Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod

Ryan Dunn · 10 Aug 2010, 15:18 · from 2010-August.txt.gz

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From: ryan at liftingfaces.com (Ryan Dunn)
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 11:18:51 -0400
Subject: (urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod
In-Reply-To: <94C753843CC24501ACEFA3743D1C51E5@jill>
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	<5812D15F-800B-4971-83D8-F829E9D0CC15 at liftingfaces.com>
	<94C753843CC24501ACEFA3743D1C51E5@jill>
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On Aug 10, 2010, at 11:12 AM, Gerry Quinn wrote:

> From: "Ryan Dunn" <ryan at liftingfaces.com>
> 
>> I want to believe that Mr. Wolfe himself would like to claim that the answer to every single riddle ever posited on this mailing list since it began is answerable, and answerable in the text we're pondering.
>> 
>> Do you think he would agree? Do you agree?
> 
> I say no to both.
> 
> In the first place I think this list has probably posited many riddles on subjects he has not even considered, because the riddles are based on assumptions that the author did not place in the text.  for example (just using this as a simple example) if Agia was not a sexbot, then the riddle of whether she was Hethor's sexbot is moot, and the sound when her head hit the floor was probably just intended to indicate that she took a nasty knock.
> 
> In the second place, I think he probably left some things ambiguous, i.e. with no fixed answer.  For example, he might have thought it would be interesting if there were some hints that Severian might have had a sister, without making any decision one way or the other.
> 
> - Gerry Quinn



I think I phrased it poorly. Here's a better way:

I think Wolfe made sure that every riddle he put into his text was answered in the text, without the coda UotNS. Meaning, in  the text we've been presented, all of the questions should answer themselves. There are no broken spider web threads.

Now, determining what is a riddle/clue is up to the reader, of course. But the power of deduction can be used in most cases.

You might be write that certain things were intentionally left ambiguous, but I just don't think so.

...ryan
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