Two Silk questions

James Jordan · 15 Jul 2002, 15:59 · from urth-v0207.mbox · original

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From: James Jordan <jbjordan4 at cox.net>
Subject: Re: (urth) Two Silk questions
Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 10:59:22 -0500
Message-ID: <urth-v0207-1353 at digest.urth.net>
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At 09:05 AM 7/14/2002 +0800, you wrote:
>Two questions which bug me about SIlk, and for which I don't see any clear=20
>answers or developed theories in the archives:
>
>(1) His "other" parents. At some point Silk has a vision which includes=20
>two sets of parents (memory hazy on details). We know who his "host"=20
>parents are; what about the others? Is there anything which gives us a hin=
t?

         Silk is dead at the time, buried and not breathing for 30 minutes.=20
The other couple are his biological parents. He meets them in the=20
afterlife, before being sent back.

>
>(2) In a response to questions a while back, Wolfe says that Silk, in some=20
>broad sense, is a member of the guild of torturers (under whatever their=20
>official name is). Also, there is some kind of hint to the effect that=20
>Silk makes some kind of appearance in the events of the Book of the New=20
>Sun. How are these rather gnomic intimations to be interpreted?

         You have not finished reading the Short Sun books, so we won't=20
tell you about whether or not Silk appears in the Severian books. The=20
precise name of the torturer's guild is the Order of Seekers of Truth and=20
Penitence, a name that would fit Silk and the Church as well. Wolfe=20
probably means more than that, possibly that as the State tortures=20
(executes) criminals themselves, Silk as the Church slaughters animals as=20
substitutes for human criminality (and in the Christian eucharist,=20
re-presents the slaughter of Christ for human criminality).

Nutria


--=20

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