Sev's common lineage

b sharp · 30 Jun 2008, 03:23 · from 2008-June.txt.gz

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From: bsharporflat at hotmail.com (b sharp)
Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2008 23:23:42 -0400
Subject: (urth) Sev's common lineage
Message-ID: <BAY103-W13C6154264D878DC7912ABD79F0 at phx.gbl>

Regarding Dave Tallman's Catherine scenario, I just have a gut feeling that if there is an 
exultant cell donor for the Catherine maids, Wolfe wouldn't be so unfair as to not toss her 
name out somewhere. Haven't found it and haven't had as much time to read and ponder 
this as I'd like. I hope to soon. Having Sev do the  healing of the beheading seems more 
plausible than Catherine (or is it Carina? or Lybe?).

Roy writes:
>Nessus was already two days drowned when Sev saw the woman, and the House
>Absolute was shortly to be inundated, so where was she being taken, and how?

My impression is that the woman Sev sees from the loggia is not from the future but rather
being taken back to the past where she belongs. I think this because the woman in the pale
gown in the coffin appears in the first chapter of the first book of the series and the woman
Sev sees from the loggia appears in UotNS, an afterthought book by Wolfe to help explain 
the first four.  I don't get the sense from the first 4 books that Catherine (or the coffin woman)
is from the future, quite the opposite. I think Wolfe put the woman in UotNS on the Path of Air
mostly to connect her to the Play and Countess Carina, (whom Dave, through her maids, has
neatly connected to Catherine, even without the physical resemblance).

So anyway, if she is from the past, and weeping now, I think she is being brought back to face
her necessary destiny, to be tortured to death in Allowin's Necklace. If forced to speculate on 
her crime I think it might be the same as her sister, Cyriaca's.

In my view, we are  sort of told that Ultan's Library, which is at basement level,  extends 
from the Citadel to the House Absolute (in hyperspace or something?).  Rudesind's art gallery
at ground level, has a similar connection. I see the Path of Air as a similar portal but with a 
terminus at the top of a Citadel tower (probably Valeria's).  I'm sure Roy would argue that 
the flood would have covered even the tallest Citadel tower but I'm happy enough with this
interpretation that I'm willing to consider a Wolfean goof there, or some sort of waterproofing
by Father Inire.  

Dave Tallman, I too have thought the morning glory comment was a clue. Didn't know moonflowers
were a kind of morning glory! And I still think maybe Valeria is daughter (perhaps clone) to Catherine.

Responses to Roy:
Obviously Thais isn't in her 70's so if she is Thea's kaibit, she, like the loggia woman, had access to 
the Path of Air or some other time portal.  I'm not sure why else a girl in her 20's on flood day would
have any reason to give Severian knowing glances.

The "self-portrait gambit" (hah!) is not so loony...if we see an artist in a painting and there are brushes
present it could be a self-portrait. A quick Google produces numerous examples of artists who some very 
famous like Chagall and Munch and one not quite so famous self-portrait with a brush by Russian artist
Nicolai Fechin. Coincidence? (triple hah!) You be the judge.

Marc Aramini- Roy's nuts and bolts interpretations and insistance that real-world logic should be obeyed
might leave gaps in understanding.  Surely Eschatology And Genesis is best interpreted as symbolic art
within art rather than as a mechanical reality. Still without Roy, theories can (and do despite him) spiral 
out of control.  I think his input is especially apt for a story written by an engineer.

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