The Green Man and Agia

Nicholas Gevers01 Jun 1999, 16:26original as archived

I was a little surprised to read of people stumped by the precise (or deeper) meaning of the green man's prophecy of Severian finding Agia above ground. I've thought all along that there is a typical Wolfean ambiguity here: soon after the scene in the showman's tent, Severian searches for Thecla underground; as a genuine prophet, the green man is a) warning Severian that the woman he will in fact be searching for is not the dead Thecla, but Agia (the true author of "Thecla's letter"), who is still alive (unburied, above ground) and will be waiting in ambush for Severian outside the caverns (above ground); and b) that the woman he will believe he is searching for, Thecla, after proving not to be in the caverns (below ground) will be resurrected through the alzabo ritual as part of Severian (again, alive, above ground). //-------------------------------------- Nicholas Gevers potto at webmail.co.za

Peter Stephenson02 Jun 1999, 07:46original as archived

↳ follows Nicholas Gevers · by subject

2 quoted lines

Nicholas Gevers wrote: I was a little surprised to read of people stumped by the precise (or deeper) meaning of the green man's prophecy of Severian finding Agia above ground. I've thought all along that there is a typical Wolfean ambiguity here: soon after the scene in the showman's tent, Severian searches for Thecla underground; as a genuine prophet, the green man is ...

I don't want to drag this out into a pointless argument over points of view (viewless argument over views of points?) [I was arguing the green man, although he comes from the future, is a fraud when it comes to `predicting' people's personal histories], but... are there really genuine prophets in the Book? There are people who've seen the future, and can report on their own experience there; there are even beings who live backward in time; there are people with magic mirrors who can see things which may or not be there. But it doesn't seem to me there is anyone with supernatural sight. It would seem to violate the `no magic' rule. I'd be fascinated to hear a counterexample. corncrake

Peter Westlake02 Jun 1999, 10:50original as archived

↳ follows Peter Stephenson · by subject

At 09:46 1999-06-02 +0200, you wrote: ...

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I don't want to drag this out into a pointless argument over points of view (viewless argument over views of points?) [I was arguing the green man, although he comes from the future, is a fraud when it comes to `predicting' people's personal histories], but... are there really genuine prophets in the Book? There are people who've seen the future, and can report on their own experience there; there are even beings who live backward in time; there are people with magic mirrors who can see things which may or not be there. But it doesn't seem to me there is anyone with supernatural sight. It would seem to violate the `no magic' rule. I'd be fascinated to hear a counterexample.

Not a person, but what about the Vatic Fountain? It shows Severian all sorts of things from his future. How does it work? Does it just show lots of things and let you interpret them after the fact, or can it really prophesy? Would it work for anyone else? If not, how does it know who's looking at it? Or is Severian projecting his own foreknowledge of the future (if any) onto it? SBear.