

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From: davetallman at msn.com (Dave Tallman)
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2008 07:56:26 -0600
Subject: (urth) What's So Great About Ushas?
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Andrew wrote:
> This sets up the divergence between Sev1 and Sev2 - as Sev (ie, 
> Sev2) says, the graveyard scene is what sets everything else in 
> motion, which is the reason why he starts his narrative with it.
>   
I prefer to call him "SevN" instead of Sev2. It is clear that his life 
was rewritten multiple times. I think Wolfe tries to avoid time 
paradoxes. He usually thinks through the way that something could have 
happened without a time-loop, and then applies knowledge from that pass 
to modify the next one. For example, he had Sev construct arches so that 
he could be found and helped in the far past, rather than rely on a 
paradoxical time-loop where he is only found because of his interaction 
with Apu-Punchau.

> Wihout it, I believe, Sev1 leaves the Guild with Triskele, in 
> effect acting out Sev2's musing about a Triskele heading north to 
> the wars with a new master. 
>
> SilkHorn's meeting with Sev at the end of SS puts things back on a 
> Sev1-track. No Sev2, no New Sun, no Juturna going back to interfere
I found your theory in the archives recently, and I like it. It makes 
sense that Wolfe would have planted clues to what Sev's life would have 
been like without any interference. I don't think that the LS/SS novels 
were conceived that far in advance, though. I think Wolfe took the 
opportunity of the new series to repair an old ending which no longer 
satisfied him. As the whole set of books is now, it strengthens your 
case that the NS ending was an unhappy one.

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