Date: Sat, 19 Jul 2003 18:05:41 -0700
Subject: Re: (urth) Malrubius/silk
From: Lisa Schaffer-Doggett 

Don repeats, possibly unnecessarily:

Why can't the Malrubius eidolon simply  be Sev's memory of Silk?  This 
is a much cleaner and more consistent explanation than having Silk 
guide Sev through his entire journey.

On Friday, July 18, 2003, at 09:16 AM, maa32 wrote:

> 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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