Mystery of Agia

Jeff Wilson · 20 Jan 2011, 04:57 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: jwilson at io.com (Jeff Wilson)
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2011 22:57:25 -0600
Subject: (urth) Mystery of Agia
In-Reply-To: <SNT123-W43D185FDD8C5BF1217392BCFF60 at phx.gbl>
References: <SNT123-W43D185FDD8C5BF1217392BCFF60 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <4D37C0B5.2060000 at io.com>

On 1/19/2011 3:21 PM, Lee Berman wrote:
>
> 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?

Agia is impulsive but not stupid; she knows exactly where to find him, 
but the odds of an enjoyable revenge against the Autarch are slim.

 > Why not tie him up and
> drag him off for his weeks of torture, or whatever. She is afraid of the green man???

She doesn't have a way to facilitate such a fate for him while the 
Vodalarii are on the move, and no means to strike out on her own in the 
contested territory.

> Why was she trying for months to kill him in ways that wouldn't work if she (supposedly) had a
> foolproof way (the worms)?

Not knowing any more than we do about how specula work, we can't presume 
all the monsters were available at all times. We have the old Autarch's 
word that the longer the specula are left closed, the more powerful 
their summoning ability becomes, so Hethor may need to take longer times 
between to get larger monsters or ones from farther away in space and time.

 >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?

The weeks of torture idea was probably planted by Vodalus to manipulate 
her into serving him longer.

> Why is she relentless
> in following Severian but not killing him?

It took her a while to sort out her true feelings. She's a pretty 
mercurial person, and she may have found ruling over Hethor and later 
over the Vodalarii to be more to her immediate satisfaction than 
continuing to prepare a place to keep Sev racked up for weeks.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
Computational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana
< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >

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