Lives of the Great Beasts

Jonathan Goodwin · 02 Jul 2010, 18:38 · from 2010-July.txt.gz

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From: joncgoodwin at gmail.com (Jonathan Goodwin)
Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2010 13:38:36 -0500
Subject: (urth) Lives of the Great Beasts
Message-ID: <AANLkTilx2dMaB7OYnqlFnKcr7NJwF_eV4Ht_qlQ6Y5-M at mail.gmail.com>

There was some discussion on the list recently, or at least I think
there was, about the origins and nature of Abaia, Erebus, and the
rest. I've just read the books again recently and had some questions I
wanted to ask the list.

The narrative function of the megatherians is quite clear, I think.
The literary and mythological antecedents are also reasonably clear.
What is not clear to me, however, is just what Wolfe had in mind about
their nature, their arrival on Earth, or their motivation (though
there's more evidence for this last than the others).

Jonas tells Severian that they were brought to Earth, possibly in the
zoetic tower, to replace the extinct fauna (I don't have the exact
quote, but I think that's a reasonable approximation.) I suppose they
might also have been summoned via catoptromancy, though this seems
later in the timeline. If the former, then they must have been smaller
and in a different form. I think it might be reasonable to assume that
their true nature was not known and it was supposed that, while they
may grow large, they would not be monstrously intelligent, ambitious
beasts with the desire to rule the planet and the stars from which
they came. What would their own world have been like, then? But then
it occurred to me that creatures such as this would take on the
characteristics of their rulers as they grew. This would fit Wolfe's
treatment of alien life forms in other contexts and have some larger
thematic significance.

Does that seem plausible?

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