do the Hierogrammates care about the megatherians?

Gerry Quinn · 20 May 2011, 18:44 · from 2011-May.txt.gz

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From: gerryq at indigo.ie (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Fri, 20 May 2011 19:44:18 +0100
Subject: (urth) do the Hierogrammates *care* about the megatherians?
References: <SNT123-W220B7E3214FF82B9BAC2DDCF710 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <AE83B76DDD3A4DCCB4C28DABF86BA1B5@jill>

From: "Lee Berman" <severiansola at hotmail.com>
>>Gerry Quinn:

>>I don't think the 'seventeen megatherians' were anything to do with 
>>Erebus,
>>Abaia etc.  The number doesn't particularly match, but more important than 
>>that, we have
>>a book called "The Lives of the Seventeen Megatherians" which has a 
>>somewhat historical
>>feel to it, as if the story of the megatherians (whoever they were) is 
>>long over.
>
> To go with Gerry's scenario I'd have to also accept that the number of the 
> "Group of 17"
> is a coincidence. Also that Cadroe of the 17 Stones, the black bean story 
> etc. are
> unrelated.

I don't see this as problematic.  We don;t know much about the Group of 
Seventeen, but we know where they live, or lived:
"Where the Group of Seventeen sit, there final justice is done."
[trans.]"He went to the capital and complained of the way he had been 
treated."
So, they weren't sea monsters - they lived on land (and presumably were 
human).  They also make statements, which the sea monsters aren't usually 
prone to.  And also, IIRC, only one particular sea monster controls Ascia.

Cadroe of the 17 Stones is someone who comes to fight at the Sanguinary 
Fields.  Not a sea monster, obviously. And there seems no reasonable 
association with the Group of Seventeen.  What kind of relationship do you 
envisage for Cadroe?

And when were the beans ever enumerated?  All we know is that they were 
described as a 'handful'.

> And that Wolfe labelling Abaia as "Great Beast" has nothing to do with the
> literal translation of Megatherian.

Megatherian = a large extinct ground sloth.  Doesn't tell us much IMO.  And 
surely any gigantic evil-intentioned sea monster might reasonably be called 
"Great Beast".  While I don't see him being called "Ground Sloth"!

> I'm disinclined to do all that. Moreover, RttW suggests
> the sea monsters were well established in Severian's boyhood and I'm 
> inclined to think their
> growth required something close to the 1000 year post-Typhon history of 
> Urth.

I agree.  But surely this again suggests that Cadroe and the Group of 
Seventeen have nothing to do with them?

Also: you haven't explained why nobody in the books refers to them as 
megatherians any more!

So - while it is interesting that the number 17 is used three times, the 
contexts seem to be quite different (the megatherians *might* have been the 
Group of Seventeen, but I am inclined to doubt it).  If Wolfe mreant them to 
be identified, I think he'd have at least made it more plausible that they 
are the same kinds of people/things.  And he'd have made them ALL fit, 
whereas it's quite hard to imagine that Cadroe's stones are actually the 
Group of Seventeen.

- Gerry Quinn

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