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But there is no such reason to mourn the destruction of a colony of cells: such a colony dies each time a loaf of bread goes into the oven. If a man is no more than such a colony, a man is nothing; but we instinctively know that man is more. What happens then to the part that is more?” He stumbled, as I have said. In that instant I believe my whole life teetered in the scales with his. Exhausted by his day’s travels, Severian finds an inn and asks for a room. The innkeeper says none are left but Severian insists and the innkeeper says he can share a bed with two others who he assured Severian are optimates (“good men”). He brings Severian to a room where Baldanders – “the largest man I had ever seen; a man who might fairly have been called a giant” -- is asleep. Severian joins him in bed with Terminus Est between them and they mumble greetings to each other.
deadhedge on The Secret of the Sul’Dam: Subtle Changes to the Way the One Power Works in The Wheel of Time TV Series 50 mins ago The narrator Severian recalls that when he was younger, he only desired “high things” like justice and for the Torturers guild to regain the high regard it once had. He then writes, “I am wise now, if not much older, and I know it is better to have all things, high and low, than to have the high only.” All this took place in dark and fog. I saw it, but for the most part the men were no more than ambient shadows—as the woman with the heart-shaped face had been. Yet something touched me. Perhaps it was Vodalus's willingness to die to protect her that made the woman seem precious to me; certainly it was that willingness that kindled my admiration for him. Many times since then, when I have stood upon a shaky platform in some marketplace square with Terminus Est at rest before me and a miserable vagrant kneeling at my feet, when I have heard in hissing whispers the hate of the crowd and sensed what was far less welcome, the admiration of those who find an unclean joy in pains and deaths not their own, I have recalled Vodalus at the graveside, and raised my own blade half pretending that when it fell I would be striking for him. Severian sees hundreds of people heading to the Sanguinary Fields, most of whom are merely onlookers. He then sees Agia and Dorcas descending from the inn and his desire for Agia is rekindled despite his disdain mere moments before. Both Agia and Dorcas can see this in his face, but Agia withholds herself from him because she is still angry with Severian. He reflects on the difference in women: “I think it is in this that we find the real difference between those women to whohe bm if we are to remain men we must offer our lives, and those who (again – if we are to remain men) we must overpower and outwit if we can, and use as we never would a beast: that the second will never permit us to give them what we give the first. Agia enjoyed my admiration and would have been moved to ecstasy by my caresses; but even if I were to pour myself into her a hundred times, we would part strangers.” And yet Severian still found himself desiring her.Master Palaemon notes that Severian will have to walk the long distance to Thrax since he has no funds. The mention of money causes Severian to remember the coin that Vodalus gave him and he reflects, “If I had not glimpsed the woman with the heart-shaped face and earned that small gold coin, it is more than possible I would never have carried the knife to Thecla and forfeited my place in the guild. In a sense, that coin had bought my life.” Big Labyrinthine Building: The House Absolute. Not only is the House so vast and complex that its extents are unknown, but there is a secret Second House coextensive with the first. Body Horror: Baldanders has attained eternal life at the cost of ceaseless growth. The implication is that he's become a humanoid cancer.
The rest of the book lived up to, and further complicated, the complex texture of that first paragraph, following the apprentice torturer’s misadventures as he makes the decision to betray the principles of his guild, narrowly escapes execution, and is sentenced to exile as a carnifex (an executioner) in the distant town of Thrax. On the way he shares a room with a giant man named Baldanders and meets and joins fates with Dr. Talos, the manager of a band of itinerant players to which Baldanders belongs. There was also combat to the death by flower (kind of), a wandering through a strange Botanical Garden that seemed to weave in and out of time, a character who seems to arise without explanation from a lake in which the dead are laid to rest, and much more. It’s dizzying and exciting, and also full of moments that show their full significance only later, when we have more pieces of the puzzle. In the old times, the lords of this world feared no one but their own people, and to defend themselves against them built a great fortress on a hilltop to the north of the city...Many of the people were angry at the building of that citadel, holding it to be their right to slay their lords without hindrance if they so desired.” Someone's coming," Roche whispered. Drotte jerked Eata out. I looked down the street. Lanterns swung there among the fog-muffled sounds of feet and voices. I would have hidden, but Roche held me, saying, "Wait, I see pikes." Here." He laid something in my palm: a small coin so smooth it seemed greased. I remained clutching it beside the violated grave and watched him stride away. The fog swallowed him long before he reached the rim, and a few moments later a silver flier as sharp as a dart screamed overhead . Severian and Agia climb up the ladder to the hut and find it inhabited by, as it turns out, the man who fled and now looks out a window (Robert), a woman reading aloud in a corner (his wife Marie) and a naked man crouching at her feet (Isangoma). Isangoma appears to be a local tribesman who speaks of Numen, the Proud One, and says “Everything found beneath leaves is his, the storms are carried in his arms, the poison holds no death unless his curse is pronounced over it!” Isangoma says he loves the Preceptress (Marie) and would save her if he could from the tokoloshe (dwarf-like mischievous evil spirits from South American myth). Robert turns from the window, looks at Severian and Agia and tells Marie, “As Isangoma says, the tokoloshe are here. Not his, I think, but ours. Death and the Lady.” It becomes obvious that Marie cannot see them and Robert says in frustration, “Don’t you see that they are the results of what we do? They are the spirits of the future, and we make them ourselves.”Severian carefully detaches a 3-foot-long avern at first, and then selects a second avern (over Agia’s warning objection) so that he can practice breaking off and throwing the deadly leaves. He discovers they can be thrown point-first like a knife or spinning in flight like a shuriken. Severian binds the 3-foot avern to a sapling so that it’s poisonous leaves will be transported (like a “grotesque standard”) several feet away from the group when they reboard the boat. Once across, Agia is so intent on driving Dorcas away that it gives Severian a chance to ask Hildegrin about Vodalus. Hildegrin denies knowing Vodalus and when Severian reminds him that “You tried to brain me with your shovel”, Hildegrin silently departs in his boat.
The narrator Severian then sets forth an analysis comparing the act of writing this narrative to that of his guildwork – it must satisfy the spectactors (the readers), the authority in whose name the carnifex acts (Severian’s own impulse to write), those who have paid the carnifex to give the condemned an easy or hard death (the accepted literary traditions) and the carnifex himself. For this latter requirement, “if he is to feel full satisfaction at the moment when Time lifts his own severed head by the hair, he must add to the execution some feature however small that is entirely his own and that he will never repeat. Only thus can he feel himself a free artist.” Forgotten the title or the author of a book? Our BookSleuth is specially designed for you. Visit BookSleuthSeveral of the others muttered agreement, and the group began to scatter, one lantern moving to the left and the other to the right. We went up the center path (the one we always took in returning to the fallen section of the Citadel wall) with the remaining volunteers. Cool Sword: Terminus Est, an executioner's blade given to Severian when he is exiled. It has a hollow filled with mercury in the blade that causes the center of weight of the blade to shift when swung. It's taller than Severian, who is said to be tall himself. Cliffhanger Copout: The novel was originally published as four separate volumes. Each of the first three volumes ended with a cliffhanger. In each case, the next book begins some time after the resolution of the cliffhanger with the resolution never explained in detail.
vinsentient on It’s No Fun To Be Alone: Communicating With Cryptids in The Shape of Water 3 hours ago I looked down the street. Lanterns swung there among the fog-muffled sounds of feet and voices. I would have hidden, but Roche held me, saying, "Wait, I see pikes." Dorcas finds a water hyacinth, the only one of its kind that Severian sees on the lake. This and Hildegrin’s implication that although the seeress’ cave was on the other side of the world, it was accessible in the garden, results in speculative musings by Severian on philosophy, physics and the nature of light and darkness.A faint humming is then heard and Marie says it is the mail plane. Severian joins Robert at the window and sees the strangest flier he has ever seen - - it has silver bulges on its wings and at the front of its hull and light seems to glimmer in front of these bulges. Marie tells Robert that they could be at the landing strip in three days when it next arrives. Isangoma starts a chant to drive away the tokoloshe. Agia then demands that they leave or Severian will be on his own for the duel, so they depart while Isangoma continues chanting in triumph. When he leaves House Azzure, the host catches Severian's eye and withdraws a phallus-shaped vial from his robe; his smile frightens Severian. Over the next year, Severian often spends time with Thecla, reading the four books, conversing and making love. Thecla tells Severian that the Vatic Fountain prophesied that Thecla would sit on a throne, that members of the court disputed who truly ruled the House Absolute -- the Autarch or Father Inire -- and of her belief that she will be released and she then dreams of building a villa in the most remote part of the Commonwealth. Thecla believes she was taken prisoner because her half-sister Thea is with Vodalus but Thea will never betray Vodalus to save Thecla. Severian tells her that he saw Thea once -- in the necropolis -- and Thecla asks him to remind Thea when he sees her "of the time we sewed Josepha's doll."
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