Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 15:46:49 -0700
From: maa32 
Subject: (urth) random stuff

I was in error in attributing the Lysistrata to Euripedes: of course 
Aristophanes wrote it, right?

Also, another big parallel with Eco's book and TBOTNS is the deluge: the man 
shipwrecked on a ship waits for a really big flood to come, with some 
saving/redeeming qualities.

Also, it seems to me that the recent idea of the Claw as some kind of 
antithesis to the Ring might not fully consider the fact that the power of the 
claw actually stems from Severian: as one who has come closer and closer to 
the fabric of time, he can reverse time and bring the departed back to life, 
and I don't think that power lies in the Claw; Severian just uses it as a 
focus and an excuse.  If the Claw has any powers, it is only from the future  
Severian, (the eidolon directly preceding the narrator of Urth of the New 
Sun).  Most of the claw's powers can be explained by the reversal of time ... 
or a rip in the fabric of time ... but not that water to wine business at the 
beginning of Claw.  That overt act has always made me consider Severian a bit 
more like Christ than  any other ... even if Wolfe does maintain that Severian 
is just a man undergoing a Christian journey or something ... that particular 
miracle doesn't match up with Severian as a servant who just happens to have 
power over time, and turns him into some kind of transmuter of nature.  In any 
case, I always saw the Claw as some kind of signifier for the real power 
inside Severian, not an artifact in any real way ... I don't think it would 
work for anyone else since it has no inherent powers except through its 
proximity to Severian, whereas the Ring could corrupt just about anybody -> 
and that scene with the sand on the beach at the end of Citadel of the Autarch 
makes that explicit, doesn't it? I'm sure this is nothing new.
Marc Aramini



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