Boatman as Inire

Lee Berman · 06 Aug 2010, 14:32 · from 2010-August.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2010 10:32:59 -0400
Subject: (urth) Boatman as Inire
Message-ID: <SNT123-W17B2D60FBAB9A2AE81714DCF910 at phx.gbl>

Jeff Wilson's comment about Dorcas and the boatman brought this topic to
mind. Rudesind as Inire has been discussed lately, but not the boatman I think.
It is recognized that a weakness in such a scenario involves the boatman not really
being dead or that there are multiple versions of Inire which have varying lifespans.

I lean toward him being a version of Inire because of the physical resemblance of course.
Also, his folksy way of speaking, similar to Rudesind's. Then there is his attraction to
very young women (Dorcas being about 14 when they married).  Mythological Charon was the 
son of Erebus. Perhaps the son of Urth's Erebus is a boatman also. There are just too many
coincidences and mentions of "manatees" at the Lake Of Birds for me to think the boatman 
was a simple, uninvolved by-stander.

In UotNS I think Wolfe tells us why Severian cannot openly reveal any of Father Inire's 
disguises (if indeed he does recognize them). When Severian realizes and expresses that the 
hairy little guy helping him on the ship is the same same being as the shaggy apport 
creature, the little guy, Zak, takes off running. Severian then realizes that one of the 
deepest instincts of a shape-shifting being would be to flee when the disguise has been 
penetrated. Why does Wolfe include this scene?

I think Severian's descriptions of Father Inire as always off stage, and if on stage, in 
disguise, never revealed is, in some way, a sign of respect for the deep instinct of the 
shape-changing sort of being that Father Inire is (respect also for being his vizier and 
grandfather).

(I think this detection-avoiding principle of shape-changers is invoked in Fifth Head of 
Cerberus and Long/Short Sun books as well)

FWIW- Frank Herbert's Dune series (especially Book 6) seems to explore the same principle that 
I think Wolfe is exploring- the idea that a shape-changer, no matter how initially vile and 
primitive, has the potential to become a god, through progressively imitating higher level 
beings. Thus an explanation for why so many of the pagan gods and angels are shape-shifters.

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