One is not born into the torturers' guild, one is adopted there from the children of its victims. In the great Citadel built of unsmeltable gray metal, young Severian and his fellow apprentices study to achieve the rank of Master Torturer learning the ancient mysteries of the guild, sworn to torture whom the Autarch says to torture, and to kill whom he says to kill. Voice Changeling: The alzabo can perfectly imitate the voice of anyone that it has eaten. It naturally uses this to lure its victims' family members out of hiding.

The flanking volunteers ran toward him, but he had held onto his weapon. I saw the bright blade flash up, though its owner was still on the ground. I remember thinking what a fine thing it would have been to have had such a sword on the day Drotte became captain of apprentices, and then likening Vodalus to myself. All right," Drotte said reluctantly, and we stepped through, the volunteers following. Certain mysteries aver that the real world has been constructed by the human mind, since our ways are governed by the artificial categories into which we place essentially undifferentiated things, things weaker than our words for them. I understood the principle intuitively that night as I heard the last volunteer swing the gate closed behind us.

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Gentle Giant: Subverted. Baldanders appears to fit the archetype, but is actually an Omnidisciplinary Mad Scientist who will eventually, it is implied, ascend at least to demigod-hood. Note that while he's a giant already, he's not even close to full-grown. He will get big enough to have to live in the water eventually, among the Undines and other giant-types too big to walk on land, which as the comment above states, seem to have eerie abilities - there's a throwaway reference to them swimming between the stars.

Severian and Dorcas return to their travels and encounter Dr. Talos and Baldanders, who are almost ready to perform the play they had invited Severian to that morning. Severian assists in the play, and the next day the group sets out toward The Piteous Gate leading out through the great wall of Nessus. When they are in the gate, there is suddenly a commotion and the volume abruptly ends.Domnina later vowed she would not go but a servant in a livery came for her the next day. When she returned hours later she was very upset. The servant had taken her down halls she did not know existed in the House Absolute, which alone was frightening. The presence chamber itself was a large room with solid red hangings and empty except for two vases taller than a man and several feet wide. “In the center was what she at first took to be a room within the room. The walls were octagonal and painted with labyrinths. Over it, just visible from where she stood at the entrance to the presence chamber burned the brightest lamp she had ever seen. It was blue-white, she said, and so brilliant an eagle could not have kept his eyes on it.” One of the eight walls painted with labyrinths opened and Father Inire stepped out. Behind him she saw a bottomless hole filled with light. He said, “You’ve come just in time. Child, the fish is nearly caught. You can watch the setting of the hook, and learn by what means his golden scales are to be meshed in our landing net.” He then led her into the octagonal enclosure. 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. Deconstructor Fleet: The series deconstructs many things, but particularly of Joseph Campbell's The Hero's Journey. On the surface, Severian is a torturer and executioner who spares a woman, gets banished for it, and eventually rises to become the ruler of the nation, and the savior of the world, while becoming a better person. However, Severian's entire journey is prearranged and destined by Sufficiently Advanced Aliens so that he will bring about a future where humanity evolves into the Sufficiently Advanced Aliens. Severian is, for the most part, incapable of seeing the strings. Deadpan Snarker: Jonas, who often uses deadpan jokes. It is for this reason that Severian deduces that Jonas must have been a sailor. Kavorka Man: Severian is often misogynistic, and, you know, a professional torturer and executioner... but the number of women who don't seem to mind is rather staggering.

In the clear sunshine, Severian sees the imperfections in Agia’s face but he finds them appealing and “rejoices in the flaws that made her more real to me.” Conversely, Agia says that Severian looks like “an armiger and probably the bastard of an exultant”. She then presses herself against him and kisses him, saying she may give him more after supper. The Shadow of the Torturer won the annual World Fantasy Award and British Science Fiction Association Award as the year's best novel. Among other annual awards for fantasy or science fiction novels, it placed second for the Locus (fantasy), third for the Campbell Memorial (SF), and was a finalist for the Nebula (SF). [6] [7] [8] Limited edition [ edit ] Into Severian's hands falls also the miraculous gem, the Claw of the Conciliator, whose powers promise to lead him to the very throne of the House Absolute. But first he must journey north, to the land of the mountains, and it is at the great gate of the City Imperishable, the largest in the world, that the first volume of The Book of the New Sun closes, with Severian standing in the portal of his destiny. Chillingly subverted in that the Conciliator myth is engineered by Sufficiently Advanced Aliens to make it appear that their plan to destroy/renew Urth has a divine purpose. Arguably, the entire plot is about Severian being manipulated into believing he is on a divine mission, so that he will create the Conciliator myth.

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Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Dorcas has blonde hair and is one of the series' few genuinely nice and good-natured people. Dark Messiah / Messianic Archetype: Severian, a.k.a. Apu-Punchau. He's also the Conciliator and the New Sun... i.e., the bringer of the apocalypse. The heavy man had disappeared, but I heard him say, "More rope." His voice indicated that he was no more than a step or two away from the spot where I crouched, but he seemed to have vanished like water cast into a well. Then I saw something dark (it must have been the crown of his hat) move near the slender man's feet and understood that that was almost precisely what had become of him - there was a hole there, and he was in it.