Sister?

Jeff Wilson · 07 Aug 2010, 11:18 · from 2010-August.txt.gz

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From: jwilson at io.com (Jeff Wilson)
Date: Sat, 07 Aug 2010 06:18:54 -0500
Subject: (urth) Sister?
In-Reply-To: <4C5CB384.1050104 at sky.com>
References: <4C5B6256.2020608 at sky.com> <4C5B8549.9060606 at io.com>
	<4C5CB384.1050104 at sky.com>
Message-ID: <4C5D411E.5010607 at io.com>

On 8/6/2010 8:14 PM, Jane Delawney wrote:
> Whether this is the case or not though - one is still left to wonder
> why, given that he simply must have been able to demand the relevant
> information from the Guild, Severian still does not know (even at the
> end of UOTNS he does not know - one might think that by that time, both
> Sev and GW have passed beyond worrying about it, but if Juturna is in
> the mix that is not the case at all, is it?) who his *sister* is. GW
> spends altogether too much time and effort setting Severian up as one of
> twins (or at the very least of a brother-sister pair with appropriate
> names) for this to be an irrelevant or insignificant question, surely?

Let us think what information that the guild would have retained. We 
could expect them to have:

* the official documentation commanding Catharine's imprisonment and her 
torture and execution if any. These would record her name, residence and 
position,  a brief or lengthy physical description doe identification 
purposes, and the charges against her.
* the official guild records kept for inspection by the authorities, 
accounting for her disposition and that of any children who arrived with 
her or she bore.
* the internal accounts or logs kept by the masters for later 
consultation of their own, their fellow masters, and masters yet to come.

I don't think this would necessarily include any details of any family 
members who had not fallen into their hands, except by chance inclusion: 
"...found guilty of the murder of her husband the Autarch's servant 
Pancras for which the sentence of death is to be carried out...". Of 
course, an exultant's family would be identifiable from their name, *if* 
that name were faithfully  recorded and there was no complicating 
factors like disinheritance or abdication.

Of any siblings, the guild records would say that a girl with 
such-a-color hair and eyes and marks was given to the Witches if the 
birth came after incarceration, or such-a-color hair and eyes and marks 
and the name of X if the girl came with her mother to the tower.

Severian's lack of mention of a sister suggests to me that either he 
came without one, or that any on record are no longer locatable.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
IEEE Student Chapter Blog at
< http://ieeetamut.org >

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