From: "Roy C. Lackey" <rclackey@stic.net>
Subject: (urth) Re: Re: Dear Dorcas
Date: Sat, 2 Oct 1999 04:30:55 

Alex wrote:

>>Speaking of ages, I think it would be interesting to try and gauge the
best estimate we can make of the ages of the various players in BOTNS.
Roy's estimate for Dorcas is plausible, although I tend to suspect that she
looks younger than she is, and this has lowered Agia's estimate (she also
has some motive for (a) jealousy of someone younger and (b) trying to make
her look like a mere child and thus perhaps undesirable to Severian).  I
think the other easiest people to peg are Severian and the Ag- twins (and
little Severian, of course).<<

In the same scene that Agia made her estimate of Dorcas' age, Severian
guessed Dorcas to be 18 or 19. Neither estimate changes the fact that she
was a teenage bride and mother, half Caron's age when they married. Someone
here (mantis?), IIRC, seemed to think Severian was 23, but that age is
nowhere given in the text. I think the reasoning was that, after ruling for
ten years, Sev should be 33, the age traditionally given for Jesus at the
time of the crucifixion. I think. Myself, I thought him to be a few years
less than that. As for Agia (and Agilus), Hildegrin makes several cutting
remarks about her that indicate he believes her to be a seasoned tramp and
says to Sev: "...you're a sight younger than what she is, for all you was
probably born only a couple years sooner." The wording is awkward, but I
think he meant that Sev was a couple of years the younger physically, but a
babe-in-the-woods compared to Agia. But if "sooner" is taken literally, then
Sev is a couple of years the older. I would guess the twins to be anywhere
from 22 to 24. Little Sev is judged by Sev to be "about of that growth when,
if he had been one of our apprentices, he would first have entered Master
Palaemon's schoolroom--that is to say, he was old enough to walk well, and
to talk sufficiently to understand and to make himself understood." About
five, I think.

Roy



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