From: Peter Westlake <peter@harlequin.co.uk>
Subject: Re: (urth) Miles & Jolenta
Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 00:16:45 +0000

At 17:39 1998-10-29 -0500, you wrote:
>One strong argument against Miles and Jolenta's being actual siblings (or
>lookalikes) is that *Jolenta* doesn't look like Jolenta. The original is a
>plain serving girl whom Dr. Talos has endowed with artificial glamour. The
>artificiality is what is attractive to Jonas.

That's right. Anyway, what is all this about Miles looking like Jolenta?
Severian doesn't show him Jolenta's face in the mirror, he shows him his
own! That's how mirrors work, even on Urth - this is only a shaving mirror,
not (half of) one of Hethor's portable teleporters.

Citadel, ch VI:

    "What do you remember? Tell me all of it, and I'll tell you what I know,
  and what I can guess."

    "Walking with you. A lot of darkness.... I fell, or maybe flew
  through it. Seeing my own face, multiplied again and again.
  A girl with hair like red gold and enormous eyes."

    "A beautiful woman?"

    He nodded. "The most beautiful in the world."

    Raising my voice, I asked if anyone had a mirror he would lend us
  for a moment. Foila produced one from the possessions beneath her cot,
  and I held it up for the soldier. Is this the face?"

    He hesitated. "I think so."

    "Blue eyes?"

    "...I can't be sure."

Condensed, this goes:

   "Seeing my own face, ..."

   "Was this the face?" - holding a mirror in front of him.

The face that he saw, in other words. The blue eyes Severian queries
are the soldier's "honest blue eyes" (next page). The soldier appears
to remember being Jonas, and Severian is asking him to compare the
face he remembers seeing in the mirrors with his present face. It
isn't physically the same, of course, but it keeps reminding Severian
of Jonas, and the soldier can be forgiven for having the same problem,
having been reprogrammed with Severian's idea of Jonas's memories.
Nothing to do with Jolenta at all.

Sceptical Bear.




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