/lit/ - Literature

I was reading New Sun again and-- Doctor Talos is a chem, right?

He has the same kind of name as someone from the Whorl (title, mononym) and you could analyze "Talos" as "Talus", meaning either a bone in your foot (a male name) or a kind of pebble ground cover (a chem name). Plus, later in the book Severian describes him as mostly making expressions by tilting his face, which is the same way Maytera Marble makes expressions.

Baldanders says he made him, but does that necessarily mean he invented the technology out of whole cloth? Maybe the hierodules gave him the technology and he just means he made Talos specifically. But then I don't know why he would give him a Whorl name.

What was his damn problem?