From: "J. Schultz" <jschultz@wcnet.org>
Subject: (urth) Katharine and the Conciliator
Date: Sun, 3 May 1998 20:39:49 

I always figured Katarine was a robot (or whatever you would call it) and
never assumed it was a real person.  Thus I never tried to place her in the
larger context of the story.  I will admit that your story seems to ring
true.
Here are my reasons for believeing as I did (although now I'm not sure)

--  Severian admits not being of his wits at the time:  "I felt dizy and
tired."
--  The blade seems to meet resistance and then thuds into the block.
--  The Block is cut in half by the sword!
--  A bloody head rolls onto the stage (supposedly a fake head, but...)
--  Even though Sev knows the lady's head is covered in fuligin, TO HIM it
looks like the head is missing.
--  She returns the wax head to her shoulders and is whole again.  (Sev
explains this as some slight where she ditches the 'wax' head in the
fuligin, but how?)
--  She is never seen except on feast day AND she never appears to age or
change.

It just smells fishy.
CRCulver,
    While I am at a loss on how many Sev's there are and what they all did,
(I would have to reread the whole series several more times!) I can add to
your discussion.  When 30,000 years elapses between the time you have
disapeared and the next time you act on the world, people would
automatically assume you had died.  I don't think a body would be needed to
lead many to believe he had died.  Few people actually saw him dissapear and
I doubt any would understand what had really happened.  Do you really
believe that the tomb of the Conciliator would remain unguarded, open and
accessable.  Maybe the tomb is really Sev1 who returns to Urth from Yesod
(in the past of course), marries, has children, and lives out his days in
defeat.  (or do you die when you fail the trial?)  If this theory is true,
what a messed up circle it would make if Sev was his own ancestor!

FunkMonkey
J. Schutlz
jschultz@wcnet.org



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