hello, anyone want to talk BOTNS? If so - Jolenta and her Guild?

Jane Delawney · 30 May 2010, 01:42 · from 2010-May.txt.gz

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From: jane_delawney at sky.com (Jane Delawney)
Date: Sun, 30 May 2010 02:42:33 +0100
Subject: (urth) hello,
	anyone want to talk BOTNS? If so - Jolenta and her Guild?
Message-ID: <4C01C289.1090308 at sky.com>

Hello? Is there anybody out there?

Just about a third of the way through my fifth or sixth rereading of 
BOTNS and wondering if anyone has any insights to offer on a few things 
I never noticed before (there are always things one didn't notice before!).

On this occasion - when Severian meets up with Dr. Talos's Players at 
Ctesiphon's Cross (even tho' he meant to do no such thing!) Jolenta at 
one point remarks to him regarding the Wall of Nessus that she could see 
it as a line of black on the northern horizon 'from the glass-roofed 
room *at the top of our tower*'.

Now I've read a little more I am aware of the interpretation placed upon 
this by Robert Borski who extrapolates that Jolenta, whose original name 
we are never told, was possibly raised amongst the Witches and may 
indeed be Severian's lost twin sister. Whatever the truth of this, it's 
certainly clear that Jolenta has known a life where she dwelt in a tower 
high enough to view the Wall even from the midst of Nessus, and that in 
addition, like Severian himself, she once knew a fellowship close enough 
that even after some time, during which she has either left voluntarily 
or been ejected for some infraction, she (like Severian, again) still 
refers to her former comrades as 'us'; it is 'OUR tower'.

However this does not afford proof that she was ever apprenticed to the 
Witches; whilst the Witches' Guild is the only one we are told of which 
is exclusively female, Severian is careful to tell us that most guilds 
(saving his own, that of the Beast-Masters and that of the Witches) do 
admit both sexes. So even if Jolenta does remember a childhood in a 
Guild Tower within the Citadel (and there's no suggestion that all 
Guilds have their headquarters in this area, whether within ship/Towers 
or not, so she could have been raised in a Tower outside the citadel, or 
even within some entirely different kind of structure which could none 
the less have qualified as a 'tower' and sported a glass roof of a 
different sort) there's no certainty that this was the tower of the 
Witches. She could have been an upholsterers' apprentice perhaps; or an 
apothecaries'.

I wonder if anyone on the list has any views on the subject? Asking, 
because as someone who has read BOTNS several times it was really 
striking to me really to notice this phrase for the first time (I'm sure 
I've read it many times without taking in the possible implications).

Apologies to all if this is a simple beginner's question and merely 
betrays that I haven't been following the fandom for some years - this 
is quite true, and I'm currently trying to catch up.

cheers and thanks

JD

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