From: "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" 
Subject: Re: (urth) Malrubius' ghost
Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2003 08:58:26 -0700

>But looking at it from the flip side, do you think it might be possible 
>that, when Severian refers to the ghost of Malrubius, he's actually using a 
>sort of euphemism? To be more direct, perhaps it was Silk astral travelling 
>again, and since Severian had opted not to explain Silk in the first place 
>he filled in a name to substitute in the ghost sequences?

Nah. Much more likely that Wolfe hadn't invented Silk yet then.

Meaning that Wolfe had something clealry in mind when he created
the ghost of Malrubius, which was NOT the Narrator, or Silk, or
anything to do with the Long and Short Sun books. When dealing
with tBotNS, I think it's appropriate to (mostly) ignore the L/S books
and seek for answers based on what's given there.

Not to say that Wolfe can't retrofit. The business about the gate
is a perfect example: he took something that had no explanation
(and indeed needed none) in the NS, and allowed the events of SS
to intertwine with it so as to provide one. But to take something
that was important in NS, and retcon it to change its meaning,
would be bad art; it would damage NS in the context of the larger
metatext.

Malrubius' ghost is explained by the Hieros as an aquastor generated
by the ship from Sev's memories. I then see four possibilities:

1. This is in fact the case.
2. The Hieros lied to Sev.
3. Sev lied about what the Hieros said.
4. Wolfe commits bad art.

I reject the fourth.

The second and third are possibilities, but I would want to see some
intratextual evidence for either, some reason to think that someone is
lying in this particular case.

And I'll stick with the first pending such evidence.

--Blattid

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