Is Agia a Robot?

Mo Holkar / UKG · 18 Jun 2010, 16:14 · from 2010-June.txt.gz

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From: lists at ukg.co.uk (Mo Holkar / UKG)
Date: Fri, 18 Jun 2010 17:14:15 +0100
Subject: (urth) Is Agia a Robot?
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At 16:59 18/06/2010, Pedro wrote:
>Ryan Dunn wrote (18-06-2010 16:44):
>>...
>>"Women and tailors hold the blade beneath the hand, according to the
>>proverb, but Agia stabbed up to open the tripes and catch the heart from
>>below, like an accomplished assassin. I turned only just in time to
>>block her blade with the shutter, and the point drove through the wood to
>>show a glint of steel. The very strength of her blow betrayed her."
>>
>>(Severian on Agia in SotL, Chap. 15, He Is Ahead of You!)
>>
>>The strength betrayed what? That she was not a woman?
>
>Not necessarily - 'betrayed' as in the way something you rely on ends up
>being counterproductive. In this case, putting her in a 
>disavatageous position. Well, I supoose that's a possible reading, 
>at least. I don't know, I'm no anglo.


That is my reading -- because her blow was so strong, her knife got 
caught in the wood and so Severian was able to wrench it from her 
grasp. (And I am an anglo :-)

A few paras above this, she says that she and Agilus "were the same 
flesh", which would be a strange expression for a purported robot -- 
even a lying one.

Mo


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