{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1213",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 1213,
    "subject": "Severian & St. Peter",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1998-10-19T14:55:56+00:00",
    "last": "1998-10-19T14:55:56+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0020-0072@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Alex David Groce",
        "address": "adgroce at eos.ncsu.edu"
      },
      "date": "1998-10-19T14:55:56+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Severian & St. Peter",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "\tI was talking to a friend at lunch who took John Kessel's Fantasy\nLiterature class last year.  When I took the class several years ago, he taught\nShadow & Claw (which prompted my third read of both), and this year Kessel\ntaught the whole BOTNS (without Urth, which my friend hasn't read).  My friend\nwrote his term paper on a thesis Kessel hadn't seen before:  Severian as an\nApostolic figure, specifically Peter.\n\tI haven't seen the paper, but his basic argument runs like this:  Wolfe\nhas said that Severian is a Christian figure, rather than specifically a Christ\nfigure.  It's St. Peter who actually raises Dorcas in Acts.  It's also Peter\nthat rebukes Simon Magus (Cyrix) after he tries to buy the Gifts of the Holy\nSpirit.  Peter's definitely NOT perfect (thrice-denying Christ, the rebuke just\nafter his recognition of Christ, his early views on circumcision and the Law,\netc.) and in fact is the one Apostle we see as violent--he cuts off the ear of\na Roman soldier in the garden (Christ heals the man and rebukes Peter).  So,\nmaybe Severian is (at least partly) a version of Peter:  he's also a flawed,\nviolent man who fails to understand much of what is going on but carries out\nthe will of the Increate and at times has astonishing insights into the Truth,\nhe raises a Dorcas from the grave and runs into Simon Magus/Cyrix, and is, in a\nsense, the first head of a new \"Church\" on Urth.  This would create an\ninteresting correlation between the Autarchy and the Papacy.  Severian's role\nthen in bringing the New Sun would be somewhat like the role of the Apostles\nafter Pentecost (which is the experience in Briah?) in spreading the Word.  I\nthink that's the concept in a nutshell.\n\tAny opinions (if anyone's interested, I'll offer a better version of\nthe idea if I can get ahold of my friend's paper.)"
        },
        {
          "kind": "sig",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "\"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.\" - John 8:32\n--\nAlex David Groce (adgroce at eos.ncsu.edu)\nSenior (Computer Science/Multidisciplinary Studies in Technology & Fiction)\n'98-99 NCSU AITP Student Chapter President\n608 Charleston Road, Apt. 1E (919)-233-7366\nhttp://www4.ncsu.edu/~adgroce"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}