Thelenes

Thelenes is invoked as a touchstone of rigorous dialectic in the great dialogs and in casual mathic speech, where his name evokes the moment a debater has maneuvered an opponent into a mistake and proceeds to dismantle the argument. He is also attested in The Dictionary as a historical person confined in a “cloister” prior to execution, with the citation clarifying the term’s older sense in Orth.

First appearance and context

• Mentioned in a Dictionary entry that traces how “cloister” once meant simply a locked or closed space; Thelenes’s confinement before execution is used to illustrate that older usage.
• Referred to during a kitchen conversation among avout as shorthand for a decisive turn in a dialog, when Thelenes is about to “slice up” an interlocutor’s faulty claim.

Role and function

• In accounts of the great dialogs, Thelenes is portrayed as a devastating interlocutor. In the dialog Uraloabus, a timely, long-winded interruption by Kefedokhles enables Thelenes—who had been staggered by his adversary’s sarcasm—to regain equilibrium, change the subject, and begin a systematic dismantling of Sphenic thought, culminating in the title character’s public suicide.

Relationships and references

• Linked to Kefedokhles, whose interruption in one dialog is credited with giving Thelenes the opening for his takedown.
• Frequently invoked as an exemplar of dialectical technique; his name functions as a byword for turning an opponent’s words against them.

Current status

• Deceased (executed), per the Dictionary citation.