From: "Roy C. Lackey" 
Subject: Re: (urth) a  (kind of) brief summary
Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 17:41:20 -0600

Marc Aramini wrote:
>>Read the chapter in Sword of the Lictor with Typhon again.  Here is the
clincher - he knows that URTH WILL FLOOD.  He TELLS Severian that water
brings
purification and renewal, and hints that the Urth will be flooded.  He knows
a
lot more than anyone else, including Severian - he knows exactly who the
conciliator is.<<

Typhon says _nothing_ about a flood. He knows _very little_ about the person
known as the Conciliator. Look at the larger picture. Typhon had been dead
for at least a thousand years before Sev's coming revived him. He died not
long after his first and only meeting with Sev on his mountain. That meeting
took place only a few days after Sev and Burgundofara were dropped off by
Tzadkiel's tender in Urth's past, in the era of the Monarch. Sev was in that
era for no more than a week. He healed a few people and word of it reached
Typhon, who had his own health problems. Most of the legends that accrued to
Sev/the Conciliator/the New Sun were born _after_ Sev disappeared and Typhon
was dead. The _Whorl_ had departed before Sev ever appeared in Typhon's era
and Typhon found himself besieged on the mountain. Sev's appearance in the
era of the Monarch seems to have been the origin of the legend of the
Conciliator.

What is even more certain is that the legend of the New Sun _didn't exist_
before Typhon's era. The very concept was meaningless. The 'wounding' of the
sun took place during Typhon's era. Because it wasn't broken before that, it
didn't need fixing. Typhon had no belief in a supernatural 'fix', much less
a supernatural fixer. Therefore he had no idea that the fix would cause the
flooding and destruction of Urth. When he launched the _Whorl_, it was not
done with an eye to preserving mankind by founding a colony on another
world; mankind was already spread all over the galaxy. And he certainly
didn't send the _Whorl_ out to mark time until Ushas was ready to be
repopulated. New people were being deposited on Urth even as the flooding
was taking place. The very idea of Urth-come-Ushas had no part in Typhon's
plans because he had no knowledge that such a thing _could_ happen, much
less would.

-Roy


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