Autarch

The autarch in Book of the New Sun has always grated on me. Severian insists on his being a good man, the best overall autarch, but I think his account is over-fond of a man who to me is more readily despicable than either Typhon or Ash (the truths Ash inflicts on Severian are read as massively wounding to him; Typhon gives overt room to hate his guts), in that he is left as someone who, even as he admits... while always scaling way above the little truths women share with one another, to no knowledge of Truth, pretty much knows everything as much as anyone can.

And what does he know? That there is something called "human nature," and that his expertise in it allows him to manipulate and manage every one of his subjects so they're always kept under control... "happy enough with their careers to continue, and discontented enough with their fates..." The text doesn't allow us to want to see him -- this guy who sounds like the most cynical sort of capitalist overlord here, who uses behavioural science, total knowledge of "you," to keep everyone fated to his brand -- as someone we want to see, not due to be killed, but who should be "killed"... perhaps in much the same way Typhon is killed, for sheer insufferable ignorance and willed desire to keep people low for, ostensibly, their own good, because it insists on him as someone who always smiles so fatherly at Severian and who is ok in his being displaced as ruler of a small universe by him. The guy whom we should leave prepared to accuse as using "human nature" to justify his own surveillance/total management of people, his own desire to close down all the roads of potential human growth, we can't -- just instead participate in the close-proximity of maybe coming to be as wise as he is one day, ultimately able to sum up everyone else around you in a way that diminishes them (Dorcas turned out to be one of those who...) and implicitly exults yourself.

He probably also garners authority, righteousness, for the calm assurance of his ability to daunt Thecla back into the recesses of Severian's mind, when it suddenly manifests, for his need to talk to Severian, now, alone. He's the patriarch who floats over everyone else's sinful nature in "Free, Live Free," and we're baited into not making much of a query of it because... he's fated to die, after all. Severian is maddened, maddened, at Ash for his not being aware of how his "truths" settle on someone who'll be afflicted by them. Why weren't we allowed to feel this way with the autarch?... or, that is, why weren't we allowed to feel JUSTIFIED, as we weren't quite with Ash, if we felt rage at him, for Severian does get maddened at him for having sent him to war without knowing anything of it, but the autarch is permitted in response, total and complete rebuttal. Why does the autarch have greater stature, than even angels (I'm thinking Melito's tale)... for he alone being someone who's considered everything, and who really can't now be questioned? Because he, unlike the angels, knows to administrate down his self-presentation -- from the start -- when talking to someone... is that it, only?