Mystery of Agia

Lee Berman · 19 Jan 2011, 21:21 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2011 16:21:21 -0500
Subject: (urth) Mystery of Agia
Message-ID: <SNT123-W43D185FDD8C5BF1217392BCFF60 at phx.gbl>

>Marc Aramini: This, at least, does not seem to be a great mystery, he killed her brother 
>and lover, both by overcoming their scam and in actual fact through execution.  The greater 
>mystery is involved in those straps to Agilus' mask that don't go anywhere.  Revenge can be 
>relentless, but there do seem to be connections between them that need examination.

Part of the mystery of Agia is that she is NOT relentless in seeking revenge. She and the 
green man rescue Severian from the Ascians (and Vodalus). Severian wonders why she didn't kill 
him then, why she didn't stab him unawares at Casdoe's house..

She answers that she could have killed him easily, anytime she wanted, with Hethor's worms.
She says the green man wouldn't permit his killing and she wouldn't want it. She wants his
agony spread over weeks. Then she says:

>"Now I will let you go free--because I have some inkling of where you will go--and in the 
>end you will come into my hands again.."

What is that B.S.? At the least it is a gun on the wall in Act 1 which is never fired. (actually 
I think Severian encounters both Agia and the Green Man in different guises in UotNS but that's
another story). Why does she let Severian go, never to find him again? Why not tie him up and
drag him off for his weeks of torture, or whatever. She is afraid of the green man???

Why was she trying for months to kill him in ways that wouldn't work if she (supposedly) had a 
foolproof way (the worms)? Neither the arrows nor the notule, nor the slug nor the salamander would
have provided the "weeks of agony" she demanded. So why use all those methods? Why is she relentless
in following Severian but not killing him? 

Well, I've suggested an answer to this mystery of Agia in some other posts. I think they address
issues like Agilus' mask stripes/straps and Ryan Dunn's metallic head as well. Requires a leap of 
faith though :- ).

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