Typhon's nature

Jeff Wilson · 11 Oct 2011, 12:19 · from 2011-October.txt.gz

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From: jwilson at clueland.com (Jeff Wilson)
Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2011 07:19:14 -0500
Subject: (urth) Typhon's nature
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On 10/11/2011 6:51 AM, David Stockhoff wrote:
> On 10/10/2011 11:12 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:
>> On 10/10/2011 12:59 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:
>>> On 10/10/2011 1:29 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:
>>>> The talking machines could intercept intelligence from the Asciians'
>>>> transmissions and preserve it for their master's review. Jonas, for
>>>> example, is a machine that knows about the great beasts without being
>>>> currently at the south pole or under the sea. He probably lost his
>>>> antennas for far communication, though.
>>> It's possible. It's just a lot to expect the reader to guess. And
>>> Typhon, by his own account, is not one to speak indirectly.
>>
>> But neither is he given to elaborate for the benefit of others.
>>
>> It's not so much to guess; Mt Typhon itself is such an outpost and
>> Typhon is master of its numerous machines by word. Since he allows
>> Severian to transcend distance and "see" distant parts of the Urth as
>> if present above them, it's not such a stretch to think that he can do
>> that for himself and more besides when he's not busy putting on a show
>> to secure his hold on the unsuspecting Conciliator.
> OK, but how does it explain talking to the monsters in the abyss, who
> were not there before he slept, as he stated he did? Why make this
> complicated?

I'm not sure how it is especially complicated by the overall standards 
of the BotNS, which incorporates several times its wordcount of tropes 
by reference and allusion.


As for talking to the monsters in the abyss, who is doing that and 
when/what chapter?

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at clueland.com
Computational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana
< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >

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