Shadow + Claw

Michael Straight · 21 May 1998, 10:10 · from urth-v0011.mbox · original

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From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Subject: Re: (urth) Shadow + Claw
Date: Thu, 21 May 1998 10:10:01
Message-ID: <urth-v0011-0083 at digest.urth.net>
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On Thu, 21 May 1998, Peter Stephenson wrote:

> The Claw is the Claw:  is it possible that Severian finds a real
> live thorn in Citadel, which comes back with him in Urth to become the
> actual Claw?  Are there enough clues for or against to decide this?

There's the passage (in Citadel?) where Severian is on the beach and comes
across the rose bushes and sees that the thorns all look just like the
Claw and he removes his boots recognizing that he is always standing on
holy ground, everything is holy, all thorns are the Claw.  =20

Or maybe a better way to put it is that the Claw was not itself "magical"=20
rather it was special because it was the particular thorn the Increate
used to exercise his power (via the white fountain, via Severian), and
that any thorn, any ground is holy because it is the creation of the
Increate and a potential vehicle for his grace.  (Or maybe I'm reading too
much of my own sacramental/incarnational theology into it.)=20

So, to answer your question, I take this passage as saying, yes, any thorn
that Severian picked up and brought back in time would become the Claw.

-Rostrum

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