Sev's Silence about Catherine

Roy C. Lackey · 25 Jun 2008, 22:23 · from 2008-June.txt.gz

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From: rclackey at stic.net (Roy C. Lackey)
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2008 17:23:49 -0500
Subject: (urth) Sev's Silence about Catherine
Message-ID: <000a01c8d712$271c2c00$21d24a0c at rclackey.stic.net>

bsharp wrote:
>>Valeria lives in a tower off the Atrium of Time and it is clearly a time
portal like Master Ash's Last House. Severian can't find the tower when
flying around the citadel because the top of the tower exists in the future.
But Valeria and her family (conspicuously absent; all we see is her maid)
live in the lower levels of the tower, thus they live in Severian's past.
Catherine's name is notable described as "old fashioned" and the same is
said about Valeria's clothes and could be said about her name. It is far
simpler and more explanatory to think that Catherine is mother to Valeria.<<

So, for Severian's entire life up to he time he left for Yesod, his mama,
Catherine, was living in the cellar of one of the towers occupied by
Valeria's family, where Valeria had seen her daily? And Sev didn't know it?
Valeria never mentioned her parents in the ten years they lived together?
Their daughter married the autarch and he never even met them?

If he did meet them, who did he see? Catherine? If he saw her, then she
cannot have been the woman he didn't recognize on the Path of Air, or the
maid who played the role of Holy Katharine, khaibit or original. He could
not have seen Ouen in Valeria's towers, because Ouen was waiting tables in a
tree leagues away. If Ouen and Catherine are Valeria's parents, then she is
presumably Sev's full sister, if not his hypothetical twin sister. If Ouen
is not her father, then the most Valeria can be is his half-sister. If she
is his half-sister, then there is another branch on Sev's family tree
unaccounted for in the text, because Valeria's second husband cannot be in
the cellar, even if she were willing to grow up and marry her father after
Sev went to Yesod.

Was Valeria lying or mistaken when she said she had no brothers or sisters?
Possible. It is also possible that Valeria's "family" doesn't mean her
father and mother; it may mean other relatives. It is easiest to believe
that Catherine is not Valeria's mother.

-Roy

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