Father Inire: teratoid

Gerry Quinn · 15 Dec 2010, 17:43 · from 2010-December.txt.gz

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From: gerryq at indigo.ie (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2010 17:43:52 -0000
Subject: (urth) Father Inire: teratoid
References: <SNT123-w3006DC41ED9FF0D70D88E0CF130 at phx.gbl><4D07822B.3020105 at verizon.net>
	<04E80E4D-7897-4164-B3BF-D48923E309A8 at butcherbaker.org>
Message-ID: <46378429D4804E0FB49B2EB4142F2F1A@jill>

From: "Son of Witz" <Sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org>
> So, of course I'm trying to figure out what this teratoid symbol LOOKS 
> like.
> I see that it is mostly a medical term for monstrous abnormality and 
> tumours and such., but I don't find associated symbols with an image 
> search.

I envisage a sort of red octopussy symbol, with rotational symmetry.

Note that the symbol appears on each mirror also:

----------------------
I was delighted to hear his voice, and largely in the hope that he would 
speak again, I asked, "Where are we, then?"
"On Urth," he answered, and strode across the room to the folded panels. 
Their backs were set with clustered diamonds, as I now saw, and enameled 
with such twisted signs as had been on the door.

-----------------------

It may just be alienese for 'quantum reflector' or whatever the proper term 
for the mirrors is.

That the sign seems teratoid to Severian may not reflect its true meaning, 
even if it is intended as a hint to the reader that monsters can lurk in 
mirrors.  Then again he associates the symbol with cacogens, whom he thinks 
of - at least at this time - as monsters.

An actual meaning of 'monsters' seems a bit unlikely, especially engraved on 
every panel.

- Gerry Quinn

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