Severian I, Severian II, Severian III, Severian Ad Nauseum

John Watkins · 03 Dec 2008, 18:42 · from 2008-December.txt.gz

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From: john.watkins04 at gmail.com (John Watkins)
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2008 13:42:04 -0500
Subject: (urth) Severian I, Severian II, Severian III,
	Severian Ad Nauseum
In-Reply-To: <W235932397464481228326854@webmail1>
References: <W235932397464481228326854@webmail1>
Message-ID: <93d4039f0812031042l3d3fc111sc0671d37bac628ff at mail.gmail.com>

On 12/3/08, Son of Witz <sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org> wrote:
> from the perspective of the 4 books proper, there is only really one Severian body, though that is confused by the tomb.  This is why there is the explosion when he meets Apu Punchau.  The Two bodies can't be in the same time because they are one, ala Inire's law of mirrors (so to speak).
>
> Book V, as a Sequel, convolutes the hell out of that simplicity.  By most readings, we now have to modify Apu Punchau to be this Aquastor Tzadkiel made.  Now, if Tzadkiel made him a new body and discarded the old (which I've argued is not necessarily in the text) he does not really run the risk of self cancellation when he meets Apu Punchau in the stone town. Right?  If it's a new body, it's NOT subject to that time paradox, I don't think.  They're not two instances of the same body, unless I'm right that Tzadkiel just fixed his body and resurrected him into the same one.
> (that argument here:  http://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/2008-December/010873.html)
> So, the self cancellation scene becomes dodgy in light of the sequel, unless we realize that what Tzadkiel did is NOT necessarily a new body separate from the Author of BoTNS.
>

I don't think the bodies are the problem with Apu Punchau.  It's the forms.

The Hieros explain that at the end of Urth, I think, with the bit
about writing the same lines too close together.

There's a lot of this Aristotelian/Scholastic philosophy dusted about
in the Sun books--think also of Severian's definition of
larvae--"masked spirits."  Hardly what a modern who's taken a semester
of biology thinks, but absolutely accurate in Aristotelian
metaphysics.


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