Is Agilus a Hierodule? & more
The Urth list — 2 messages, 2 voices, 13 Apr 1999
https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1528

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Roy C. Lackey — 13 Apr 1999, 06:09

> > On Mon, 12 Apr 1999 20:10:32 +0200 Nicholas Gevers wrote:
> > Could Agilus be a hierodule? (What with masks within masks.)<<

    I don't think so. That would make Agia one, too. And Sev had a very good
look at his head, after all. <g> If they had been hierodules they wouldn't
have wanted Sev's sword, would they? And why would a hierodule want to kill
Sev? Agia certainly kept trying. I don't think she would have had any
interest in running around in the forest playing Girl-Robin Hood in a
pointless game, either.

    Which brings me to another observation of a recurrent theme in Wolfe's
work; sexual aberrations. Incest with Agilus and Agia; why put that in? Sev
and his grandmother. Orpine and her father. Father Inire's inordinate
interest in little girls (and the occasional little boy). Weer and Sherry
Gold. Baldanders and his bedfellow., Vodalus's leech and Mamas, and many
more instances of the like.

    Not to mention the many whores like Candy and Hyacinth and a fondness
for whorehouses.

    Sev goes out of his way to say that torturers don't get off on what they
do. Bull.
Sev sure does; many of those he has sex with are women over whom he
exercises power of one sort or another (Thecla, Dorcas, Cyriaca, Pia).

    Has anyone written an article about these sexual angles in Wolfe's work?

Roy

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Michael Straight — 13 Apr 1999, 08:41
  follows, by subject match Roy C. Lackey

> On Tue, 13 Apr 1999, Roy C. Lackey wrote:
>     Which brings me to another observation of a recurrent theme in Wolfe's
> work; sexual aberrations. Incest with Agilus and Agia; why put that in? Sev
> and his grandmother. Orpine and her father. Father Inire's inordinate
> interest in little girls (and the occasional little boy). Weer and Sherry
> Gold. Baldanders and his bedfellow., Vodalus's leech and Mamas, and many
> more instances of the like.

I've suspected in other contexts that one way Christian authors avoid
getting pegged as "Christian Authors" is to write alot about sex.  I
wonder if Wolfe might have a little of that bug.

SMTIRCAHIAGEHLT

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