Miles, Jonas and that sailor guy

Gerry Quinn · 10 Feb 2011, 00:51 · from 2011-February.txt.gz

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From: gerryq at indigo.ie (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2011 00:51:19 -0000
Subject: (urth) Miles, Jonas and that sailor guy
References: <AANLkTi=9UjJ8ns9+qEVLcq0N5VvA_F1bv6YPs-H3xmsp at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <815D916CC20E4898B77F6FCCB758B6D1@jill>


From: "Andrew Mason" <andrew.mason53 at googlemail.com>
> Marc Aramini wrote:
>> You know, I've never been really sold on the idea that the soldier Miles 
>> or whatever is really a returned Jonas, and yesterday for the first time 
>> in a long time I was reading the ending of Citadel (what wonderful 
>> imagery) and the description of the masculine voice and the feminine 
>> voices under the water by the sailor who used Jonas' Wellerisms kind of 
>> made me wonder once again if there is a universal consensus that Severian 
>> is right in believing that soldier guy is Jonas.
>
> No, I've always doubted it. Severian thinks Miles is Jonas because he
> uses Wellerisms, and even works out a theory which would explain why
> robots do so. But later we discover this way of speaking is common
> among sailors, used by Maxellindis' uncle, several sailors on
> Tzadkiel's ship, and even Eata in later life.

He also dreams of a woman with red-gold hair, whom Severian identifies with 
Jolenta.

> It's a puzzling question when we should trust Severian and when we
> shouldn't. People seem very ready to accept his Miles-Jonas theory
> ,and his 'first Severian' theory - which is proved to be at least
> partly wrong, in connection with Apu-Punchau. Yet his claims that
> Typhon is lying, and that Merryn and the Cumaean are _not_ the two
> witches he met as a boy, are generally dismissed.

I certainly don't dismiss the latter.  I'm not sure how he'd know anything 
about Typhon, though.

As for Miles, I really don't know.  One idea that has occurred to me is that 
he resurrected the body of the guy who was killed when Jonas's ship crashed, 
and whose parts were taken to repair Jonas.  But then why would he have 
anything of Jonas's personality?

On the other hand, Jonas is a machine, so shouldn't he have been resurrected 
as one, if indeed he is resurrectable?

It's a puzzler.

- Gerry Quinn

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