{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1486", "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": 1486, "subject": "Sev as anti-hero", "messages": 4, "voices": 3, "first": "1999-04-06T00:08:26+00:00", "last": "1999-04-12T21:09:17+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "1999-04-06T00:08:26+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Sev as anti-hero", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "On 4-4-99 Alex David Groce wrote:\n\n" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "However, I don't think he means us to reject these figures--rather, to\nsee ourselves in them, with veins of dark and light. A picture of a (to sue\nthe religious terms that are relevant) sinful but redeemable man. And I\nthink" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "it's clear that there IS moral growth in Severian throughout the BOTNS. The\nfinal talk with Palaemon, in my opinion, establishes that for the pre-Urth\nSeverian, at least.<<\n\n\n Oh, I agree he makes moral progress. I said much the same thing in an\noff-list e-mail to someone here. But I still do not like Sev and have\ntrouble seeing him as Everyman--even a dark Everyman. Silk, Weer, and the\nother figures you mention are much more sympathetic figures, whatever their\nflaws, because they come closer to Everyman than Sev. They do not wield the\npowers, temporal or supernatural, that Sev does. They do not have his\ncapacity for doing harm. mantis used the term \"anti-hero\" and I have to\nagree with it. I could never identify with Sev, as I could with Weer or\nGreen or Silk or Free's boarders.\n\nRoy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alex David Groce", "address": "adgroce at eos.ncsu.edu" }, "date": "1999-04-06T10:28:19+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Sev as anti-hero", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Apr 6, 12:08am, Roy C. Lackey wrote:\n Oh, I agree he makes moral progress. I said much the same thing in an\noff-list e-mail to someone here. But I still do not like Sev and have\ntrouble seeing him as Everyman--even a dark Everyman. Silk, Weer, and the\nother figures you mention are much more sympathetic figures, whatever their\nflaws, because they come closer to Everyman than Sev. They do not wield the\npowers, temporal or supernatural, that Sev does. They do not have his\ncapacity for doing harm. mantis used the term \"anti-hero\" and I have to\nagree with it. I could never identify with Sev, as I could with Weer or\nGreen or Silk or Free's boarders." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tI won't argue that Severian is easy to identify with; as to Silk, I\nwould place him in another category of Wolfe's protagonists. Green is\nsomewhere in the middle--not as dark as Severian (or even Weer), but not an\nalmost saintly (and likable--which is hard to portray) fellow like Silk. I'm\njust not sure anti-hero is the right term for Severian. It seems to me that in\nthe end he stumbles to glory, at any rate, and that's not just an accident--the\nHierodules choose him because he does, in the end, get the job done. Of\ncourse, this depends on your interpretation of the last pages of Urth." }, { "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" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Kevin J. Maroney", "address": "kmaroney at crossover.com" }, "date": "1999-04-12T19:36:54+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Sev as anti-hero", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 12:08 AM 4/6/99 -0500, Roy wrote:\nBut I still do not like Sev and have\ntrouble seeing him as Everyman--even a dark Everyman. Silk, Weer, and the\nother figures you mention are much more sympathetic figures, whatever their\nflaws, because they come closer to Everyman than Sev. They do not wield the\npowers, temporal or supernatural, that Sev does. They do not have his\ncapacity for doing harm. mantis used the term \"anti-hero\" and I have to\nagree with it. I could never identify with Sev, as I could with Weer or\nGreen or Silk or Free's boarders." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Considering the trail of dead bodies Weer leaves behind him, I'm not sure\nthat I *want* to identify with Weer. Wolfe's protagonists are not admirable\nor likable people, for the most part (the \"Free\" quartet being a very\npleasant exception). \n\nWombat, a.k.a. Kevin Maroney kmaroney at crossover.com\nKitchen Staff Supervisor, New York Review of Science Fiction\nhttp://ebbs.english.vt.edu/olp/nyrsf/nyrsf.html" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alex David Groce", "address": "adgroce at eos.ncsu.edu" }, "date": "1999-04-12T21:09:17+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Sev as anti-hero", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Apr 12, 7:36pm, Kevin J. Maroney wrote:\nSubject: Re: (urth) Sev as anti-hero\nAt 12:08 AM 4/6/99 -0500, Roy wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "But I still do not like Sev and have\ntrouble seeing him as Everyman--even a dark Everyman. Silk, Weer, and the\nother figures you mention are much more sympathetic figures, whatever their\nflaws, because they come closer to Everyman than Sev. They do not wield the\npowers, temporal or supernatural, that Sev does. They do not have his\ncapacity for doing harm. mantis used the term \"anti-hero\" and I have to\nagree with it. I could never identify with Sev, as I could with Weer or\nGreen or Silk or Free's boarders." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Considering the trail of dead bodies Weer leaves behind him, I'm not sure\nthat I *want* to identify with Weer. Wolfe's protagonists are not admirable\nor likable people, for the most part (the \"Free\" quartet being a very\npleasant exception). " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tWell, some of us aren't convinced that Weer is reponsible for anyone's\ndeath other than (A) the boy on the stairs, and that's not exactly murder and\n(B) maybe (there is someting sinister about it at any rate) the frozen-freezer\nguy. I think the \"Weer as mass murder\" hypothesis is most likely nonsense." }, { "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" } ] } ] }