lots of stuff

James Wynn · 12 Jul 2010, 20:10 · from 2010-July.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 2010 15:10:05 -0500
Subject: (urth) lots of stuff
In-Reply-To: <SNT123-W55C05233F67B511EFB7F50CFB80 at phx.gbl>
References: <SNT123-W55C05233F67B511EFB7F50CFB80 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <4C3B769D.6020304 at gmail.com>

> I am thinking the connection of Inuus/Inire to Faunus and Pan/Pas (the pas version
> being the origin of "pastoral") might be even more interesting for you.

I do! I like a lot.  "Inuus" (the enterer) links to Inire's name, to 
Typhon as Pan, and to Typhon as the two faced Janus, god of doorways.

> Anyway, so if Typhon=Pas=Inire, then the idea of Severian as a some version or
> offspring of Inire becomes....possible? Either way, I must think all this suggests
> the "Inire" epithet for Pan becomes a very good candidate for the origin of the
> padre's name.
>    

If Inire=Inuus, then it would follow that Father is a literal title. But 
the obvious question is "father of whom or what?"

Typhon? Ymar? Ouen? All of them? I recall that Don Doggett posited that 
Sev was a clone of one of those black beans in the story of  "Spring 
Wind" (Typhon). But where is Inire in the old stories? It's moments like 
these when we realize how little we know about the hierodules. There's 
too many options in this line of inquiry. We need another clue!

> Other authors are likely to distort to disguise a mythological
> name but Wolfe seems to prefer retaining the orginal name and distorting
> the character for disguise.

This is true, generally. Although we do have the example of Seawrack.

> The mention of mating with animals is rather intriguing to me since I am
> exploring the possibility that Father Inire has sexually acted on his
> attraction to young girls to the point of mating with most/all of the
> female members of Severian's family, including his own daughters.
> Perhaps "mating with animals" does not mean the same thing to a hiero
> race being that we would take it to mean.....

The idea of Inire mating with humans seems far-fetched except that Wolfe 
really likes the idea of interspecies and apparent- interspecies mating. 
In "Fifth Head", Sandwalker (apparently) has a cat for a girlfriend. And 
in An Evil Guest, the Woldercons mate and breed across species. In the 
Book of the Short Sun, Jahlee the inhuma accompanies the Rajan to Urth 
in the form of a beautiful woman and has as much sex as possible. It's a 
faeryworld/mythical motif that seems to appeal to Wolfe. So, yeah, this 
is possible. In Fifth Head, the clones are also interested in young 
women...not for sex per se but strictly for procreation.

> (I always wondered which of Typhon's heads was Typhon and which was Piaton.
> Silk cloned from Pas would answer that, based on hair color).
>    

I recall that Sev determines this in his conversation with Typhon in UotNS.

u+16b9

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