The Outsider: Severian?!

Keith Fields · 07 Apr 1997, 14:56 · from whorl-v0004.mbox · original

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From: Keith Fields <100530.2154 at CompuServe.COM>
Subject: (whorl) Re: The Outsider:  Severian?!
Date: 07 Apr 97 10:56:51 EDT
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[Posted from WHORL, the mailing list for Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun]

"Voices...One spoke into each ear most of the time. One was very
masculine--not falsely deep, but solid, as if a mountain of stone
were speaking. The other was feminine, a sort of gentle cooing; yet
both voices were his..>>

<<If that isn't Severian, I'll eat my mouse.>>

Alga:  Yes!  I'm in total agreement.  If that isn't Severian, I'll
eat my keyboard!  How about this, from Nightside, pg 10:

"It was the voices that mattered, only the paired voices (though
there were more, he felt sure, if only he had ears for them)..."

The moment I read that passage four years ago, I was thrilled,
because I knew Severian was back.

On page 66 of Nightside, Maytera Marble says the Outsider was
worshipped on the Short Sun whorl, before the ship was finished.
Couldn't that be the Conciliator?

I know others have suggested that the vision Silk sees of the
criminal on the scaffold is Christ.  Couldn't this have been from a
torture that Severian performed?  Remember, early in New Sun,
Severian wrote that he wouldn't describe all the excruciations he
performed.

Now, don't ask me to explain how Severian's consciousness came to
be on the Whorl, or why he would take such an interest in the Whorl.
I'm still working on those!

-Keith (No Vironese name yet)

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