Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 10:05:45 -0600
From: James Jordan 
Subject: Re: (urth) Another Banggnab?

But Nutria,
         Gene said Typhon was aiming at Blue-Green. Doesn't that mean 
Bluegreen is in the same Banggnab?
         Yeah. But maybe Typhon really was aiming at Urth-Lune after the 
coming flood. He's set the people up to worship a two-headed god. He keeps 
his second head while he sleeps on the highest mountain he can find, hoping 
to pass through the coming flood. Then he'll awaken, greet the Whorl, 
become a god, and rebuild his space empire.
         Maybe.
         Meanwhile, Typhon gets killed, so there go his plans.
         And the Whorl returns to Urth-lune, but in a different Banggnab.

Nutria the Secondguesser

At 09:49 AM 12/17/2002, you wrote:
>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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