Index · 3 messages · 2 voices · 25 Nov 2012

The Secret of the Torturers

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the badger25 Nov 2012, 01:05as archived

Early in Shadow, right after Severian is elevated to journeyman, Master Gurloes takes him aside and tells him the ultimate secret of their guild. We're not told what this is at the time but Severian does say he promised to never reveal it, and that he later broke this promise. Do we ever find out what the secret is?

Jeff Wilson25 Nov 2012, 01:27as archived

↳ in reply to the badger

2 quoted lines

On 11/24/2012 7:05 PM, the badger wrote: Early in Shadow, right after Severian is elevated to journeyman, Master Gurloes takes him aside and tells him the ultimate secret of their guild. We're not told what this is at the time but Severian does say he promised to never reveal it, and that he later broke this promise. Do we ever find out what the secret is?

2nd to last para of SWORD XXXI: "I had not thought, when I began this record of my life, to reveal any of the secrets of our guild that were imparted to me by Master Palaemon and Master Gurloes just before I was elevated, at the feast of Holy Katharine, to the rank of journeyman. But I will tell one now, because what I did that night on Lake Diuturna cannot be understood without understanding it. And the secret is only that we torturers obey. In all the lofty order of the body politic, the pyramid of lives that is immensely taller than any material tower, taller than the Bell Keep, taller than the Wall of Nessus, taller than Mount Typhon, the pyramid that stretches from the Autarch on the Phoenix Throne to the most humble clerk grubbing for the most dishonorable trader?a creature lower than the lowest beggar we are the only sound stone. No one truly obeys unless he will do the unthinkable in obedience; no one will do the unthinkable save we."

Jeff Wilson - jwilson at clueland.com Computational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana < http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >

the badger25 Nov 2012, 01:35as archived

↳ in reply to Jeff Wilson

Thanks for this reference. Severian says this is "one of the secrets," meaning perhaps there are others. Obedience seems more like an all-pervasive theme or raison d'etre of the guild than a specific secret. For some reason I want to believe that there's something else, something esoteric related to Katherine the Weal, or the Autarch ...

9 quoted lines

On Nov 24, 2012, at 8:27 PM, "Jeff Wilson" <jwilson at clueland.com> wrote: 2nd to last para of SWORD XXXI: "I had not thought, when I began this record of my life, to reveal any of the secrets of our guild that were imparted to me by Master Palaemon and Master Gurloes just before I was elevated, at the feast of Holy Katharine, to the rank of journeyman. But I will tell one now, because what I did that night on Lake Diuturna cannot be understood without understanding it. And the secret is only that we torturers obey. In all the lofty order of the body politic, the pyramid of lives that is immensely taller than any material tower, taller than the Bell Keep, taller than the Wall of Nessus, taller than Mount Typhon, the pyramid that stretches from the Autarch on the Phoenix Throne to the most humble clerk grubbing for the most dishonorable trader?a creature lower than the lowest beggar we are the only sound stone. No one truly obeys unless he will do the unthinkable in obedience; no one will do the unthinkable save we." -- Jeff Wilson - jwilson at clueland.com Computational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana < http://www.tamut.edu/CIL > ______________________________

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