Juturna and the skull

Chris · 08 Jul 2003, 20:47 · from urth-v0307.mbox · original

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From: "Chris" <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Juturna and the skull
Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2003 20:47:51 +0000
Message-ID: <urth-v0307-3586 at digest.urth.net>
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Ash and the Green Man are only mutually exclusive beyond a certain critical=20
point of... for lack of something better to call it, the "event tree". The=20
discussion Severian has with him indicates some kind of "many worlds"=20
cosmology. Ash comes from an eventual branch of the tree where things do no=
t=20
go well. He is able to travel back anywhere along the path from his eventua=
l=20
end to the beginning, but winks out of existence when he enters any branch=20
of the tree which is not along his world's line.

I think this is independent of the question of whether there are multiple=20
iterations of Severian (though as I said I don't think there really are).

Chris

>One thing has always bothered me about Sev's meeting with Juturna in Urth=20
>of
>the New Sun: she doesn't know about saving him, but indicates that now that
>she has been told, she will save him in the past and not allow him to=20
>drown.
>Does this imply that the Urth Severian is on at the conclusion of Urth of=20
>the
>New Sun is a different iteration, a different timeline?  Has he traveled=20
>even
>further back into the previous cycle of existence?
>
>If Juturna never saved him in that past timeline could the skull be his? =20
>Then
>how was he alive to wed Valeria?  The multiple lifelines are disturbing. =20
>Is
>there any way that Ash and the Green Man aren't mutually exclusive?  If the
>future Urth is dragged into a past cycle, then one planet can have the=20
>green
>man and the other can have master ash. It is quite clear that in some
>time-lines Severian is not the New Sun, right?  The timelines in which he=20
>died
>as a child?  Or is that inconsequential?
>
>Marc Aramini
>
>
>
>--

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