Abaia and the undines

Dave Tallman · 11 Dec 2008, 19:20 · from 2008-December.txt.gz

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From: davetallman at msn.com (Dave Tallman)
Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2008 12:20:19 -0700
Subject: (urth) Abaia and the undines
Message-ID: <1bf4dd40812111120p4b14570p41da414329437080 at mail.gmail.com>

David Stockhoff wrote:

> However, in TUotNS, he dives deep down to drowned Nessus with no problem
> because he is an aquastor who cannot be killed. When the gun of the Tower
> fires on him, he is struck, killed, and recovers instantly; there is no
> reason to apply narrow concepts of "living" or "dead" to him now. Juturna
> basically tells him this.
>
>
Consider Sev in his role of Apu-Punchau. He was an aquastor, but he was able
to be killed by his people. He self-resurrected only when the light of the
New Sun reached him. All of Sev's other resurrections on Urth can be
explained as New-Sun-powered miracles, including the gun in the Tower, avern
poisoning, etc.  But the situation in TUotNS is different; he experiences
breathing water like a new type of air. It's not at all like his earlier
ordeals of long submersion, which were like drowning (or actually were
drowning).

I think that Juturna granted him the gift of water-breathing at their
encounter in the throne room. She said saving him from drowning was
something she had not yet done, but would do because he said. Severian
believed that Juturna saved him from drowning in the Gyoll in his youth, but
he was wrong -- the skull he found and placed in the tomb was his own. What
emerged from the Gyoll was his first aquastor.
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