Severian's Journey: Happenstance or Masterplan?

David Stockhoff · 24 Aug 2010, 23:54 · from 2010-August.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2010 19:54:50 -0400
Subject: (urth) Severian's Journey: Happenstance or Masterplan?
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Message-ID: <4C745BCA.6020504 at verizon.net>

I agree about Agia. Possibly, her main function is to give direction and 
meaning to Severian's adventures, so we don't think of him as wholly led 
by cacogens and monsters, or so his well-worn path doesn't seem so rote.

Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:
> I think 2 things are more or less clear.
>
> 1. Severian's journey is followed by higher powers. It is fact that 
> his death is averted more than once - something is not letting him 
> die. (Though it looks as if, other than that, he is left to roam at 
> will. It rather seems to me that the old Autarch is sent to him than 
> he is guided to the old Autarch.) Then, one isn't told why should 
> those higher powers spend that effort with Severian, rather than just 
> shift their hopes to someone else. One possible reason is that they 
> have not much time (cf. Severian's saying to Master Ash that the 
> latter told him his own time was just some generations removed from 
> Severian's, though Master Ash doesn't bother confirming that that's 
> what he was saying and I still suspect he may be from other universe.) 
> Kind of reminds me of Revelation 12 ('12. Therefore, rejoice, O 
> heavens, and you that dwell therein. Woe to the earth and to the sea, 
> because the devil has come down unto you, having great wrath, knowing 
> that he has but a short time.')
>
> (Incidentally, this is why Agia interests me so much: to me, she is 
> the one character that shows some independent action.)
>
>
> 2. Time in Briah doesn't work quite like ours. Gene Wolfe seems to 
> imply as much in the final paragraph of the appendix to CA. He takes 
> the time to 'speculate' that the Ships travel through time much the 
> same way as they travel through space, or something like that, and 
> that Severian seems to have premonitions. My impression is that the 
> inhabitants of Urth may have more power over their dimension of time, 
> all by themselves, than we have over ours. Just what the implications 
> of that may be...
>
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