Abaia and the undines

Jeff Wilson · 09 Dec 2008, 05:13 · from 2008-December.txt.gz

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From: jwilson at io.com (Jeff Wilson)
Date: Mon, 08 Dec 2008 23:13:15 -0600
Subject: (urth) Abaia and the undines
In-Reply-To: <e11bddb60812081411t62c0b8c6h2f1f66f68ffe234d at mail.gmail.com>
References: <mailman.1.1228514982.31733.urth-urth.net at lists.urth.net>	<4939B55F.8020801 at verizon.net>
	<e11bddb60812081411t62c0b8c6h2f1f66f68ffe234d at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <493DFE6B.6040800 at io.com>

Thomas Bitterman wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 6:12 PM, David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net 
> <mailto:dstockhoff at verizon.net>> wrote:
> 
>     I don't recall reading anything about the origin of Abaia and the
>     undines. Does anyone "know" or care to guess?

Abaia could be an enormous, ageless leviathan grown from some earlier 
epoch's premiere thaumaturgist, like Baldanders begins to be during 
Severian's reign, or it could be something else but still seems to 
include gigantified beings descended of human stock among its "undine" 
henchmen.

My pet theory is that Ouen's side of the family has undines in the 
driftwoodpile; this explains several mysteries of the book: Dorcas' 
awakening when buried underwater, where Severian's sister is (she's 
Jolenta), Severian's unfailing ability to survive water when his other 
powers are hit and miss, the ambiguous agression of the undines against 
the New Sun (they want to turn Severian instead of "wasting" an 
irreplaceable double agent, they "save" him from Gyoll instead of 
letting him stay tangled long enough to make it obvious he's an 
undine-bred), and so forth.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
< http://www.io.com/~jwilson >

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