do the Hierogrammates care about the megatherians?

James Wynn · 20 May 2011, 19:38 · from 2011-May.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Fri, 20 May 2011 14:38:15 -0500
Subject: (urth) do the Hierogrammates *care* about the megatherians?
In-Reply-To: <AE83B76DDD3A4DCCB4C28DABF86BA1B5@jill>
References: <SNT123-W220B7E3214FF82B9BAC2DDCF710 at phx.gbl>
	<AE83B76DDD3A4DCCB4C28DABF86BA1B5@jill>
Message-ID: <4DD6C327.5090406 at gmail.com>

Gerry,

I think your responses to Lee's points were argumentative without 
touching on the point he is making.


>> 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?

The point is: Why are there 17? Why did the Ascians choose to have 17 
members of their leadership council? Why 17 stones? Lee proposed a 
unified origin for the number 17 being significant to Urthlings.

>> 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"!

"megathere" means literally "great [as in giant] beast [especially 
wild]". It's association with a giant ground sloth is incidental just as 
"onegar's" relation to horses is incidental.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/megathere

>> 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!

? You mean no one besides the Ascians, right?
Who else do you think fits the designation of Giant Beast? It's fine to 
say that that the term could *not* refer to Abaia and Co. (might refer 
to some entirely unidentified company), but what reason would you have 
for actively disbelieving it?

>
> 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.

This belies every thing we know about many many vague references in the 
Book of the New Sun. Why at this point you think Wolfe should be 
expected to make any particular reference clear, detailed, and 
enumerated, I can' imagine.

J.

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