i was told going into this that your brain has to be on its A-game going in so i made sure to clip a ton of spots that i felt may be important. the following is what i’ve gathered from the book on my first read before claw

the picture of the knight is 100% an astronaut. it’s described perfectly as such. i didn’t notice it until i went back and read a maybe important part i had clipped right after that which brings me to my next thing

the paintings that all contain a book i feel are important in some way. i want to know why they all had a book even if barely seen. i want to know why it was told to us.

though malrubius is dead, he’s dreamt about often. seemingly twice in the book unless i missed a time. i don’t know what the significance of this is.

i don’t know what the torturer secret he learned before he left was. completely lost on that one

i think his dreams about the giant women and others is important but im not sure to what.

the segment of father inire’s mirrors are introducing the idea of faster than light travel. maybe teleportation of sorts. i also think it has to do with time travel though i’m not sure. this brings me to my next point

the jungle garden i think is a projection or a “portal” to a past time. i believe that because of what seemed to be a regular human plane flying outside. the story being told in there has to be in direct relation to father inire’s demonstration.

all of the rooms in the botanical garden have something strange about them. seemingly to do with, again, father inire’s talk on mirrors. i say this because the garden’s entire building is made of glass.

the hand severian touched underwater that began pulling him was for us being resurrected as she was touched. she pulled him up. that’s the cause of her amnesia. (i have a smaller theory that he was pulled into a mirror dimension/world only because of the wording that the hand was pulling him “down”)

the claw also is what resurrected him after being killed by the avern in his duel. he couldn’t remember anything shortly after waking up for some time which may support dorcus’s case. i believe she has amnesia because she’s been dead for a long time. but i think she can’t even remember getting out of the water because of the memory issues with being resurrected.

the castle that appeared in front of severian an dorcus was a space ship? i think maybe a building rose and took off using teleportation ir faster than light travel because it was described to have leaped into that air and disappear with sparks.

it’s hard to tell if technology like this is being used at this point in time. in one case the “building” being described in the end of the chapter did not at all to severian and dorcus seem in the usual or something they had seen before. on the other hand severian will talk about “fliers” flying ahead like it’s something seen every day. i imagine these are similar. it’s hard to tell

there seems to be a theme of one person or a selective group of people seeing things while others don’t. it’s hard to tell but examples would be malrubius appearing a couple times without being seen by anyone but severian, inside the jungle hut, one or two of the men inside could see severian and agia but the woman could not, triskele appearing, and finally the building/ship at the end of the second last chapter of the book. it seems nobody else saw it. now, many of these could be dreams such as malrubius and i triskele’d appearance towards the end. i think those were dreams. the others i wouldn’t be as sure?

that’s what i’ve gathered from book one and im quite excited to start the next book. if there’s anything i should know going into the next book, please let me know :)