Is Agia a robot?

brunians at brunians.org · 20 Jun 2010, 21:16 · from 2010-June.txt.gz

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From: brunians at brunians.org (brunians at brunians.org)
Date: Sun, 20 Jun 2010 17:16:41 -0400
Subject: (urth) Is Agia a robot?
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What color are Dorcas' eyes?

.



> From: "brunians at brunians.org" <brunians at brunians.org>
>
>> Who has purple eyes in the story?
>
> I won't answer that because I'm afraid to get into a game with ancient,
> inviolable rules that I don't know.  But if I were to answer it, I'd say
> Thecla and presumably her khaibit.
>
>>Does any girl in the story have notably small or delicate hands?
>
> Here I'd mention Thecla's khaibit.  I'd also say that Thecla has
> "impossibly narrow" hands, which I picture as long and thin, like her
> body.  You may or may not picture them that way, and however you picture
> them may or may not be what you mean by "small or delicate".
>
> From: Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com>
>
> ...
>
>> Here's a video of a pitcher getting beaned. Right after the crack of the
>> bat, there's a *tok* of the ball-skull
>> collision. IMO the bat's crack is sharper than the skull's *tok* , which
>> is still sharper than the *thump* of meaty
>> limbs being struck on the floor which doubtless we are all familiar
>> with. The ball hits faster than Agia's head
>> would have hit the wall, but the stone wall would be much more rigid
>> than a baseball.
>>
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auss-QFCor4&feature=PlayList&p=4C9AAD000C45EE30&
>> playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=18
>>
>> http://preview.tinyurl.com/2dy5gd2
>
> That's worse than reading about Allowin's Necklace.
>
> However, "sharp" is not the word I'd use to distinguish those two sounds.
> Maybe just me.
>
> I live in a fairly rural area, I suppose I could round up a cattle skull,
> put a wig on it, and record it smacking it into stone surface.
>
>> Second, she may have something to hide, vs having modesty, although
>> modesty could just as well be "programmed." For all I know, she has a
>> penis.
>
> This is modesty *after* she has been seen completely naked. And why would
> anyone program a sexbot to cast runic curses?
>
>> Third, you are exactly right about Agia's character. Severian is a
>> torturer; I propose that Agia is an assassin; Brunians proposes that she
>> is a whore. His theory works better in some ways than mine.
>
> I do not see that Agia is an assassin, her murders do not appear to serve
> anyone's purposes outside hers and her brothers.
>
>> Fourth, the aureole is not of hair, but that's an interesting
>> observation. More importantly, it covers the pair, not Agia. The two
>> together are more than either of them individually.
>
> Rereading about their "aureate faces" and "a narrow beam of sunlight that
> had given his head, and Agia's, an aureole a few moments before", it could
> be the dust and fibers from the straw on the floor, the way mist makes an
> aureole around the moon's sunlit face.
>
> http://www.lpod.org/?p=702
>
> or since "aureate" can also eman decorated with gold, there might be no
> actual fringe of light, but instead this would be another reference to
> their skin tone, which Sev has already likened to gold where the sun
> glints from Agia's skin through a rent in her ragged gown.
>
> I'm not saying this doesn't count as a subtextual halo, of course.
>
>> And if she's supposed to be a fully functional android, it would
>> hardly do for her to go around boasting of her strength and her
>> nuclear power cell.
>
> That's not the same as a sexbot - "sleeping" immobile in a box is a strong
> advertisement that you are not really a person.
>
>
>
> -- Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
> IEEE Student Chapter Blog at
> < http://ieeetamut.org >
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