So who is the child in Baldander's bed? [was: Juturna, the Missing Sister]

Gerry Quinn · 29 Jul 2010, 08:11 · from 2010-July.txt.gz

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From: gerryq at indigo.ie (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2010 09:11:39 +0100
Subject: (urth) So who is the child in Baldander's bed? [was: Juturna,
	the Missing Sister]
References: <SNT123-W31A23C4CE90783EED35F9CFA70 at phx.gbl><ADFFCBFB-23A0-490F-B4EA-0534B85CAB40 at liftingfaces.com><AANLkTikkC05XL0xQ-QbdhZPVjPbsUiCXsgVHiLYYP4gO at mail.gmail.com>
	<924139.11675.qm at web50701.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <8FA6C6ECAA124B32AB901D5F368B2A01@jill>

From: "Jerry Friedman" <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com>
> From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
>
>> On Wed, Jul 28, 2010 at 12:36 PM, Ryan Dunn <ryan at liftingfaces.com> 
>> wrote:
>>> is it definitely a catamite? or is that theoretical as well?
>>
>> That's Severian's interpretation of what he sees. He could, I suppose,
>> be wrong...
>
> People keep saying this, but Severian tells us twice that he doubts the 
> boy is a
> catamite.  At least so far.

So who/what is he?  The only other possibility I can think of is that he is 
Baldander's son.  I have tended to assume that Baldanders started out as a 
normal man until he started modifying himself, but we also know that the 
modifications have extreme effects such as mental instability evinced as 
moodiness and violent rages.  So the fact that the child appears to be 
retarded doesn't necessarily mean anything. Perhaps Baldanders has started 
the modifications earlier on his son/replacement, or perhaps Baldanders 
started like this too.

On the other hand, Talos seems to go wandering the world after Baldanders 
takes up an aquatic lifestyle - if the child is Baldanders' one might expect 
him to stay and look after it.  But it may well be that the local villagers 
burned the castle down and disposed of everything there.  (Not for the first 
time.)

- Gerry Quinn

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