the prime calcula/his citadel and other quotes

Roy C. Lackey · 17 Jan 2011, 21:20 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: rclackey at stic.net (Roy C. Lackey)
Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2011 15:20:58 -0600
Subject: (urth) the prime calcula/his citadel and other quotes
References: <609292.90378.qm at web161801.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <00c201cbb68c$7229a680$b5cf4a0c@rclackey>

Marc Aramini wrote:
>
> Here we see that the Outsider has supposedly endorsed Pas' plan and that
the monarch wanted a son, and this is repeated several times in the text,
about the monarch wanting an heir.  The text right after that says why all
Pas' legitimate children were bad and unsuitable for his desires.  And yes,
I do think the place where the embryo's were kept was the citadel of Pas, as
I feel Silk is most certainly his genetic son.  The only stopping point that
makes me ponder if indeed Mr. Wynn is correct in cloning is where Silk see's
his own face on Typhon at the end. The four people he sees in his
enlightenment are Tussah his adopted father, Tussah's lover his mother, the
original of Kypris (probably Mamelta from the blue eyes/black hair
connection and other maternal clues scattered throughout) and Pas/Typhon,
the blue eyed monarch who has set up this whorl so that his son Silk may
succeed him.
>
> "it its place stood a bronze-limbed man with rippling muscles and two
heads.  One was Silk's" ( p678) but i think this rather means that Silk has
taken his father's place than that he is genetically identical because [ . .
.]
>
-----------------

That quote is from the end of chapter 15 of EXODUS, p-346, when Silk was
shown an image on the airship's glass. That image was almost certainly
photoshopped to show him what Kypris wanted him to see -- Silk's head on
Pas/Typhon's body. My point here is that only one of the two heads he was
shown looked like his own. So there are two possibilities. Silk saw his own
head and Pas' head, or Silk saw his own head and Piaton's head. If Silk saw
his own head and Pas' head, then he does not look like Pas.

I bought this up some months back, but I guess I have to do it again. When
Sand was sacrificed at the Grand Manteion, Twice-headed Pas made a theophany
and virginal Mint was there and saw him quite clearly:

   "She blinked and stared, then blinked again. Not one face but two crowded
the Window, one gaping and gasping, the other radiant with power and
majesty, just--and more than just--pitiless and nurturing." (EXODUS, chap.
10, 204)

One of the two heads she saw was clearly Piaton's, the same idiotic-looking
fellow who had trouble catching his breath that Severian had seen on Mt.
Typhon. If the other head she saw had looked like Silk's, she would have
been shocked silly, but she gave no indication, then or later, that the
other head looked anything like Silk, so I'm going to stretch my imagination
and suggest that Silk does not look like Pas, who was Typhon, who was so
fond of his own face that he had it carved into a mountain.

-Roy

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