From: m.driussi@genie.geis.com
Subject: (urth) Severian's Humanity
Date: Wed,  8 Apr 98 00:11:00 GMT


[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]

Reply:  Item #6224292 from URTH@LISTS.BEST.COM@INET#

Terry Nickolette,

We might better call this "Severian's sense of Mercy"; but even so,
it is (still) a tangle.  Each act Severian performs can be qualified.

Severian's relationship with Triskele is that of human and animal.
Severian's "mercy" in giving Thecla a knife, while on the one hand a
testament of his love being so great that he would go against his own
guild, is largely a result of his spiteful desire to avenge himself
of her "inadequate" degree of love for him.  Severian's release of
Cyriaca is less tainted.  Giving half a whetstone to the Green Man is
relatively clean mercy.  Severian's lack of mercy is instrumental in
getting little Severian's family killed.  (In the same sort of pattern
that leads to Valeria being killed.)

But when he gets inside the castle of Baldanders and sees the
vivisectioned woman, he himself notes the change within himself.  So
this is a benchmark of sorts.

It seems much easier for Severian to use the Claw on strangers; he
prudently (and masterfully) avoids killing such clear and present
enemies as Agia; yet people closer to his heart have a much harder
time--another reason for Catherine to keep her distance (Merryn,
too)!

=mantis=

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