Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 09:49:20 -0600
From: James Jordan 
Subject: (urth) Another Banggnab?

I'll take a stab at marc's mystery. This is wholly speculative. I don't 
have a secret communication from Gene, and I don't have evidence from the text.
         We know that Briah is but one cycle of the overall sequence of 
Banggnabs.
         Is it possible that Blue-Green is Urth-Lune in another Banggnab?
         Is it possible that Silk is the Conciliator of this Banggnab, and 
that is why he has a link with Severian?
         Does this account for the similarities and differences between the 
two?
         Well, maybe. And Wolfe does think BIG as well as small. Consider 
the smallness of the commonwealth and the hugeness of the Yesod-Briah 
universe around it. Viron is also small, but there is a Yesod-Briah 
universe around it also, but maybe not the same one.
         Are Neighbors parallel to heiros (or whatever)? Have they gone to 
their Yesod? Are they the angelic superintendents of this Banggnab?
         Of course this raises questions, such as how the Whorl made this 
trip, and whether astral travel back to Urth is time-travel or some kind of 
parallel-universe travel.
         Now as for smart cannibal trees, I can see one possibility: The 
Jungle Garden, which is textually linked with Inire's fish-producing mirror 
in *Shadow.* The missionary hut is among these trees. Are these smart trees 
that are being influenced by the missionary?
         I should look back at these chapters. There is a whole microcosm 
here, with "waters under the earth" that harbor the dead, etc. Hey! Is this 
a slice of Silk's Banggnab inside of Severian's Banggnab?
         Which brings up Inire's mirror. The mirror is a symbol for contact 
with God/Heaven in the Bible (1 Cor. 13:12). The mirror brings a fish at 
one point, and shortly thereafter Agia makes the only reference to the 
Theoanthropos in the whole five Severian books; and it opens to show a 
cherub to Severian later on. It seems to contact the Super Universe beyond 
all of Briah and Yesod, the Heaven that is above all Banggnabs.
         Did the Whorl pass through such a mirror, and enter another Banggnab?
         Is the underground lake a form of the mirror, leading to the realm 
of the dead?
         Consider Inire's mirror as the firmament over the earth, 
interfacing with what is ultimately above, and the lake as a firmament 
under it, leading down.
         Hey! Is Silk's enlightenment the point at which the Whorl passes 
through the firmament into heaven, and then back into a new Banggnab? Ah, 
well if Silk et al. have been through the firmament on the way to 
Blue-green, then they can astrally travel back through it to Urth-lune to 
the equivalent point in time in the earlier or later Banggnab.
         Or maybe better, the Whorl only contacted the mirror-firmament 
slightly, so that only Silk was enlightened, for that was all the Outsider 
wanted. Then it bounced back into another Banggnab. But since Silk has made 
this trip once, he can go back to the Urth Banggnab in his astral travels, 
and take the rest with him.
         Oh well, this has been fun. If its even partly right, marc, then 
you OWE IT TO ME to say so.

Nutria the Bold

Nutria


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