Rereading Wolfe

James Wynn's False Thecla Theory

Added 2021-12-11 19:14:40 +0000 UTC

"My bed seemed to toss beneath me. I gripped the sides and sat up and it was still, but as soon as my head touched the pillow once more the swaying began again. I felt I was wide awake - then that I was awake again but had been sleeping only a moment before. I was conscious that someone was in the tiny cabin with me, and for some reason I could not have explained I thought it was the young woman who had taken the part of our patroness.”

“I sat up in the tossing bed. Dim light filtered beneath the door; there was no one there. When I lay down again, the room was filled with Thecla's perfume. The false Thecla from the House Azure had come, then.I got out of bed, and nearly falling opened the door. There was no one in the passage outside.” - Chapter 11, The Feast, The Shadow of the Torturer

This event occurs in Severian’s new cell, after his elevation to journeyman. I think there is an explanation for this event that ties in with Severian’s conversation with False Thecla and also aligns with Chapter 1:1’s allusion to the first chapter of Great Expectations.

These are my priors:

The maid in the ceremony at Severian’s ceremony is his mother, Catherine (Katharine).**
Catherine was not arrested for running away from the Pelerines. This strikes me as impossible. The Pelerine’s don’t even punish runaway slaves. Instead, I believe Catherine was a runaway khaibit. Given that the khaibits have intimate knowledge of matters of state, this very well could be interpreted as treason.
The khaibits are clones of the exultant chatelains as the Autarch tells Severian. The Autarch says the purpose of the khaibits' blood transfusions are to extend their lives. Baldanders also GROWS to extend his life. The exultant’s extraordinary height is not genetic but possibly due to a procedure that involves receiving blood transfusions from the khaibits. The exultants grow for the same reason Baldanders grows -- to extend their lives.

This is why Baldanders and Thecla both have teeth too small for their faces.

“She had narrow, very white teeth in a wide mouth.” (chapter 7, The Shadow of the Torturer)

“He sat at the edge of the bed, cleaning sparse and surprisingly small teeth with one great finger.”

(chapter 15, The Shadow of the Torturer)

There is no consensus on any of these points. But each is key to my explanation.

What I think is implied here is that the exultants are a line of clones – as was Typhon who was among the earliest of the exultant class.

He says “No, I was not born as I am, or born at all, as you meant it.” It seems that clone engendering was still rare enough on Urth in Typhon’s time that he considers it worth remarking on.

When the new exultant generation is cloned, they are cloned in pairs. One is randomly chosen to be the exultant and the other will be the khaibit. False Thecla says

"I was saying that the Chatelaine Thecla is not the Chatelaine Thecla. Not the Chatelaine Thecla of your mind, which is the only Chatelaine Thecla you care about. Neither am I. What, then, is the difference between us?", chapter 9, The Shadow of the Torturer

False Thecla is making a broader point but it is based on a real fact that is perhaps only commonly known among the exultant class itself: That the khaibits are genetically identical to their twins and had as much chance of being the exultant -- with the greatest of privileges and wealth in the Commonweath -- as being a mere accessory to an exultant with zero legal status as a person at all. And this status is why the Autarch can employ them as prostitutes. Their legal status is the same as that of Ern Smithe in “A Borrowed Man.”

So the answer to the apparent association Severian makes between the Maid and False Thecla is that the Maid (who went by the name Catherine – The Cla = Ca The ine) had been the khaibit of Thecla’s mother. Thecla, False Thecla, Thecla’s mother, and Catherine were all genetically identical. Much speculation has been made over whether Thecla is Severian’s mother or his sister. In fact, she is both – in a way. Thea is Thecla’s “half-sister” in that they are of the clone lines of a pair of sister who knows how many generations back.

The Maid – Catherine – Severian’s mother – was granted the opportunity to see Severian grow up before her death by participating in his elevation ceremony each year – once a year for Severian but all in one day for Catherine. When Severian senses that the Maid has been in his room, she has. When he deduces from her scent that False Thecla has been in his room, she has: Thecla, False Thecla, Catherine, they all use the same perfume – burning rose. They are, in a sense, the same person.

This gets us closer to the mystery of “Whose body was being exhumed in Chapter 1 of “Shadow”? In the first Chapter of “Great Expectations” Pip stands before the grave of his mother and is quickly induced into league with a criminal. The implication from this allusion is that the woman being exhumed is Severian’s mother. But as we can see, there are many ways a person can be Severian’s mother – or his sister.

** Footnote:

1 Some might argue that if this theory true, then Severian ought to have recognized False Thecla in the maid's face. However, it seems likely that False Thecla was significantly older than the maid's (20-22yrs vs 14-16yrs).

2 After the feast, Severian also records, “What became of the maid I do not know. She disappeared as she has each Katharine's Day I can remember. I have not seen her again.”

This is the most solid refutation against the maid being Severian’s mother at all. As Severian writes this, as Autarch he WOULD 100% know what became of that maid if she were his mother - - and every detail of his mother's death and execution.

This also refutes my assertion that the Autarch ate her after her death: In his mind (at this writing) would be the memories of himself each Katherine’s Day.

Accepting this claim as written, refutes that the False Thecla is the maid and certainly that his mother was in the Autarch. And it also refutes that the maid is Severian's mother.