The Severian Behind Curtain #3

David Wells · 15 Jun 2008, 17:31 · from 2008-June.txt.gz

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From: adavid_wells at hotmail.com (David Wells)
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2008 17:31:10 +0000
Subject: (urth) The Severian Behind Curtain #3
Message-ID: <BLU111-W32B90228BFAC6060001502EEAE0 at phx.gbl>

What a fascinating discussion. I have never really understood exactly how Juturna's intervention and the Sev1/2/N divergence worked (about a decade ago my wild and unsubstantiated theory that Severian had drowned and unknowingly self-resurrected via the "Claw" was robustly, and rightly, criticised by this forum).

On Sat, 14 Jun 2008 12:09:50 -0500 Adam Thornton adam at io.com wrote:

>I'd like to propose that every character in the entire saga is actually some iteration of Severian.
This, though not meant seriously, is interesting and inventive. It reminds me (warning: off topic) of Richard Feynman's comment in his lecture accepting his Nobel Prize for Physics (see http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1965/feynman-lecture.html) that "I received a telephone call one day at the graduate college at Princeton from Professor Wheeler, in which he said, "Feynman, I know why all electrons have the same charge and the same mass" "Why?" "Because, they are all the same electron!". The idea being that a single electron bounces back and forth from the Big Bang to the Big Crunch, becoming a positron going backwards in time when it "bounces".

Or maybe not.

...but the thing that most puzzles me about Sev1/2/N is that it appears so unclear in what way(s) the interested factions actually benefit or lose out when SevN brings the New Sun. Is this because Wolfe is commenting on the uncertain effects of political machinations (and thus, by implication, that their most important effect is on the egos of the machinators)? Or was it supposed to be clear whether the NS was a happy or unhappy ending (for whomever) and Wolfe didn't really succeed in explaining this? (As Dave Tallman seems to be suggesting)?

newt

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