Sword of the Lictor, chapters 9 to 12

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Severian encounters a fiery thing and escapes by sheer dumb luck. A flashback reveals how and to an extent why Severian helped Cyriaca escape.

And Severian and Dorcas go their separate ways.

I know people have significant thoughts here, but I want to comment that the death of a salamander reminds me of the scene with the robot tank in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

Comments

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    First off, that salamander was so cool - I love the description of it opening like a flower. And yet, still so very hard to picture - all black, only really visible when something behind it could cast it in silhouette. That was super.

    Also, so much revelation in these chapters. Dorcas has suspected she was dead for a while now, and now we know why she wants to leave. It's not her dissatisfaction with Severian, but her need to discover herself. And Severian is very understanding of this, not at all a possessive person.

    Also very interesting, this idea that Thecla is a part of Severian because he consumed her - her personality, skills, and memories are now part of him. I do love this for a fantasy or horror scenario. Imagine a Lovecraftian scenario where players are invited to a banquet and discover they've eaten something... elder. How would they change? That's a great idea - probably been done, but I like it.

    And in other news, the Autarch serves the cacogens. Details at 11.

    Also, there's much talk about faithfulness and unfaithfulness here. Severian isn't called out, but I think there's too much talk for us to believe any longer that promiscuity is simply baked into society.

    Also of note, @dr_mitch : Humbaba's Stick is one of the methods of excrutiation that requires no tools, but tickles the nerves directly.

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    I thought that the writing in these four chapters was excellent... fluent and well-executed as always, but more than that this time. There was a fine blend of revelation of the past - both the immediate past of Severian, and the longer-ago past of Dorcas, whose reactions seemed entirely authentic to me.

    Going back to the question which exercised us last time - why the delayed reporting of events between the party with Cyriaca and climbing the hill to heal the girl - I think that doing it this way allows Gene Wolfe to narrate all these back-stories in a kind of tidal wave. The ability to contrast Dorcas's and Severian's very different moral crises and choices means that we, and they, put them side by side. If we had simply learned of things in temporal order, I think that this would be lost, and the crossroads for them as individuals and in relationship would not have been nearly so vivid.

    On another note, what is it, I wonder, about Severian and fire? The salamander is another fire entity, and Severian's reaction to fire is deliberately set in parallel to Dorcas's to water. Hers is understandable given her time being dead in the lake... where does his come from?

    Like @dr_mitch and @Apocryphal I am intrigued by Thecla's presence inside Severian. I thought at first that she was there just as a kind of static memory bundle, but recent descriptions make her sound more like a living presence reacting to events and sensory impressions. Is she being changed by these? Can she adapt and grow? Will her presence effect change in Severian in an active relational sense and not just because of helpful information?
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    I do think Severian is in the process of changing because of Thecla. I also agree that this sequence of chapters and contrasts, both in tone symbolically through light levels, through fire and water, and through stories being told, was effective.
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    @Apocryphal said:
    First off, that salamander was so cool - I love the description of it opening like a flower. And yet, still so very hard to picture - all black, only really visible when something behind it could cast it in silhouette. That was super.

    Yes, that was good. And it was, again, blind luck that allowed Severian to survive.

    Also, so much revelation in these chapters. Dorcas has suspected she was dead for a while now, and now we know why she wants to leave. It's not her dissatisfaction with Severian, but her need to discover herself. And Severian is very understanding of this, not at all a possessive person.

    By the same token, he's not a supportive person. He doesn't go with Dorcas, or offer much else in the way of actual help.

    Also very interesting, this idea that Thecla is a part of Severian because he consumed her - her personality, skills, and memories are now part of him.

    The extra memories are sort of expected after consuming the alzabo. The change in personality is unexpected. It's almost as if Thecla is possessing Severian at times, taking over his thoughts and actions. I'm not sure it's just a merging of the two.

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    LEXICON

    At first it was the colourless light of the creature, then a rapid alternation of chatoyant pastels - peacock blue, lilac, and rose. Then only the faint, reddish light of leaping flames. p.53

    Chatoyant: Having a light band in the middle of a gem - a cat's-eye effect.


    "But you don't believe I coughed them up. I don't blame you. Isn't there a story about a hunter's daughter who was blessed by a pardal, so that beads of jet fell from her mouth when she spoke?" p.56

    Pardal: A house-sparrow is most likely what's meant. An obsolete meaning for the word is 'panther'.


    I was going to use what we call Humbaba's Stick, but before I had touched her she told me. The Pelerines are near the pass of Orithyia caring for the wounded.

    Humbaba: Monster, guardian of the Cedar Forest from the later Epic of Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh and Enkidu visit the cedar forest to harvest logs from which to make a great gate for the E-anna Temple in Uruk. While in the forest, they run afoul of Humbaba, who has been appointed guardian of the forest by the Sun god, Shamash. Enkidu kills him and beheads him, and for this he is ultimately sentenced to death himself by Shamash (who is also the god of justice). Humbaba is described as a being with a wrinkly face and tusks - and bellowing like an elephant - perhaps a monstrous version of an elephant.

    What is Humbaba's stick? An elephant tusk? Or just a stick - a tool with which to sentence someone to death? Or just a blunt instrument?

    Pelerine: Did we look this one up before? It's a woman's cape with a particular shape. 19th C.

    Orithyia: The name of several women in Greek mythology, including a Nereid, a nymph, and an Amazon. The name means "woman raging in the mountains"
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orithyia.

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    Thank-you hugely for the lexicon entries. The number of unusual words doesn't die down as we advance;

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