Index · 3 messages · 3 voices · 13 Apr 1999

When Did You Last See Your Father?

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Peter Westlake13 Apr 1999, 10:02original as archived

↰ answers Robert Borski · by quotation

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At 00:43 1999-04-09 -0500, Roy C. Lackey wrote: On Thu, 8 Apr 1999 20:06:20 Robert Borski wrote:

Anybody willing to buy that this may also be symptomatic of morning sickness? Severian and Dorcas have been having sex long enough for her to be entering this stage of pregnancy, and it's interesting to note that nine or so months later, when Severian sees Dorcas for the last time in Oldgate, "on the floor near her was a basket, not small yet not large either." Could this basket perhaps contain a baby?<<

Damn! I just reread the series, noted and wondered about the basket (seemingly irrelevant to what was going on; she wasn't on a picnic), then forgot it. I think you're right. The idea of morning sickness had also occured to me when I read the vomiting scenes. I should have put them together!

And later Roy wrote: Okay, I accept that the woman Sev sees being led away, as Tony Ellis (and mantis, in the archives) states, is in the role of the Contessa, but who was she in the "real" world, outside the play, on the last day of Urth? Both she and Sev seem to recognize each other. From where, when? If she is less than forty years old, as suggested by her desirability, then Sev couldn't have seen her on Urth, because he has been gone that long. Why was she apparently being arrested?

Maybe she's a little older than that; could she have been born at the very start of Severian's reign, for instance? SBear. Peter Westlake, Harlequin Ltd, Barrington Hall, Barrington, Cambs CB2 5RG.

Roy C. Lackey13 Apr 1999, 06:59original as archived

↳ follows Peter Westlake · by subject

2 quoted lines · depth 2

On Tue, 13 Apr 1999 11:02:52 +0100 Peter Westlake wrote: Maybe she's a little older than that; could she have been born at the very start of Severian's reign, for instance?<<

Believe me, that occurred to me, but I couldn't reconcile it with the wistful, mutual recognition. But if you put it together with Robert Borski's idea that she is Catherine, his mother, then it all comes full circle. The child in the basket was his mother. Sev fathered his own mother on his grandmother! He's his own grandpa! Too much! Roy

Kieran Cleary13 Apr 1999, 13:39original as archived

↳ follows Roy C. Lackey · by subject

1 quoted line

she is Catherine, his mother, then it all comes full circle. The child in the basket was his mother.<

I like that as a possibility, but for this to work, Catherine needs to get whipped back through the corridoors of time in order to meet Oeuen (sp?) so that she can conceive Sev. What's the rationale for this time travelling? Also, Sev's mother was supposed to be an exultant Pelerine? Whence the exultant genes if her mother was Dorcas and father Sev himself? Kieran North West Labs Stephen St. Court Sligo Republic of Ireland Tel. +353 71 69441 Fax. +353 71 69451 email: kierannwn at tinet.ie

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