Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2003 12:47:19 -0700
From: maa32 
Subject: (urth) sev's skull

So there is some disagreement over the skull.  I tried to emphasize that 
perhaps the Severian we knew was just a copy, as the Apu-Punchau who rises 
over his body is just a copy.  The original Severian has long since died, and 
has always been dead, as he says while underground with Master Ultan: I felt 
as if we were both dead and buried, or something like that.  Why should the 
chapter entitled "resurrection and death" be any different than the later, 
heirodule maintained Severian?  If he's not the first Severian (and we meet 
Ymar in Urth, and Severian says little about being identical to him - 
something one would certainly note: "he looked just like me as a kid! Go 
figure!")  I think that when Severian speaks of not being the first Severian, 
he means that there was a boy raised among the torturers who died and was then 
altered and artifically maintained by the Hierodules, who have the ability to 
tamper with time itself - and remember that the conciliator is the master of 
time.   If the Severian of the narrative of The Book of the New Sun is simply 
another eidolon, then surely that could be Severian's skull.
Marc Aramini



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