/lit/ - Literature

Picking up from the last thread, one of the mysteries in the BotNS I'm unable to decipher is the significance of the character Valeria. She's the last person Severian visits before he ends the book and we're never told what they talk about. There is something she tells Severian the first time they meet that I've never been able to explain: "I'm all the daughters we breed. And all the sons." Severian also says she seems older than she looks. After he becomes Autarch is there something he realizes about her that he never tells us?