vanished people=Hieros

Gerry Quinn · 07 Nov 2011, 17:17 · from 2011-November.txt.gz

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From: gerry at bindweed.com (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2011 17:17:19 -0000
Subject: (urth) vanished people=Hieros
In-Reply-To: <SNT123-W4806A85F693EEBD7618E02CFD90 at phx.gbl>
References: <SNT123-W4806A85F693EEBD7618E02CFD90 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <34D121B54C1A4CE1A6D35815816BACA2@Rover>



From: Lee Berman 
> > Gerry Quinn: 

> >As for the Green Man, if he has shape changing
> >abilities they are fairly limited, as reading the section in
> >which Severian first encounters him will make obvious.

> I have trouble believing that a being capable of transporting
> his body through space and time cannot, in the process, transport
> his ankle through a metal shackle.

That?s because you don?t pay attention to the text.  His mode of time travel is to walk or run through the Corridors of Time.  The shackle binds him in time no less than in space.  

If you want an analogy, consider a jet liner with a wall built around it at a distance of 50 yards or so.  It can fly, but nevertheless it is completely trapped by a low wall.


> I think the Green Man episode is simply another act in the play
> which is being performed in BotNS for Severian's benefit. That is
> part of the reason Palaemon and Rudesind are shown forgetting their
> lines, and partly why we are shown a play in which Baldanders is
> able to free himself from his shackles at any time.

Right.  He must be a shapechanger because... well, because you want him to be, so everything we are told about him must be just a joke on the reader.

- Gerry Quinn


 
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