Sev's family tree

Lee Berman · 26 Jan 2011, 16:54 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2011 11:54:07 -0500
Subject: (urth) Sev's family tree
Message-ID: <SNT123-W25C62CAB686174CDDF6FEBCFFF0 at phx.gbl>

>Mr Thalassocrat: I think it?s possible that Wolfe scattered red herrings around as fake clues
>to Severian?s family tree, with the intention of driving overly-attentivereaders insane.

Argh, that would be a mean trick; especially if meant to target his most devoted fans. Still we
have all these fishy family clues swimming around the text and, after 30 years, they are not being 
revealed as "white herrings" with a clearly intended solution/conclusion.

My current thinking is that many of these clues should be considered as pink herrings. They are meant 
to steer our thinking in a certain direction but not provide a conclusive, universally acceptable answer.

I think the purpose of the pink herrings is to establish just what we have: a sense of uncertaintly in the 
reader about Severian's family (similar to the sense of uncertainty we find in 5HoC regarding Marsch's 
replacement, sans interview revelation). I think Wolfe was going for the Oliver Twistian sense of unsurety 
of one's place in the world for an orphan. He once said in an interview that he felt the same way growing
up as an only child and would scour the faces of a crowd for possible signs of mystery kinship.

>I posit that Sev has Magic Genes which somehow or other can draw or resonate with or whatever the New Sun.

This would seem to parallel Borski's theory that the adjective "golden" is a marker for Severian's family.

>(I also think that Sev?s attraction to Agia and Dorcas is driven largely by Magic Gene calling to Magic Gene. 
>Also, Agia and Agilus? incest.

I lean in just the same direction. I think it suggests an obvious rationale for another unlikely sexual pairing
of "golden" characters: Dorcas and Jolenta. Of course Severian is sexually linked with both plus Jolenta may be
the only named character for whom we have reason to guess has a different given name. Moreover, her shallow,
self-centered personality would allow her given name to be Severa without her feeling the need to mention the 
fact to Severian. There is the sameness of age and other more convoluted evidence that makes Jolenta a good 
sibling candidate.

>I also want to tie in Casdoe?s family.

The Sev/Severa, Dorcas/Casdoe similarity seems to make this a promising prospect (now how does "Cadroe of the 17
stones tie in..?).

My own theory cuts through some of the complexity of your scenario by guessing that Severian gets the gender of 
Casdoe's "father" wrong (doesn't he show general confusion by switching his assessment of parenthood from Casdoe
to Becan?). Two pink herring sorts of evidence for this: 

1. Nobody in Casdoe's family ever mentions the old person. The neglect was always a clue sign for me. It avoids 
the use of gender-revealing pronouns.

2. The old person speaks so admiringly and longingly of Fechin you might think there was a homosexual attraction- 
unless it was hetero-

This option allows Fechin to be ancestor to Casdoe's family directly without intervening Nessus members. (Casdoe's 
mother is the cryptically mentioned Herena from Thrax, iirc). And Fechin was a travelling artist.

(and Cyriaca's uncle was a travelling rare book aficionado. Could magic genes also draw Severian and Cyriaca together?
FWIW, I think Agia's misericorde weapon ties her to Cyriaca)

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