On Friday, July 18, 2003, at 09:16 AM, maa32 wrote:
My problem with regarding Malrubius' eidolon as Silk throughout BotNS is the explicit rationale for Malrubius and his presence with Triskele. Does Malrubius' advice seem like something that Silk would spout? Silk is a bit more of a preacher type with a devout message ... and that would mean that the hierodules who maintain the image of Malrubius would have to be discounted or labeled as "vanished people", which they aren't. The way that Wolfe seamlessly integrated a rationale for the absence of the guard at the gate in the opening scenes of Shadow of the Torturer leads me to believe that anything he threw in wouldn't destroy the continuity like having Silk be malrubius' ghost (and the only Malrubius ghost that Severian would meet).
Unless one wants to rationalize the close kinship of Triskele with Malrubius in TBotNS by stating that Silk met and hung out with Triskele in RttW, so that would explain how Malrubius becomes an intimate acquiantance with the dog if, indeed, he was Silk instead of Malrubius. That scheme would require some severe retrofitting:
a)vanished people must be hierodules
b)Silk's astral voyages must be considered eidolon-like
c) all of the commentary about Severian's youth or his experiences that Malrubius relates in TBOTNS must be considered lies or "altered" d) Malrubius' explanation at end of Citadel of the Autarch of what an eidolon is cannot be strictly factual, if he is actually alive somewhen else, being maintained in that universe by an artifact of the vanished people/hierodules e)Severian must have a reason for substituting a new character for a master from his past, because he has no qualms about travelers like The Green Man and Master Ash, and identifying them by their "real identities". If anything, Silk is more believable than them.
I don't think it works, really.
Marc Aramini
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Urth Net