Baldanders has the name of a shapeshifting creature in German folklore. He is not what he seems, and turns out to be subject to unnatural growth. Master Palaemon gifts Severian with a sword nearly as long as a coffin, its traveling sheath and a baldric (a leather belt worn over the shoulder to support the sword). Although Severian says he deserves no gifts, the Master says that he deserves it because he has had no better scholar since Master Gurloes rose to journeyman. The words Terminus Est are beautifully engraved on the sword, which means This is the Line of Division. When Severian poises the sword above his head, its weight shifts and Master Palaemon explains, “There is a channel in the spine of her blade, and in it runs a river of hydrargyrum – a metal heavier than iron, though it flows like water. The balance is shifted toward the hands when the blade is high, but to the tip when it falls.” Unreliable Narrator: Severian is one of the big ones, and it is sometimes lampshaded. He claims on several occasions to have an eidetic memory - but it's quite clear that he sometimes lies outright. He also omits details that he apparently considers unimportant (or has difficulty understanding) - this extends to major events that change the course of the story.

Which doubles as a Stealth Pun, since Severian is Crystal Dragon Jesus. I see what you did there, Gene Wolfe. The Complete Book of the New Sun: The Shadow of the Torturer, The Claw of the Conciliator, The Sword of the Lictor, The Citadel of the Autarch, The Urth of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe – eBook Details Wham Episode: Lake Diaturna. Severian fights Baldanders, Terminus Est is destroyed, and Severian meets the Hierodules. So armed, he sets forth into the vast City, heading for the distant gate. On his way he encounters the twins Agia and Agilus, who drive him to an arcane duel on the Sanguinary Field; the acting troupe of Dr. Talos, a charlatan, Baldanders, a monstrous giant, and the lovely Jolenta; and Dorcas, a mysterious girl who appears on the shore of the Lake of Birds, where the dead lie. Father Inire gives Domnina instruction in some basics of physics – (1) that if something moves very, very fast, it grows heavy and is attracted to Urth or other worlds, becoming a source of attraction itself if it travels fast enough; and (2) although light is weightless, it presses against what if falls on like a wind pushes the arms of a mill. He explains that the mirrors are used to travel between the stars, saying “if the light is from a coherent source, and forms the image reflected from an optically exact mirror, the

Interpretations

Drotte continued, "You must know that for certain simples to attain their highest virtues they must be pulled from grave soil by moonlight. It will frost soon and kill everything, but our masters require supplies for the winter. The three of them arranged for us to enter tonight, and I borrowed that lad from his father to help me." Dystopia: The Ascian nation is an Orwellian dystopia. While the Commonwealth is no utopia, at least it doesn't force people to speak only in authorized quotations. Mind Screw: Is Severian God? Is the whole thing a complicated twisting plot through multiple timelines? Can we believe a quarter of what Severian is telling us? And many many others. Let's put it this way, there's enough Mind Screw in here to make Evangelion look like an episode of Sesame Street. Ironically, Severian writes that the purpose of his book is to avoid speculation about the events of his life. One can imagine Wolfe having tongue firmly in cheek when he wrote that.

Destructive Saviour: The New Sun will restore the dying Urth to health by reigniting the sun, which is otherwise on its way of going out. However, this will create gravitational shifts that will drown all populated land and reduce humanity to the mere handful of people who were on ships or off-world. Many people consider this abrupt cataclysm to be a worse fate than a nice, slow process of extinction. When finally Thecla is put to torture, Severian takes pity on her and helps her commit suicide, by smuggling a knife into her cell, thus breaking an oath to his guild.

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He stumbled, as I have said. In that instant I believe my whole life teetered in the scales with his.

Severian departs on his journey and his heart lifts as he leaves the Citadel. Years later, while writing this account, he comments, “Wrongly I thought I would perish on the way. Wrongly I thought I should never return to the Citadel and our tower; but wrongly too I believed that there were many more days to come, and I smiled.”

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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. Additionally, even well known words commonly substitute for some far future equivalent, which occasionally doesn't become obvious for a while. For example, "sailor" can either refer to someone who sails on the sea, or to someone who crews a spaceship.

Light Feminine Dark Feminine: Severian spends a large part of the first book alongside Agia (dark-haired, scheming, seductive: the dark feminine) and Dorcas (blonde, friendly, vulnerable: the light feminine). In the second book, Jolenta takes over as the dark feminine, including in the roles she and Dorcas assume during Dr. Talos' play. Expy: Severian has aspects of the Emperor Claudius as seen in I, Claudius by Robert Graves. He has the epithets "Severian the Mad" and "Severian the Lame", and, like Claudius. has a less than happy marriage to a woman named Valeria. Brain Food: The Autarchy is passed on by the successor eating the forebrain of the reigning Autarch along with alzabo gland extract. The plot is distinctly non-linear and postmodern in many ways and will not hold your hand or explain what is happening for better or worse. The benefits of this are that you are immediately immersed in Severian's head and his working knowledge of the world around him. Deadly Euphemism: The Torturer's Guild refers to its victims as "clients"; also, its technical name is "Guild of The Seekers for Truth and Penitence."

Genre-wise, the book is a political autobiography. For example, Severian elaborately washes his hands of the murder of his delicious predecessor and appeals to his soldiers by claiming to be a war veteran. Gene Wolfe is a wizard, a torturer, frightening, delightful. Beware! This is magic stuff! ... Totally original, new, incomparable: the beginning of something great, the first exploration of a new world." Consider the unnatural height and alien-influenced appearance of Exultants, whose numbers include Thecla, Vodalus, and Thea. The exact degree of their distinctive height and features is vague, leaving it uncertain whether they'd strike us as beautiful, or as Humanoid Abominations. Torture Technician: The Torturer's Guild in which Severian is raised and apprenticed. As there are, by decree, no female torturers, the guild raises such male infants as fall into their hands. Dead All Along: Severian. For clarification, in the coda, The Urth of the New Sun, Severian died early in the book but immediately had all his memories implanted into a new, identical body that Tzadkiel fashioned for him on the spot. Unless he died earlier than that. And there's reason to think he did... there's a skull at the bottom of the river where he "nearly" dies in the first book.