Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2003 09:16:34 -0700
From: maa32 
Subject: (urth) Malrubius/silk

My problem with regarding Malrubius' eidolon as Silk throughout BotNS is the 
explicit rationale for Malrubius and his presence with Triskele.  Does 
Malrubius' advice seem like something that Silk would spout?  Silk is a bit 
more of a preacher type with a devout message ... and that would mean that the 
hierodules who maintain the image of Malrubius would have to be discounted or 
labeled as "vanished people", which they aren't.  The way that Wolfe 
seamlessly integrated a rationale for the absence of the guard at the gate in 
the opening scenes of Shadow of the Torturer leads me to believe that anything 
he threw in wouldn't destroy the continuity like having Silk be malrubius' 
ghost (and the only Malrubius ghost that Severian would meet).

Unless one wants to rationalize the close kinship of Triskele with Malrubius 
in TBotNS by stating that Silk met and hung out with Triskele in RttW, so that 
would explain how Malrubius becomes an intimate acquiantance with the dog if, 
indeed, he was Silk instead of Malrubius.  That scheme would require some 
severe retrofitting:

a)vanished people must be hierodules
b)Silk's astral voyages must be considered eidolon-like
c) all of the commentary about Severian's youth or his experiences that 
Malrubius relates in TBOTNS must be considered lies or "altered"
d)  Malrubius' explanation at end of Citadel of the Autarch of what an eidolon 
is cannot be strictly factual, if he is actually alive somewhen else, being 
maintained in that universe by an artifact of the vanished people/hierodules
e)Severian must have a reason for substituting a new character for a master 
from his past, because he has no qualms about travelers like The Green Man and 
Master Ash, and identifying them by their "real identities".  If anything, 
Silk is more believable than them.

I don't think it works, really.

Marc Aramini



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