Sev's silence about Catherine

Dave Tallman · 24 Jun 2008, 21:28 · from 2008-June.txt.gz

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From: davetallman at msn.com (Dave Tallman)
Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2008 15:28:01 -0600
Subject: (urth) Sev's silence about Catherine
Message-ID: <1bf4dd40806241428p3cbb54b5n10fe4bd0c4923a03 at mail.gmail.com>

aaron wrote:

> This is a bit off subject, I know, but it does pertain to Katherine, at
> least the one at Severian's raising ceremony.  It has always seemed to me,
> even the first time I read Shadow, that Severian was deceived into thinking
> that his beheading of Katherine was illusion using a wax head, stage blood,
> fuligin cloth, and a clever device of some sort.  If you read the passage
> (sorry, I am not close to my books just now) in TSotT I am speaking of, you
> will notice that Sev goes out of his way to point out that the head is wax
> and that there is a clever mechanism used to make it all appear real.  What
> strikes me as strange is that Severian has, from his own admission, helped
> to prepare the wheel and other props (one can assume) when he was a
> apprentice, but seems unable to explain how they work (besides the wheel)
> when he is raised.  There is also a short description of his sword meeting
> resistance when it comes into contact with Katherine's neck.  Perhaps there
> are other clues, but as I said, I am going from memory here, so...   Any
> thoughts?
>
>
I think this could be one of the guild's secrets. They tell the young
apprentices that it will all be faked, but at the last minute the initiate
is told to carry it out for real. The big clue about the blade meeting
resistance is that Sev didn't direct the blade to the side, as his previous
explanation said he would. In Sword XXXI, he explains how "torturers obey"
and he says "How could I refuse the Increate what I had willingly given the
Autarch when I struck off Katharine's head?"  (Not just pretended to -- his
argument only has force if he actually did something terrible at the moment
of his initiation).

I think it was faked with a wax head up until the time that Catherine came
along. Sev probably inherited his amazing self-healing abilities from her.
Suppose the guild tried to put her to death in one of the usual ways and she
instantly recovered?  They would have to cover this up to avoid the disgrace
of failing to carry out the execution. They might decide to make the best of
it by using her in the elevation ceremony every year, to give the initiates
a powerful and miraculous inspiration. Sev is betraying one of the secrets
of the guild by giving enough information to guess the truth.
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