Jonas <> Pinocchio

Roy C. Lackey · 26 Sep 2002, 19:42 · from urth-v0209.mbox · original

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From: "Roy C. Lackey" <rclackey at stic.net>
Subject: Re: (urth) Jonas <> Pinocchio
Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2002 14:42:28 -0500
Message-ID: <urth-v0209-1791 at digest.urth.net>
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Crush writes:
>But the big thing is that ...Jonas *becomes* human, right? He doesn't
repair
>the robot parts. He repairs the human prosthetics to the point of growing a
>whole body. He becomes the human Miles. This surely was his intent when
>going to be "repaired". Is it not generally agreed that Jonas left Severian
>and became Miles? I searched the list on this and didn't find anything to
>the contrary.

No, I don't think there is general agreement on that point. On 9/6/02 mantis
wrote:

------------------------
Jonas steps into the mirrors after speaking of being repaired.  When next
we see him, he is fully biological.  I have often speculated that in Yesod
his biological prosthetics were expanded into a full biological body into
which the Jonas-software was integrated . . . along with the biological
software that was present-yet-dormant in the prosthetics, now full-blown in
the reconstructed bio body.

(A somewhat cleaner version is that the Jonas-spirit was drawn from Yesod
by the Claw to ride the body of the annonymous dead soldier.)

In any event, two personalities in one body.
------------------------

As I argued in an earlier post, Jonas hoped to be repaired so as to return
to his original android state, not become a bio. So I prefer the "cleaner
version" mantis outlined above. He expanded on it yesterday:

-------------------------
I guess it all resolves this way:
since Severian heard the utterance and saw Jonas go into the mirror, the
Claw heard it too, so that later on at that point in Severian's life when
he really needed a friend, yet all there was at hand was a corpse, then the
Claw drew down the Jonas software from the borderland between Briah and
Yesod, installed it in the reanimated corpse, and thereby solved two wishes
with one snappy miracle.
-------------------------

I don't think there was _anything_ of Jonas in that dead soldier before Sev,
in his fevered delirium, put it there.

-Roy

--=20

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