Dorcas the Forgetless or Baldanders the Forgetful?

Lee Berman · 07 Sep 2010, 17:55 · from 2010-September.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Tue, 7 Sep 2010 13:55:29 -0400
Subject: (urth) Dorcas the Forgetless or Baldanders the Forgetful?
Message-ID: <SNT123-W1790C4E5475CEE734FA714CF710 at phx.gbl>

>Jeff Wilson- Baldanders' half-awakeness and dreamlessness could be really be a sleep 
>disorder, or his distraction when his attention wanders to more intellectual matters.

I very much agree with the latter guess. I think Baldanders is sorta sleepwalking 
through the life we see him living in the first two books with Dr. Talos to tell him
to eat, sleep, wake up, lift up stage equipment etc. His mind is back in his castle
figuring out new biological experimentation and perhaps planning his eventual rule of
Urth or establishing his god/megatherian-hood.

>Ryan Dunn- "I'm . . ." Dorcas turned toward me, frightened. "Dorcas," I said.

When Severian first meets Dorcas, she "swallows" before she says her name. I don't know
if gut-level intuition has any advantage, but in both cases, on re-reading, my intuition 
told me that her hesitation is because she goes by another name. A nickname which, for 
obvious reasons, can't be revealed at this time in the story.

Not a very exciting answer but I lean toward that one.

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