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Gerry Quinn · 14 Jan 2011, 21:18 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: gerryq at indigo.ie (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2011 21:18:41 -0000
Subject: (urth) (no subject)
References: <SNT123-W41ADA5418C765FB3D9B887CFF30 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <D02C97926E684614B2A37DA19C6C67F0@jill>

From: "Lee Berman" <severiansola at hotmail.com>
>
>>David Stockhoff:
>>(The connection between "lame" and "castrated" is the theory that when a
>>hero in literature is wounded in the "thigh," that really means he's
>>been rendered, er, drastically impotent---or at least that the two are
>>related by proximity. A king who cannot ride and fight may still be able
>>to sire an heir, but he's still cursed. BTW, has anyone wondered why
>>Severian and Valeria never had an heir?)
>
> The mythic connection between lame and castrated is something I've never 
> encountered before. Thank
> you David!!!

Severian may exaggerate his sexual prowess, but he does not indicate that he 
is unable to perform sexually, as one would expect of a castrated man.  It 
seems unlikely that he would particularly desire a child from any of his 
sexual encounters in BotNS.  If contraceptive technology has not been lost 
in Severian's time, it may not have been much of a concern..

> I have wondered more than once in these annals about the lack of pregnancy 
> in Valeria. I guess we
> could think of it as a pre-castration condition for the New Sun (what if 
> he failed and faced castration;
> he can't have already had a child).
>
> I have another rather obtuse interpretation for Valeria's barreness. 
> Severian, following a generic Greek
> hero pattern, is like an anti-Oedipus. There is always at least some tiny 
> clue that each woman Severian
> has sex with is related to him. He is anti-Oedipus because, though cursed 
> by incest, the one female family
> member he doesn't have sex with is his mother.

Just as there is some tiny clue that everyome is a character from Dr. Who, 
if you are looking for such clues.

If all Severian's lovers in BotNS are close relatives, his family would seem 
to be extraordinarily diverse and geographically dispersed.  His lovers are 
spread (so to speak)  from the slums of Nessus to the Autarch's Palace to 
villages in the interior and the minor aristocracy of provincial towns. They 
include pureborn exultants and those who are apparently lowborn, and some 
who are in between.  If we include UotNS, we may add a woman from thousands 
of years in the past, and a female creature not borm on Urth, nor even in 
Urth's universe.  But even leaving these two  aside, the thesis seems 
improbable to say the least.

Furthermore, apart from Dorcas there is just one woman mentioned in the 
story whom most agree is plausibly a close relative of Severian's.  That is 
Merryn - and there is no indication that Severian has sexual relations with 
her.  If Wolfe intended to indicate that Severian's lovers were hidden 
relatives, leaving Merryn out appears rather bizarre!

- Gerry Quinn

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