Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2002 09:33:56 -0500
From: Joe Cilluffo 
Subject: RE: (urth) Blue as Ushas - long

Don wrote:

<<

"Or are you suggesting that the Blue of Horn's day was in the far future
of
the Ushas that Sev saw? That a new civilization (Neighbors) had risen
from
the mud of Urth-come-Ushas, that the new civilization had fallen to
ruin,
both on Ushas and Lune, and abandoned both worlds for greener pastures
around another star?"

Bullseye once again.  Though I'm honestly not sure where the Neighbors
have
gone. >>

Hello, Don.  

I always thought that LS and SS took place chronologically in Severian's
past -- when he was an apprentice and found/revived Triskele, met
Thecla, etc., all took place in the future relative to Typhon.  He met
Typhon in Urth of the New Sun in Severian's past, and thus the LS/SS
series cannot be Ushas because it only took about 250 years for the
Whorl to reach Blue.  I know that with GW time travel is always a
possibility, but the Whorl, as has been commented, didn't seem to be
constructed for FTL travel.  

It's an intriguing thought, though, this Blue as Ushas vein, and I have
always felt that Blue seemed like Ushas despite not understanding how it
could be so - the ruins of the Vanished People's world are the most
obvious tie, and Green of course is reminiscent of Urth's green moon.
But there was one other textual hint that tantalized me.  I am looking
at p. 203 of the new Tor version.  When Horn is trapped in the pit that
Krait rescues him from, "Once, as I lay there at the bottom of the pit,
it seemed to me that a man with a long nose (a tall man or an immense
spider) stood over me.  I did not move or even open my eyes, knowing
that if I did he would be gone.  He touched my forehead with something
he held, and the pit vanished."  To me this sounds like Sev with the
Claw -- the immense spider look is a result of his fuligin cloak, and he
typically went about reanimating people by placing the Claw on their
foreheads.  Horn proceeds to have an hallucination about Nettle cooking
for him, which is not unexpected -- all of the others Sev reanimates are
dazed for some time thereafter but, because NS is written from Sev's
perspective, we do not know if they are basically in a fog or whether
they hallucinate as Horn did.  But to me this seemed like Severian
bringing Horn back from the dead, which makes you think that perhaps
Blue indeed is Ushas.  

I should say though that I have about thirty pages of Blue left and
haven't read Green or RTTW yet, although I have read NS and LS, so I
could be missing something or repeating the obvious, for which I
apologize! : )

- Joe


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