From: m.driussi@genie.geis.com
Subject: (urth) Strictly FWIW
Date: Tue, 12 May 98 02:31:00 GMT

Re: no monsters at the gate of Nessus, that this is standard
operating procedure, firing military hardware into the crowd just to
keep them off the road, when will they ever learn, setting
the wagon on fire, after a few chiliads you'd think evolution would
take hold, yawn, just another boring day for the bloodthirsty
highway patrol at the Sanguinary Turnstile.  Silly.

Re: the patrol/watchers at the gate have spotted Hethor and want him
for questioning at the least (i.e., just like when Severian tried
crossing the bridge from the deadish city into the lively city).
Yes.

Re: Hethor as cannibal survivor.  Interesting!  Feeding sick
pets--one continues to wonder: where does he keep these pets; how
does he transport them; if both questions are not answered with "he
teleports them in via some obviously very small and portable magic
mirrors"?  Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner as well as possibly The
Wandering Jew?

New maps of the multiverse.  Okay, so there is a region "between"
Briah and Yesod; "after" the death of Briah and "before" the birth of
Yesod.  This nameless transitional area (limbo) is apparently the
zone to which Jonas and The Cat go to--it is the misty ghost region.
(The Cat had no choice, but one continues to wonder what Jonas had in
mind by stepping into what amounts to being a Suicide Machine.)  It
might be that "apports" only happen in this region (maybe that is what
Jonas was banking on--that he would be an apport and then get onto
the ship and then get to Yesod.  Or appearing in space nearby, the
sailors would shoot him a line, as happens for Sev and Gunnie when
they are teleported into space near the ship).  When Severian opens the
Book of Mirrors and sees the butterfly woman (Tzadkiel) swimming through
space, there is much talk of death--it may be that he is seeing
Tzadkiel in the ghost region (well, that is slightly circular: it is
the book of magic teleporting to somewhere mirrors, after all).
Anyway, that notion that the mirrors of the Book of Mirrors offer him
death; the apparent dissolve of Jonas; and the notion in URTH about a
region of mist separating the land of the living from the land of the
dead, such that a ghost coming through is cloaked in vapor which the
living confuse with the spirit itself.

By the same tangent, the critters from the mirrors may come from the
grayzone between subspace and Briah (i.e., the dead of the previous
universe).  Again, this is the notion that mirror traffic is one way,
like blackhole in subspace leads to whitehole in Briah, blackhole in
Briah leads to whitehole in Yesod, etc.

The importance of memory in summoning.  The way that image preceeds
existence: flicker of light becomes the Fish; phantom Malrubius gains
enough substance to touch.  The miracle of the Stone Town requires the
ftl telephone conferencing with some geezer at Fomalhaut who
=remembers= ol' Apu.  The belief that memory of the dead means they
aren't entirely dead: the shields of the walrus hunters in Halvard's
tale (or his joke in OTTER, if that is where it was).

Re: Palaemon's previous adventure as the unwritten novella's story,
I've thought this for years, myself.

And now, a hypothetical sketch of Severian the Cruel.

Joining the rebellion of Vodalus.  Fixating upon the unseen Old
Autarch as the absent father (his own).

Exiled from the guild for killing the prostitute at Echopraxia.

Probably teams up with Agia--she takes the role of Dorcas, but they
are in a more "Bonnie and Clyde" mode.  (Medea-like, she betrays her
brother to Severian?  Who knows.  With no Claw to disuade her from
the murder plan, the Sanguinary Field scheme remains intact.  With no
Hethor, Agia might be looking for a strong arm to serve and direct.
With no Dorcas to interrupt the sexual seduction, maybe such a
juncture is where new alligences are made: Agia gets soft [aw, but
he's so cute]; Severian gets so savage that Agia thinks he will win
the contest, and she wants to back a winner.)

Fleeing Thrax for killing another prostitute (or Agia).  (He was
probably just a "carnifex" rather than a journeyman torturer, that is,
kicked out of the guild for being an algophilist.)  This would mirror
the sudden departure of Dorcas.

Finding the Old Autarch, he kills him with OEdipal glee, fulfilling
the Vodalarii vow.  But then he turns against Vodalus, now that
Severian is autarch.

No drowning, no fairy godfather, no dog, no Thecla.  No softness, no
love, just a savagery approaching that of Jenghis Khan; created from
his feelings of rejection from/abandonment by parents, compounded by
the nature of his upbringing.

So they show Sev2: here is your mother, here is your aunt, here is
your grandmother, here is your sister; here is a dog; here is your
father, here is your grandfather, here is your fairy godfather; here
is a very bad girl that your grandmother warns you against, and here
is the good girl next door.

=mantis=

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/