{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2885", "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": 2885, "subject": "Nerd? Artisan? PEACE!?", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "2002-01-05T02:45:19+00:00", "last": "2002-01-05T08:20:56+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "maa32", "address": "maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu" }, "date": "2002-01-05T02:45:19+00:00", "subject": "Nerd? Artisan? PEACE!?", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Andy R wrote:" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Wolfe is what we call a Nerd, in this decadent age, and in a better one\n would call an Artisan. His interest is in working quietly, cunningly, \nand well; his hope is to be ruled by a true and good King; and his nearest \nself\n image (in his works) is the protagonist of PEACE.\n\n This is obvious from his books. Severian is no self-image of Wolfe: I\n never read a less convincing portrayal of the interior monologue of \nand\n aggressive and sexually violent man. Silk, celibate and constantly\n suffering for his high status, is something Wolfe is much happier \nwith." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I cannot agree with you on your characterization of a nerdy celibate, \nespecially from PEACE. Weer molests an underage girl! He calls sex \nabsolutely ordinary, going on all the time. Come on, all Wolfe's females are \nclose to hookers (some are sympathetic hookers). I think that Severian's \ninterior monologue is a good representation of an aggressive man (and maybe a \nsexually violent man) because, let's face it, he doesn't think about it that \nmuch, he just does it, and I think that is pretty realistic. Do you think \nMike Tyson thinks about anything when he beats the crap out of people or \nmolests them? (here about that thing in Cuba over New Years?) He doesn't even \nremember the rules of boxing while he's in the ring. Just think of Mike Tyson \ntelling you about his experience in the brothel where the girl said she'd \nscream and he knew there was nobody around, and I think you'll come close to \nwhat you get in that scene in Shadow of the Torturer." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Andy Robertson", "address": "andywrobertson at clara.co.uk" }, "date": "2002-01-05T08:20:56+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Nerd? Artisan? PEACE!?", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "----- Original Message -----" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: \"maa32\" \nI cannot agree with you on your characterization of a nerdy celibate," }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I wasn't talking about Wolfe's private life at all, but about the type of\nfictional character he is comfortable with! (and maybe this is a good\npoint to resolve that we will stay away from any discussion of Wolfe's\nprivate life).\n\nBut yes, he is a Nerd. Nerd calleth unto nerd, yea even across the oceans\nof space. I can tell.\n\nNerd power! Nerd Pride!!\n\n --- *** ---\n\nSeriously, he is a man whose energies primary flow into his craft, not into\nmastering others.\n\nThis again is characteristic of what he means by \"the settled customary\ngoodness of the Shire\". That it is only in a society whose politics is\nquiet - where political forms are fixed and settled by custom, and absorb\nonly a small fraction of the energies of men - that such men can thrive.\n\nThis is why he wrote rather unconvincingly about Severian, who genuinely\nenjoyed power and domination, but much more convincingly about Silk - a man\nwho would rather have remained unimportant and small." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "especially from PEACE. Weer molests an underage girl!" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Weer is a batchelor who has missed the love of his life. His occasional\nsexual adventures are miserable and unsatisfying.\n\nThat underage girl with her \"magic ring\" is one of the saddest and most\naccurate portrayals of promiscuous femininity I have ever read (and yes,\nI've met older women exactly like that, even slept with them)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "He calls sex\nabsolutely ordinary, going on all the time." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Compensation because he isn't getting any" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Come on, all Wolfe's females are\nclose to hookers (some are sympathetic hookers)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Good point. But repentant evil is always easier to portray than sympathetic\ngood. Mary Magdelene comes to mind." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think that Severian's\ninterior monologue is a good representation of an aggressive man (and\nmaybe a\nsexually violent man) because, let's face it, he doesn't think about it\nthat\nmuch, he just does it, and I think that is pretty realistic." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I will expand slightly\n\nIn my experience aggressive people are usually fundamentally logical people\nwho fight because they have to or gain advantage from doing so. They are\nnot incapable of making constructive alliances or of affection. They are,\nin fact, normal. Hildegrin is a good example, well portrayed. Auk is\nanother in the same mould.\n\nHowever, Severian was a picture of someone far more complex than that. He\nis not simply moderately violent by inclination or practical necessity - he\nis a man trained into lethal violence from birth, and trained *not to feel\nanything when he performs violence* from birth.\n\nIt is very hard to make such a person convincing, because we have no echo of\ntheir interior life within us. All of us have been in childish scuffles at\nleast. None of us have ever been Torturers.\n\nWolfe did as well as he possibly could, by making Severian utterly hard and\ncold, and obviously badly damaged, psychologically. With Silk, Wolfe\nportrayed someone far closer to normality, and correspondingly more\nbelievable.\n\n\n Andy Robertson" } ] } ] }