The Ascian's Shadow

matthew.malthouse · 01 Aug 2002, 10:11 · from urth-v0208.mbox · original

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From: matthew.malthouse at guardian.co.uk
Subject: (urth) The Ascian's Shadow
Date: Thu, 1 Aug 2002 11:11:02 +0100
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I can't find the thread this subject came up in a day or two ago but I
chanced upon the matter last evening.

TCotA Ch 16.  Ash is speaking to Severian:

 "The men without shadows..."

 "You call your enemies Ascians, which of course is not what they call
themselves, because your fathers believed that they came from the waist of
Urth, where the sun is precisely overhead at noon. The truth is that their
home is much farther north."

As an allusion to the shadow of the torturer it seems inapt or perhaps
ironic: the Ascians seem to have no lack of tortuers despite the
"perfection" of the rule of the Group of Seventeen.

Matthew

--=20

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