Hierodules & time

It is hierodules who are supposed to travel backwards through time, right? I always get the various hiero-levels mixed up. Whatever, it's a really annoying plot device & I'm glad that Wolfe dropped it in the (far, far better, IMO) Long/Short Sun books. If they actually do move backwards in time then surely this must be true of each instant. In which case how do they converse with Sev? It's fairly absurd to imagine them constructing sentences and then delivering them backwards. But it's even more absurd to imagine them delivering those backwards-sentences in response to, but before, comments made by Sev. Unless they are lying for some reason about progressing backwards- thru-time. Which would be equally annoying. Bah! Harumph.

There's a much simpler explanation. They age forward (their personal timeline goes in the same direction as anyone else's) but they are traveling backward via the corridors of time. They are from the future moving down the timeline to the past. And GW certainly didn't drop time travel in the LS SS series, imo, but I'm of the opinion that NS UotNS LS and SS are a single 12 volume novel rather than separate series set in the same universe. Don

Do what? <g> Sorry, no doubt being dumb but I just don't understand that. If they are "from the future moving down the timeline to the past", wouldn't that correspond to what I wrote?

Replying to my own post, to clarify:

They are traveling via a device, not through the "natural" process. They are from the future moving

Meaning travelling backward is their job, their assignment, rather than their nature. Don

Yeah, I realised that wasn't too clear so I reposted. Basically they're just like you and me if we had a time machine and Roy told us to take it and always travel backward, contacting GW Bush from his last days in his presidency to his time travelling escapades in First Dynasty Egypt. : )

To further clarify this (how tacky on my part) Famulimus, Barbatus only live for about twenty years, so traveling by a machine is the way to maximize their time with Sev. The reason they are travelling backward is so they can be knowledgeable guides when Sev needs it most, before he becomes Autarch and during his early reign. There's really no need for them (storywise) to age backward and I don't think that's what's happening.

Yes, I certainly agree that's the best explanation, but I'm not sure it fits 100%. I think they say at some point that backwards- thru-time is indeed their nature - on the Ship? Need to rummage around to see if I can find the passage. But mainly - why? It seems a very inconvenient way to plan a mission. I mean, I can see the point of them going back in time for (say) a first meeting with Baldanders, after which they move forward like everybody else. But that isn't what seems to happen: they've had interactions with Sev on Urth before (on their timeline) his first meeting with them (on his), which is also their last interaction with Baldanders (on his timeline) in his castle. So it would have to be something more complicated. Which would be, once again, annoying :) A quick flip thru the archives shows somebody suggesting that Ossipago might temporarily reverse their time-flow for interactions with "normal" people. I guess that'd patch my conceptual hole here, if there were some evidence for it. But I still wouldn't like it.

Both Tzadkiel and Typhon (I think it is him) make chessboard references to the BotNS drama. Tzadkiel tells Severian that his is a race of pawns, who can only move in one direction in time, unless they reach the end (Yesod) and are brought back to the beginning to play as a new piece. Aren't the hierodules also pawns who can only move in one direction in time? But they move in the opposite direction of Severian. Typhon says Severian plays for the black team, so his opposition must be the white team. Each side has players which are not pawns. Which side are we supposed to root for?????????? -bsharp

I think it was Vodalus, not Typhon, who made the chess reference, and identified himself as playing the black side. I may be wrong -- if so, can b or someone else point me to the Typhon reference? Macronaut