Wikipedia
Severian is the narrator and main character of Gene Wolfe's four-volume novel The Book of the New Sun, as well as its sequel, The Urth of the New Sun. He is a Journeyman of the Seekers for Truth and Penitence (a Guild of torturers) who is exiled after showing mercy to one of his clients.
Severian claims to have perfect memory (his eidetic memory is stated as a fact by Gene Wolfe in Shadows of the New Sun). In spite of this, some critics and analysis claim him to be an unreliable narrator.
Severian can refer to:
- Severians, a tribe or tribal union of early East Slavs
- Severian of Gabala (before 380-after 408, but probably before 425), a popular preacher in Constantinople
- Severian Baranyk (1889-1941), Ukrainian Greek Catholic priest and martyr
- Severian or Severianus, one of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste (died 320)
- Severian, the main character of Gene Wolfe's novels The Book of the New Sun and The Urth of the New Sun
- Severian Encratites, a sect of gnostic Encratites
Usage examples of "severian".
Do you remember, Severian, how it was when we left the Botanic Garden?
I want Casdoe and Severian to join us here, just as I joined Severa today.
Casdoe and the old man waited at the farther end with the boy called Severian, in whose eyes I saw the memories this night might hold for him twenty years hence.
You have been thinking about it for the past three or four years at least, little Severian, even though you may never have thought about the thinking.
With more presence of mind than I would have credited in a child, the boy Severian picked it up and handed it to me.
They flew apart and dimmed as they vanished, and I seemed to expand, and to turn in a direction neither up nor down, left nor right, until I stood wholly in the hall of testing, with little Severian clinging to my cloak.
Gold might also buy little Severian an apprenticeship in some worthy guild, for it was clear he could not continue to travel with me.
Little Severian ran out upon it, balancing himself without difficulty on the crest, and I saw him throw out his hands to touch the ring.
Jader lived, the boy his mother had named Severian could not truly perish.
Casdoe, now little Severian, even Fechin, all dead, all lost in the mists that obscure our days.
Master Severian, let me present the honorable Hierodules Ossipago, Barbatus, and Famulimus.
I was acutely conscious, as I spoke, of the eviscerated woman mumbling beneath her glass somewhere behind me, a thing that once would not have bothered the torturer Severian in the least.
How long, Severian, if we did not, would common men abide a reign not ours?
By my friends, of whom there were never very many, I was called Severian the Lame.
By my soldiers, of whom I once commanded a great many, though never enough, Severian the Great.