Is Agia a Robot?

David Stockhoff · 18 Jun 2010, 16:30 · from 2010-June.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Fri, 18 Jun 2010 12:30:42 -0400
Subject: (urth) Is Agia a Robot?
In-Reply-To: <36006D71-A703-4BE6-AB12-C541923ADD88 at liftingfaces.com>
References: <AANLkTik8q4okRfHDUjNPoRh68A6eWmfNwUq7cf5HfOQd at mail.gmail.com>	<c04b2f980ef1e79f2e8882a1572cac65.squirrel at brunians.org>	<AANLkTin7JGoBQj11fEpFR059H0C66bZNjEmMLEqZPnC4 at mail.gmail.com>	<4C1B32C6.5030907 at io.com>	<a2a9234fa189632637dbf500b34ecc88.squirrel at brunians.org>	<4C1B7A59.1090406 at verizon.net>	<f33ba678b6152753adbcf652dbeb9483.squirrel at brunians.org>	<FEFD6649-58AB-45D7-ADF1-BBCDC5AF4892 at liftingfaces.com>	<4C1B8EE9.6090706 at verizon.net>
	<36006D71-A703-4BE6-AB12-C541923ADD88 at liftingfaces.com>
Message-ID: <4C1B9F32.6060406 at verizon.net>

Below...

Ryan Dunn wrote:
> More evidence to ponder, and arguments to make for both sides of the argument of whather Agia was brought from the Quasar where she waited in a Lemonwood box without sleeping. Does she ever sleep in Severian's recount?
>
> .
>
> "I thought you had only promised yourself to him, if he would kill me."
>
> "I have promised him that and many other things, and so mastered him. He is ahead of you, Severian, waiting word from me."
>
> "With more of his beasts? Thank you for the warning. That was it, wasn't it? He had threatened you and Agilus with the pets he had brought from other spheres."
>
> She nodded. "He came to sell his clothes, and they were the kind worn on the old ships that sailed beyond the world's rim long ago, and they weren't costumes or forgeries or even tomb-tender old garments that had lain for centuries in the dark, but clothes not far from new. He said his ships?all those ships?became lost in the blackness between the suns, where the years do not turn. Lost so that even Time cannot find them."
>
> "I know," I said. "Jonas told me."
>
> "After I learned that you would kill Agilus, I went to him. He is iron- strong in some ways, weak in many others. If I had withheld my body I could have done nothing with him, but I did all the queer things he wished me to, and made him believe I love him. Now he will do anything I ask. He followed you for me after you killed Agilus; with his silver I hired the men you killed at the old mine, and the creatures he commands will kill you for me yet, if I don't do it here myself."
>
> (Agia and Severian on Hethor in SotL, Chap. 15, He Is Ahead of You!)
>
>   
Agia is not necessarily lying. Hethor may have used a pretext to pursue 
her; she may have opened the shop to catch him, since sailors probably 
frequent pawns hops and such.

> .
>
> But she is abnormally strong, as Severan observes here...
>
> .
>
> "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? The paragraph opens explaining how "women" hold a blade. At first you assume Agia's assassin hold just makes her not a proverbial "woman". But then when he says her strength betrayed here, you're all like HUH?
>
> ...ryan
>
>   
In Wolfe-speak, this means "Agia is a man." Or at least, "Agia is not a 
woman."

Which? Agilus or sexbot?

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