From: "Roy C. Lackey" 
Subject: Re: (urth) Severian's Daughter & Thais
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 12:20:55 -0500

Nutria wrote:

>         Hmmm. Well, I've always thought Severian was his own grandfather
>somehow, and that was the outcome of his relation with Dorcas. I can't
>recall how I came up with that -- maybe it was just the general ambience of
>the novels that led me to it. But if that's right, it would seem to
>eliminate Thais from direct consideration. Set me straight, someone!

If you have long held the Sev-is-his-own-grandpa theory, just ignore this.
But if you picked up the notion from this list about three years ago, then
the fault is mine. I posted just such a theory then. I say "fault" because
the theory was based on the assumption that there was a baby in the basket
Dorcas had with her when Sev last saw her, that the baby was hers, and Sev
was the father. In the normal course of things, that just isn't possible.
There just wasn't enough time between Sev's first encounter with her (late
winter/early spring) and when he saw the basket (late summer/early autumn)
for them to have produced a baby.

My apologies if I led anyone astray. Of course Sev might otherwise be his
own grandpa, but my theory was wrong.

-Roy


--