a false coin

Marc Aramini · 03 Jan 2011, 15:35 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: marcaramini at yahoo.com (Marc Aramini)
Date: Mon, 3 Jan 2011 07:35:39 -0800 (PST)
Subject: (urth)  a false coin
In-Reply-To: <SNT123-W392EF788F2067C7E15C6C6CF070 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <478019.9247.qm at web161808.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

Wanted to see if anyone was prepared to discuss something symbolic and its connotations, and this is not part of a "theory" so hopefully it won't engender something atrocious.
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Vodalus hands Severian his little fake coin for killing an innocent?man trying to prevent the remains of his family from being stolen and eaten and saving a cannibal (nevermind for now that the autarch is also a cannibal).? 
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Then Sev goes on to talk about how symbols shape us.? When Talos comes at the end of New Sun to give Sev the coin he owes him, its? a fake, as is the one Vodalus gave him.? In light of saying that we are shaped by symbols, is the fake coin of Vodalus important for making a statement about Severian himself or not?? Is Wolfe implying that the fake coin, which he admits in Castle of Days is a symbol of the sun, shaped Sev into something genuine?? ( I think this reading is re-inforced by the themes in Wolfe's later fiction, BUT i have some doubts here.)? Severian was paid in counterfeit coin for killing a man and saving an unworthy master .... and later Severian muses it must be worth it to preserve the high and the low in man at the end of Citadel, I think, where he talks about punishing the torturers so they appreciate their position.
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Does that fake coin imply the situation of the sun is a conjuror's trick at best, serving a false master and killing an innocent man to pillage the remains of Urth?? (ie - is the situation of the fake coin in parrallel with the future sun of Urth and the ambiguous Vodalus, what was his title? Liege of Leaves?)? Does?Sev's musings on the necessity of the high and the low?at the end of Citadel work against the result in Urth of the New Sun where high and low together are wiped out?
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Hopefully there is something to discuss there.
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