Typhon's Confidence (plus some other questions)

Gerry Quinn · 28 Jan 2014, 10:38 · from 2014-January.txt.gz

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From: gerry at bindweed.com (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 10:38:21 -0000
Subject: (urth) Typhon's Confidence (plus some other questions)
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From: Jonathan Goodwin

> Recently re-read the Book of the New Sun, and I was wondering about this
>  detail: Typhon, after being awake for a while and having a look around
> (with his sensors I presume), tells Severian that there are powers in the
>  sea who would rule now. But, he clarifies, we will rout their armies.

> How can Typhon be so cavalier about the presence of telepathic monsters
>  in the sea? If his technology is still so much greater, why hasn't one of
> the Autarchs found and used it? Is it bluster on Typhon's part, or he does
>  he have some prior knowledge of the monsters? Was he the power who
>  had the woman with the black beans ripped to pieces (and they grew,
>  slowly, into Abaia, etc.?)

I think it is not so much bluster as confidence.  Typhon conquered many 
worlds in the past, and he is ready to start over again.  If he fails, he 
fails, but he does not talk uselessly of failure.  He has access to 
information technology at least.  Perhaps he does not expect to control 
Erebus etc. immediately, but to make a temporary alliance, and afterwards 
take Urth from them.

I don't think Typhon is portrayed as quite a god here, but as a sort of 
powerful 'force of nature' - a super villain, you might say, who can be 
brought to heel only by the super-powered Severian.

He may or may not have been the executor of the woman who sowed the black 
beans (which I too assume to be an origin myth for the sea monsters) but he 
presumably has some inkling of what they are and of their capabilities - the 
Autarchs seem to as well, though we are not told much.

- Gerry Quinn

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