monsters and names

b sharp says:

Coming late to this, but it is verifiably not humans that are named after saints. It is citizens of the Commonwealth who are. Ascians are not named after saints. Alternately, Typhon's daughter (and I presume we can extrapolate the others as well) IS named after a saint. Later, the crew and cargo of the Whorl will not have saint names. So were Abia, Erebus, Scylla, etc originally human or were they "aliens"? IMO Likely they were originally human. There is certainly nothing especially inhuman about Typhon in appearance -- except that one little thing, and that is a human body he's got, right? Until the Neighbors and the Inhumi, are there any sentient beings in the entire Sun Cycle that are positively not human or decended from humans? Isn't there something Wolfe himself wrote or said either in one of the BotNS appendices, Castle of the Otter, or in an interview in which he discusses that one obvious way to extend human life indefinitely is to extend growth? I'd bet a body part that there is, although I can't remember the location right now. J

Ah, yes. I stand corrected. Only human citizens of the Commonwealth are named after saints.

My own small correction here: the hypernaut sleepers still retain their saintly names; e.g., Mamelta and Roger. em

James makes a good correction on the saint names being for those humans of the Commonwealth, not all humans. James asks:

Ossipago (bonegrower) says it toward the end of Sword and that topic was discussed in more depth in some of the (mine included) Baldanders posts of this month. James asks:

Would you consider the original Jonas (and his brothers), Sidero etc. to be examples? Someone recently asked how Talus brains were made and the same question could be asked about these mechanical men from ship Tzadkiel. If their brains were programmed from scratch then I think the answer to your question is yes. But if their brains were created by the process which created Mr. Million, scanning a human brain, then I'd call them human descended. Since I strongly suspect BotNS takes place in the 5th Head of Cerberus universe I think mechanical brains are human in origin. -bsharp

mornings glory responds:

Heh heh heh...That leaves a lot of room for different naming conventions. But I agree that it strongly does imply that Typhon & Co were not born in the Commonwealth. I queried:

b sharp replied:

I was pretty sure there was something "extra-narrative" about it. I asked:

b sharp said:

Well, being made by humans, they are "decended" from humans. I presume the Hierogrammates to be "decended" from humans in just such a way. If there had been no humans, the Hierogrammates would never have existed. The same with any beings made by the Hierogrammates such as subsequent Severians. J

Iirc, there were aliens serving as crewmen on other decks of Tzadkiel's ship. But the most obvious groups are all those beings who were manipulated by the Hieros to engineer the Hierogrammates. Mankind's great sin. ("The key to the Universe", CITADEL) -Roy