Is Agia a Robot?

John Watkins · 21 Jun 2010, 05:00 · from 2010-June.txt.gz

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From: john.watkins04 at gmail.com (John Watkins)
Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2010 01:00:19 -0400
Subject: (urth) Is Agia a Robot?
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Moreover.  Gene Wolfe (married to Rosemary) wrote The Toy Theatre and used
marionettes as a central image in New Sun.

Did he never think of the pun "Rose-Marionette"?
On Mon, Jun 21, 2010 at 12:43 AM, John Watkins <john.watkins04 at gmail.com>wrote:

> If only Gene Wolfe had written another text, possibly a short story,
> exploring the idea of puppets in boxes.  Then maybe someone wiser than I
> could draw wisdom from that text and apply it to the problem of the
> paracoita, which is beyond me.
>
> I will make a few observations that, while not wise, may spur others to
> wisdom.
>
> 1)  It seems that delicate and/or doll-like characteristics are attributed
> to several women in the story, but that Hethor meant one particular
> paracoita--we may just be dealing with a motif, rather than a puzzle with a
> definite character as the solution, and there may be red herrings...like a
> sickening crack of bone on stone being described as as sharp as a metallic
> clang.  Or not.
>
> 2)  Severian dreams of marionettes that seemingly represent him and
> Baldanders.
>
> 3)  In Urth, Severian-as-White-Fountain describes Severian-as-Man as a
> "marionette of flesh".
>
> 4)  An inveterate punster who was also a devout Catholic might be taken by
> the term "marionette."  It might conceivably please him to make several
> female characters in a single work "marionettes" in one sense or another.
>
> 5)  Why lemonwood?  After all, the classic wood for a doll that comes to
> life is pine.  Per Google, the Howdy-Doody marionette was lemonwood.
>
>
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