'Doomed' multitudes

maru · 05 Apr 2005, 17:33 · from 2005-April.txt.gz

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From: marudubshinki at gmail.com (maru)
Date: Tue Apr  5 17:33:11 2005
Subject: (urth) 'Doomed' multitudes
In-Reply-To: <000201c53836$e6889f70$6401a8c0@TONYSPC>
References: <000201c53836$e6889f70$6401a8c0@TONYSPC>
Message-ID: <42532E40.5070509 at gmail.com>

Tony Ellis wrote:

>Abaia and co have *always* been poised to over the commonwealth. They
>were poised when Severian left to be Tested, and when he comes back
>70-odd years later the commonwealth is still there. We're even told that
>Valeria's second marriage was a good thing because while she could take
>care of the commonwealth 'he could take care of the Ascians.'
>
>  
>
I recollect the Undines said that they could have, at any moment taken 
the Commonwealth
but they forebore, to try and stop the New Sun.  I find one of the 
interesting things in Urth of the New
Sun is how Abaia & co are portrayed in a far more sympathetic light- 
they fight on the side of the sailors
to let Urth die a slow death, than a violent rebirth.  70-odd years 
later the Commonwealth is still there
because as Severian says, the 'time when my death could have prevented 
the coming of the New Sun was past',
and Sev didn't have to fear assasination at their hands anymore.

>Baldanders says: "The armies of Erebus follow the waves, and all the
>defeats they suffered at your husband's hands will be avenged." In what
>way does 'all the defeats they suffered at your husband's hands' suggest
>Abaia and co were poised to take over anything? 
>
>Gunnie and the other sailors are shown both futures. If the Frozen Urth
>future involves being horribly taken over by Abaia and co and everyone
>being doomed, nobody mentions it. A lot of the sailors think it's a
>future worth fighting for.
>
>  
>
The sailors are shown the consequence of the New Sun fork, not the Ice 
Urth fork.

>Nothing Master Ashe says suggests Abaia and co taking over either. If
>anything he seems to think they're running out of options. 
>
>  
>
More evidence that they sought the wrong fork in the path- shows that 
even their
desired end of a slowly freezing Urth dooms them and their progeny.

>  
>
>>I am curious as to what your life is like if you can consider that 
>>'ordinary'.
>>    
>>
>
>Oh, come off it. What constitutes an 'ordinary life' is entirely
>relative to time and place. The lives of the everyday people of the
>commonwealth Severian meets are ordinary for the people living them. I
>don't recall many of them saying "Wow, our lives are just so doomed and
>awful, aren’t they? I wish a big wave would come along and drown me and
>everyone I love." 
>
>I wrote:
>  
>
>>Since a planet does have to be drowned to
>>realise the potential of a handful of survivors in the New Sun future,
>>    
>>
>I
>  
>
>>think that's more important. 
>>    
>>
>
>Maru wrote:
>  
>
>>Not just a handful.  A handful prolfically reproducing to repopulate
>>    
>>
>the 
>  
>
>>planet.
>>A 'handful' which will persist throughout periods of time that if you 
>>even apprehended a smidgen of their yawning aeons...
>>    
>>
>
>That's still a handful, Maru. In the Frozen Urth future handfuls, at the
>very least, are taken to new worlds where they can reproduce with quite
>the same degree of hyperbole.
>
>  
>
>>Getting the idea of how many people have a chance to live should 
>>Severian choose to sacrifice a few? 
>>    
>>
>
>Getting the idea that just as many, if not more, will live if he doesn't
>sacrifice anyone at all?
>
>  
>
Please explain to me how you can say that N worlds of people (where N 
represents the totality
of worlds colonized by man, including a revitalized Urth/Ushas) could 
possibly only
equal or be less (!) than N-1 worlds of people.

~Maru

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