do the Hierogrammates care about the megatherians?

Sergei SOLOVIEV · 24 May 2011, 18:21 · from 2011-May.txt.gz

This is the message as the crawl holds it, before anything here touched it. What the conversation shows has been through ingest: transfer encodings decoded, attachments dropped, quote markers repaired, and the archiver’s ? resolved into quotation marks and dashes. Those repairs are judgements and some of them are wrong, which is what this page is for. Email addresses are obscured here as they are everywhere else on the site, so it is before our repairs rather than byte for byte.

From: soloviev at irit.fr (Sergei SOLOVIEV)
Date: Tue, 24 May 2011 20:21:35 +0200
Subject: (urth) do the Hierogrammates *care* about the megatherians?
In-Reply-To: <SNT123-W4022DC2290D0C3231302F9CF750 at phx.gbl>
References: <SNT123-W4022DC2290D0C3231302F9CF750 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <4DDBF72F.5080705 at irit.fr>

Severian is not immediately arrested after his meeting with Ceryx. Ceryx 
creates
a "zombie" from a drowned young man. Zombie tries to kill Severian, becomes
truly alive due to Severian, and kills Ceryx in the morning (and is 
killed by the mob).
Then Severian travels on a boat to Saltus, young Burgundofara who was with
Severian finds a lover, Severian almost destroys the boath because his wrath
produced a storm, and is denounced to the authorities by Burgundofara 
and her
lover. Maybe somebody else as well.
He is accompanied by the followers who think him to be the Consiliator, and
this of course cannot be tolerated by the dictatorial regime of Typhon.

Best

Sergei Soloviev

Lee Berman wrote:
>   
>> Gerry Quinn: The story of the Boy Called Frog, which clearly originates in a synthesis of 
>> Romulus and Remus combined with The Jungle Book, has also incorporated 
>> snippets of other mythologies and of ways that people of one era would have 
>> understood things of the past....
>>     
>  
> Nice response, Gerry! I would agree with most of it. I agree that if Ymar is meant to be Frog
> it was a contrivance made for UotNS only. It would involve Wolfe saying, "okay, I've included
> a historical view of Typhon but who can I add to show that Frog was also a real
> historical figure...hm..who founded the Commonwealth...ah! Ymar.
>  
>  
>   
>> There is of course a strong echo here of the idea of bees with swords, which was the concept of 
>> bees held by the people immured for generations in the Antechamber.  Perhaps Wolfe is suggesting 
>> that the tales were transmitted via some antechamber folk who found their way out.
>>     
>  
> It's possible. A good idea. But the story of wolves carrying knives might also be akin to the 
> stories we hear of lower animals developing versions of human speech and writing. Or it could be a
> degenerate, wolf-like group of humans who retain manual dexterity.  Or it could be that Frog was raised 
> by a human group known as the Wolf Clan and the tales converted them to their namesake. 
>  
> But you are correct in thinking it doesn't matter too much. What matters is that we get the interactive 
> relationship between reality, history and mythology. I think you've denied that relationship as relevant 
> to Wolfe's writing in the past but perhaps there is a growing awareness of how essential it is for 
> understanding. Your quick switch from denial of Jungle Book influence on the Frog story to assimilation
> was impressive.
>  
>  
>   
>> We cannot reject Typhon as Spring Wind arguments on account of the absence of two-headedness.
>>     
>  
>  
> Correct, but not for the reason you suggest. On the Whorl, Typhon's two-headedness is common knowlege.
> Not so on Urth. It was a recent development and a deep secret. Thus Spring Wind (the youthful, sober
> thoughtful Alexander) would never have two heads in legends that circulated on Urth. It is the wind
> allusions and the youth/older life history of Alexander which connect Spring Wind and Typhon, not heads.
>  
>  
>   
>> Is there a 1000 year old witch in BotNS?   None that is human, I believe.
>>     
>  
> I didn't say "human" witch. If Ymar and twin sister are descendents of Typhon can we be sure the whole 
> family is (fully) human? I don't think so. Since I question whether Severian is fully human, I don't have 
> much of a problem asking the same question about Ymar.  Morover a snake-essense daughter of Typhon fits 
> rather nicely with his mythological namesake. Wouldn't the snaky Cumaean make a nice sister or half-sister 
> to snaky Scylla?
>  
>   
>> As for Inire, if I recall correctly he is said in BotNS to date from the time of Ymar
>>     
>  
> In my view that is when he started using the name "Inire". But in UotNS, Severian rather inexplicably 
> encounters a real wizard/necromancer named Ceryx. Immediately after their encounter, Severian is captured 
> and brought in front of the highly sequestered Typhon. Rather than dismiss Ceryx as a one-off, I think he
> is the vizier (and magic investigator) for Typhon. In other words, he is Inire, serving in the same 
> capacity that he will serve the Autarchs.
>

An unofficial mirror of a public mailing list · about & removal requests · download the archive · before the list · original archive at urth.net