Sev's common lineage

Roy C. Lackey · 01 Jul 2008, 20:36 · from 2008-July.txt.gz

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From: rclackey at stic.net (Roy C. Lackey)
Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2008 15:36:08 -0500
Subject: (urth) Sev's common lineage
Message-ID: <002501c8dbba$1adc3be0$65d24a0c at rclackey.stic.net>

b sharp wrote:
>Roy, I not sure I understand the point of your previous post. Are you
saying you see no
>connection between Severian's loggia scene and the Contessa's story in the
play? If so
>that almost defies belief.  I would think even the most tunnel-visioned
skeptic could see
>the similarities between those scenes.

Of course they are similar, but that's not the point. I find it ironic that
you accept many of Dave's undemonstrated (and textually undemonstrable)
conclusions derived from projecting onto Severian's mother particular
"facts" about the play's Countess, while at the same time disagreeing with
him about those "facts", such as her exultant status and birth some thirty
years after Sev became autarch. You can't have it both ways; either he's
right or he's not.

Dave takes the mention of the names of two people who are not even in the
Play and extrapolates a whole series of obliging khaibits, seventeen years
for Sev's mother in the nut-case lower level of the Matachin tower, her
execution and burial a year and a half before Sev's elevation (accomplished,
apparently, without his knowledge), all of this orchestrated by unseen
Hierogrammate agents and with the necessary complicity of the Guild and,
presumably, the autarch they serve. He also requires an extra-textual trip
in time to augment the Conciliator's speech for Canog's edification. It's
just too great a leap and too much for me to swallow on faith.

>Regarding this statement:
>>Are there any characters in the Urth Cycle who *don't* have access to one
of
>>these increasingly ubiquitous and textually elusive time machines? Why on
>>Urth would anyone have had any reason to preserve one of the Old Autarch's
>>old whores by spiriting her away in time somewhere, so she can pop up on
>>Ushas fifty years later?
>
>I don't find them elusive and I think time "portal" is a more apt
>description than "machine".

Never mind the time machines and teleporters. Why would Thea's khaibit be on
that raft and a man with an eidetic memory not recognize her?

-Roy

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