# Typhon, Sev, Silk *The Urth list — 19 messages, 8 voices, 12 Mar 2003* > 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. --- ### Roy C. Lackey *12 Mar 2003, 20:35* It has been accepted by most here for a long time that the temptation of Severian by Typhon on the mountain mimics that of Jesus by Satan. Although Wolfe has maintained that Sev is not a stand-in for Jesus, the fact remains that Sev goes on to become a redeemer, of sorts. He becomes the representative of Mankind on Urth, 'saving' it to death by water from death by ice. He does this by mumbo-jumbo, somehow mystically becoming a New Sun to revitalize the old sun, which has somehow been damaged, presumably in consequence of Man's arrogance. It is believed by some that Typhon is the person responsible for the damage to the sun. Jesus and Satan are at antipodes, mythologically and theologically. If I am stating the obvious, it is because I think it is being overlooked. Jesus is in no part Satan. For the temptation correspondence to hold up, neither can Sev be in any part Typhon. For Sev to be a clone of a bastard child of Typhon (who was Ymar's mother, btw?), he would have to be, in some sense, the son of Satan. Sev, like Jesus, resisted the temptation but went further; he killed his would-be benefactor, something Jesus couldn't/wouldn't do. You can't just kill the Devil, or the game is over. Typhon was the baddest man in the whole damn galaxy, so bad that the Increate apparently thought it worth the death of millions of innocents on Urth to undo the great wrong he had done. Silk, we are told (ad nauseam), is a veritable saint. He is so holy that the Outsider (aka, the Increate) intervenes directly in his life, time and again. How can Silk be a clone of Typhon? They are whorls apart, mythologically and theologically. -Roy --- ### Josh Geller *12 Mar 2003, 21:02 · follows Roy C. Lackey* > On Wed, 12 Mar 2003, Roy C. Lackey wrote: > It has been accepted by most here for a long time that the temptation of > Severian by Typhon on the mountain mimics that of Jesus by Satan. Although > Wolfe has maintained that Sev is not a stand-in for Jesus, the fact remains > that Sev goes on to become a redeemer, of sorts. This is consonant with orthodox Chriatianity, as I understand it. Severian is experiencing (perhaps 'is being exerpeinced by' is a more accurate way to put it) the Mystical Body of Christ. He is thus reflects an echo or a shadow of Christ, while himself being a seperate person. In the same sense that (by orthodox Christian thought, as I understand it) Krishna or Osiris or Dionysus or any of those guys is a foreshadowing of Christ incarnate in the person of Jesus son of Mary, that is reflects an echo or shadow behind the point event of the incarnation, Severian reflects an echo or shadow in whatever time-like direction he is from the unique Incarnation. This whole foreshadowing idea is really elegant, I have to say. I don't know if I am about to incoporate it into my personal view of the World at all, but it is sort of nifty. . --- ### Brett M. Grace *13 Mar 2003, 01:02 · follows Josh Geller* > perhaps 'is being exerpeinced by' is a more > accurate way to put it This is very nice ^^^ but the reply is mostly directed to Roy. I think your point is that Satan and Jesus are categorically different (granted!), so it's incoherent to have actors who participate in both categories. But... Severian was a torturer and Jesus was a carpenter. I think that we can still say that Severian is messianic without going on to argue that, therefore, the Messiah is a torturer. So presumably you accept that Severian is already categorically different from Jesus--but that the categorical difference is not so great that Severian can't have messianic qualities. Likewise, Typhon in the temptation scene is satanic, not Satan. But that's just one of his faces (argh, sorry)--for example, Wolfe seems interested in political economy, the tension between benign monarchy, democracy, and fascism. It should be possible to talk about that without reference to the fact that Typhon reeks of brimstone. I'm not normally a fan of literary wishy washiness but ruling out the Graves thesis on principle seems unnecessarily reductionist. Prior to the recent discussion on clones and the influence of Graves, I think most people had generally accepted the idea that the New Testament informed the New Sun and that the Old Testament informed the Long Sun. Viron is Israel, Silk is Elijah (as my wife observed: Google for elijah, raven), etc. If Silk is an answer to Grave's Jesus, well, that stuff doesn't go away. Don's theory isn't the key that closes other doors. (I don't claim he says it does but if I've read Roy correctly, he may think so.) Personally, I don't buy the everybody-is-clone thesis yet, because I don't quite see the point. Somebody more passionately attached to the subject can argue how Typhon, Silk, and Severian being genetically identical advances the Lupine project. I could propose a theory, but it would lack conviction... BMG > Josh Geller wrote: > On Wed, 12 Mar 2003, Roy C. Lackey wrote: > > >> It has been accepted by most here for a long time that the temptation of >> Severian by Typhon on the mountain mimics that of Jesus by Satan. Although >> Wolfe has maintained that Sev is not a stand-in for Jesus, the fact remains >> that Sev goes on to become a redeemer, of sorts. >> > This is consonant with orthodox Chriatianity, as I understand it. > > Severian is experiencing (perhaps 'is being exerpeinced by' is a more > accurate way to put it) the Mystical Body of Christ. He is thus reflects > an echo or a shadow of Christ, while himself being a seperate person. > > In the same sense that (by orthodox Christian thought, as I understand it) > Krishna or Osiris or Dionysus or any of those guys is a foreshadowing of > Christ incarnate in the person of Jesus son of Mary, that is reflects an > echo or shadow behind the point event of the incarnation, Severian > reflects an echo or shadow in whatever time-like direction he is from the > unique Incarnation. > > This whole foreshadowing idea is really elegant, I have to say. I don't > know if I am about to incoporate it into my personal view of the World at > all, but it is sort of nifty. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > . > > > > > --- ### Andrew Bollen *13 Mar 2003, 04:47 · follows Brett M. Grace* Roy says: > Sev, like Jesus, resisted the temptation but went further; > he killed his would-be benefactor, something Jesus couldn't/wouldn't do. You > can't just kill the Devil, or the game is over. Sev's lack of meekness is almost a critique of Christ by Wolfe. If I were a Christian, there's one scene I'd find quite disturbing - his arrest in UOTNS. He fights the soldiers savagely, killing at least one (?). When he arrives at the Typhon-era Matachin Tower, he kills the Governess, almost immediately & with almost no discussion. Followed, of course, by the slaying of Typhon. The contrast with Christ's arrest and execution must be deliberate. I'd not be surprised to find that Wolfe regards Christ as something of a wimp, and I'm pretty sure he regards the pre-Horn Silk in the same way. --- ### *THAT* Matt Weber *13 Mar 2003, 06:04 · follows Andrew Bollen* > Andrew : > Sev's lack of meekness is almost a critique of Christ by Wolfe. If I were a > Christian, there's one scene I'd find quite disturbing - his arrest in > UOTNS. He fights the soldiers savagely, killing at least one (?). When he > arrives at the Typhon-era Matachin Tower, he kills the Governess, almost > immediately & with almost no discussion. Followed, of course, by the slaying > of Typhon. The contrast with Christ's arrest and execution must be > deliberate. > > I'd not be surprised to find that Wolfe regards Christ as something of a > wimp, and I'm pretty sure he regards the pre-Horn Silk in the same way. I think you're off base here. Wolfe is presenting Severian as a human being who is in the process of becoming more Christ-like (i.e. as a Christian). Severian's arrest occurs near the beginning of his journey, if I'm remembering correctly. His actions at the arrest remind me more of St. Peter at Gethsemane than of Christ. If Wolfe is indeed the Catholic he claims to be, regarding Christ as a wimp would pose something of a problem of faith. Matt Si le Roi m'avait donné Paris, sa grand' ville, Et qu'il me fallût quitter L'amour de ma mie, Je dirais au roi Henri: "Reprenez votre Paris: J'aime mieux ma mie, au gué, J'aime mieux ma mie." --- ### Chris *13 Mar 2003, 06:20 · follows *THAT* Matt Weber* I tend to agree, though for not quite the same reasons. Christ is essentially what you could call the complete package: the successful integration of all of the messianic attributes into the ultimate man. Severian doesn't seem on his way to Christ-consciousness, however. Rather, he seems to exemplify given attributes and not others; he is the right answer to the given circumstances/problems of the world at the time, but not for all problems at all times. He is the virtuous destroyer who clears away the old to create the new, but if you choose a different spiritual "axis", if you will, Severian tends to be more or less neutral and not especially inclined to become otherwise. Chris Matt said: > I think you're off base here. Wolfe is presenting Severian as a human > being who is in the process of becoming more Christ-like (i.e. as a > Christian). Severian's arrest occurs near the beginning of his journey, if > I'm remembering correctly. His actions at the arrest remind me more of St. > Peter at Gethsemane than of Christ. > > If Wolfe is indeed the Catholic he claims to be, regarding Christ as a wimp > would pose something of a problem of faith. --- ### Andrew Bollen *13 Mar 2003, 07:10 · follows Chris* Matt says: I think you're off base here. Wolfe is presenting Severian as a human being who is in the process of becoming more Christ-like (i.e. as a Christian). Severian's arrest occurs near the beginning of his journey, if I'm remembering correctly. His actions at the arrest remind me more of St. Peter at Gethsemane than of Christ. If Wolfe is indeed the Catholic he claims to be, regarding Christ as a wimp would pose something of a problem of faith. ----------------------- Well, it happens very late in the story, really. By then, he's been confirmed as the New Sun, and almost completed his brief "ministry" on Typhon-era Urth. If lethal self-defence and the slaying of evil prison warders & tyrants are un-Christian acts, then it seems he still has a long way to go in his imitation of Christ by the time the story draws to a close. Perhaps Wolfe's point may be that men (even paragons like Severian) are bound by the evil choices of fallen humanity; and Christ's sacrifice was a unique act of compassion by God, not to be repeated. To be a Peter is the practicable summit of human aspiration. Or something. Maybe he would take a view that the important lessons for humanity in Christ's day were compassion & a degree of selflessness, qualities which I believe Wolfe in some interview rightly asserted as being lacking in conventional ethics pre-Christ. Sev's society on the other hand is quite emphatically post-Christian, IMO: it is rough & tough, because of resource constraints, but moderated in many ways by something like a Christian ethic. The Byzantine strand in the underpinning of the fictional world shows through: the society "feels" like Byzantium under one of the more enlightened, military emperors, not the hell-on-earth which was the pre-Christian Roman empire. Such a (potentially, partially) "redeemed" world needs struggle against evil, more than a spectacular act of love like Christ's. But I find it easier to believe that Wolfe simply views active struggle against evil, where possible, as morally superior to passive resistance. Expressing that view in a story paralleling Christ's arrest & execution is the kind of thing which IMO lifts Wolfe out of his genre. It also, of course, raises doubts about his orthodoxy. In 1st C Jerusalem, would he have been a Zealot, or a Christian? --- ### Andrew Bollen *13 Mar 2003, 08:29 · follows Andrew Bollen* > Matt says: > > I think you're off base here. Wolfe is presenting Severian as a > human being who is in the process of becoming more Christ-like (i.e. > as a Christian). Severian's arrest occurs near the beginning of his > journey, if I'm remembering correctly. His actions at the arrest > remind me more of St. Peter at Gethsemane than of Christ. > > If Wolfe is indeed the Catholic he claims to be, regarding Christ as > a wimp would pose something of a problem of faith. > > ----------------------- Well, it happens very late in the story, really. By then, he's been confirmed as the New Sun, and almost completed his brief "ministry" on Typhon-era Urth. If lethal self-defence and the slaying of evil prison warders & tyrants are un-Christian acts, then it seems he still has a long way to go in his imitation of Christ by the time the story draws to a close. Perhaps Wolfe's point may be that men (even paragons like Severian) are bound by the evil choices of fallen humanity; and Christ's sacrifice was a unique act of compassion by God, not to be repeated. To be a Peter is the practicable summit of human aspiration. Or something. Maybe he would take a view that the important lessons for humanity in Christ's day were compassion & a degree of selflessness, qualities which I believe Wolfe in some interview rightly asserted as being lacking in conventional ethics pre-Christ. Sev's society on the other hand is quite emphatically post-Christian, IMO: it is rough & tough, because of resource constraints, but moderated in many ways by something like a Christian ethic. The Byzantine strand in the underpinning of the fictional world shows through: the society "feels" like Byzantium under one of the more enlightened, military emperors, not the hell-on-earth which was the pre-Christian Roman empire. Such a (potentially, partially) "redeemed" world needs struggle against evil, more than a spectacular act of love like Christ's. But I find it easier to believe that Wolfe simply views active struggle against evil, where possible, as morally superior to passive resistance. Expressing that view in a story paralleling Christ's arrest & execution is the kind of thing which IMO lifts Wolfe out of his genre. It also, of course, raises doubts about his orthodoxy. In 1st C Jerusalem, would he have been a Zealot, or a Christian? --- ### Roy C. Lackey *13 Mar 2003, 19:26 · follows Andrew Bollen* NOTE: Dan'l is apparently having some sort of difficulty affecting his ability to post to the list, so he responded to my post offlist. The text between the dashed lines is his. NOTE 2: I sent this last night, but it bounced. What's going on? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -----Original Message----- From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes To: Roy C. Lackey Date: Wednesday, March 12, 2003 2:49 PM Subject: FW: (urth) Typhon, Sev, Silk Hi. Currently unable to post because of address stupidity, so replying in person. If you feel like responding to any of this on list feel free. First a "bravo!" to your main thesis -- Sev as Typhon's son simply does not work for precisely the thematic reasons you put forth. (I also wrote, but could not post, a note on the question of just where Don believes all these clones are coming from -- Silk-as-a-clone-of-Typhon is of course an exception to this question -- but where are all these, apparently fresh and viable, clones of Ymar coming from, a chiliad later, and how did they get growed, e.g., who put the one that grew into Severian into Katherine's belly? Etc.) So I totally agree that far. I have a slight complaint with this: "You can't just kill the Devil, or the game is over." This kind of trivializes the whole Problem Of Evil[tm] as a game God is playing with humans; Wolfe, as a Catholic Christian, won't buy that approach for a New York minute. > Typhon was the baddest man in the whole damn galaxy, Grin. > so bad that the Increate apparently thought it worth the death > of millions of innocents on Urth to undo the great wrong he had > done. Ummm ... I don't think this is quite accurate, for two reasons. First, I'm pretty sure it's the Hieros, not the Increate, who have sentenced Urth to isolation and de-Sol-ation, cosmic quarantine, etc. Though of course one can then turn around and say, "Yeah, but they work for the Increate" -- but is there any direct hint that the Increate has commanded this thing? Second, though, I have the distinct impression that it is the warlike (or colonialistic?) tendencies of humanity-in-general that result in the wounding of the Old Sun -- Typhon, I gather, is "responsible" more as an "epitome" of the Old Adam than as a unique case. > Silk, we are told (ad nauseam), is a veritable saint. He is > so holy that the Outsider (aka, the Increate) intervenes > directly in his life, time and again. How can Silk be a > clone of Typhon? They are whorls apart, mythologically and > theologically. Two answers to this, one theological (i.e., thematic) and one technological (i.e., stfnal). Stfnally speaking, I don't think Wolfe would propound a "genetics is destiny" approach to cloning -- that is, _if_ Silk were a clone of the original Typhon, which I agree is a debateable claim though I tend to think it has merit, there is no reason to assume that he would grow up to be the same kind of personality as Typhon, any more than identical twins are "the same" person. Thematically ... well, that's a little harder to explain, but it seems to make sense at a thematic level. Typhon is terribly concerned about keeping his true face (which is why he wants a whole-head transplant rather than a brain transplant); when we find that he has designated this body, Silk's, for his own use, I think we're supposed to conclude that it has his face. Silk's "mutant" leadership abilities may be precisely the "face of command" that Typhon is so worried about. (The "true parents" of Silk's vision while buried dead-alive could, as has been pointed out, easily be Typhon's parents...) The Outsider intervenes, in various ways, in everyone's life; or they would have no life, no hope. It has been suggested that Long/Short tells, as an underlying or hidden story, of the Outsider's plan for the salvation of Typhon/Pas ... If Severian is not "really" Christ, but someone (unknowingly) living out an imitatio Christi, then Typhon is not really Satan: and therefore not beyond at least the possibility of redemption. ... well, wait: the Typhon on Urth probably is; he explicitly rejects, not once but several times, the Conciliator. But Pas is another question entirely ... we don't know when Typhon was scanned, whether it was before or after he encountered Severian for the first time (on his timeline), do we? --Dan'l/Blattid ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Typhon had to have been scanned and the _Whorl_ launched _before_ his first encounter with Sev. Typhon was already besieged on his mountain at that point and had no ship available to get him off the planet; there were many such ships aboard the _Whorl_. As Sev was able to prophesy to his guards, in URTH, judging from the progress of the work left to do on the mountain, Typhon would die behind his curtain not too long after that encounter. It's unclear from the text whether it was Typhon or agents of the Increate who caused the wounding of the sun. What is clear, in LICTOR, is that before Typhon's reign there was no need of a New Sun. Typhon was no Savior, and the _Whorl_ was not launched to make things right with the Increate. He was part of the Problem, not the Solution. His was the evil personality scanned into Mainframe. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, in LS/SS to indicate that Typhon/Pas "got religion" or otherwise underwent some sort of miraculous transformation from sinner to saint. Garbage in; garbage out. Whatever plans Typhon may have had for any hypothetical clone/enhanced embryo, there is no mechanism in the text(s) that will allow me to believe that he planned to leave that ship otherwise than as the same megalomaniac who launched it. That Pas _seems_ to be a much more benign figure than Typhon, I won't argue with; but how did he get that way, if he is? To say that the Outsider reformed his scanned personality is a copout; the Outsider might as well have done it back on Urth and avoided the whole ugly mess and the destruction of thousands of lives lost to Typhon's machinations. But I'm straying from the subject. -Roy --- ### Chris *13 Mar 2003, 21:11 · follows Roy C. Lackey* Thanks for passing this on, good post. Dan'l said: > I have a slight complaint with this: "You can't just kill the Devil, > or the game is over." This kind of trivializes the whole Problem Of > Evil[tm] as a game God is playing with humans; Wolfe, as a Catholic > Christian, won't buy that approach for a New York minute. I don't know that it trivializes it, but it seems off. I believe that if Wolfe believes in Satan, it's as an archetypal figure, a feature of the world. You can't kill the archetype, you can only kill manifestations of the archetype (which Severian does). That is, until the second coming/judgment/end-of-the-universe I suppose, where you're free to start over by different rules and tell Satan he's not allowed to play. In this sense the situation of Jesus was different than Severian's, and I don't think any criticism of Jesus was intended. Also from Dan'l: > I think we're supposed to conclude that it has his face. Silk's > "mutant" leadership abilities may be precisely the "face of > command" that Typhon is so worried about. (The "true parents" of > Silk's vision while buried dead-alive could, as has been pointed > out, easily be Typhon's parents...) This, really, is what has me almost convinced. What I don't understand, though, is if Typhon had the technology to scan his personality and he had clones to work with, why didn't he use them earlier back on Urth? Unless he believed in a soul which wouldn't be transferred by the scanning process... in which case, Typhon transferring himself to a body (Silk's or a hypothetical clone) wouldn't be intended as a way for Typhon to live on as Typhon, but rather an attempt to create a biological successor, a "son" who would be exactly like his father (who after all was perfect in his own mind). This doesn't seem impossible, but leaves me with doubts. Continuing on to Roy's comments: > Mainframe. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, in LS/SS to indicate that > Typhon/Pas "got religion" or otherwise underwent some sort of miraculous > transformation from sinner to saint. Garbage in; garbage out. Pas "got religion" in the sense that he became part of one, and began to play the role. I have a pet suspicion that Typhon may have actually tailored the "Pas" personality to fit its particular role by tweaking or pruning here and there, rather than just making a perfect duplicate of his own personality; I don't believe there's enough backing evidence for me to make a solid case for it, though. What *does* seem apparent is that Pas behaves a little differently from Typhon, but I think this can be accounted for in the fact that really we didn't get to see an awful lot of Typhon and his personal life in NS, and the circumstances were different. > who launched it. That Pas _seems_ to be a much more benign figure than > Typhon, I won't argue with; but how did he get that way, if he is? I believe there is an important answer to this, even disregarding what I just said above, and it fits thematically and in terms of common sense. There is a recurring theme in LS about people/things who take on roles, and *become* the part they intended to play. Silk does his best to *act* like the Calde, not realizing at first that this is all there is to *being* the Calde. Other examples could be brought up, but the most direct reference to this is when someone asks what would happen if a demon tried to impersonate a god. The answer is that they would *become* the god they were trying to impersonate. How did the "gods" become gods in the first place? Well, you could say they started out as demons trying to impersonate gods. Not all-good or even particularly nice gods in many respects - the pantheon as I understand it was intended to keep the passengers divided and at odds with each other, rather than unify them - but at the same time with *some* good attributes, enough of them to at least inspire some worship. And, in acting out those attributes, they absorbed/became them. Chris --- ### Josh Geller *13 Mar 2003, 21:22 · follows Chris* > On Thu, 13 Mar 2003, Chris wrote: > [...] I believe that if > Wolfe believes in Satan, If? > it's as an archetypal figure, a feature of the > world. I thought he was a Catholic, not a Jungian or some other kind of newager. . --- ### Chris *13 Mar 2003, 22:09 · follows Josh Geller* Briefly, >> [...] I believe that if >> Wolfe believes in Satan, > If? There's more variation among Christians than you might think, especially among the bad 'uns that read a lot of old books. Whether you call them "variations" or "heresies" depends on when/where you live. I think Wolfe believes in a Satan. I just chose not to take it for granted. >> it's as an archetypal figure, a feature of the >> world. > I thought he was a Catholic, not a Jungian or some other kind of newager. I was thinking more in terms of the original Hebrew concept of Satan than Jung directly, but Jung isn't too bad a fit (I believe he studied qabbala among other things). The concept of Satan (and the angels, in general) has been bent and reworked quite a bit to get to the devil-figure most people automatically think of today - but that's getting into a long digression. Catholics, especially free-thinking ones, aren't necessarily going to think of it the same simplistic way as your average fundamentalist. --- ### Josh Geller *13 Mar 2003, 22:29 · follows Chris* > On Thu, 13 Mar 2003, Chris wrote: > Briefly, >>> [...] I believe that if >>> Wolfe believes in Satan, >> If? > There's more variation among Christians than you might think, especially > among the bad 'uns that read a lot of old books. Whether you call them > "variations" or "heresies" depends on when/where you live. > I think Wolfe believes in a Satan. I just chose not to take it for granted. >>> it's as an archetypal figure, a feature of the >>> world. >> I thought he was a Catholic, not a Jungian or some other kind of >> newager. > I was thinking more in terms of the original Hebrew concept of Satan than > Jung directly, but Jung isn't too bad a fit (I believe he studied qabbala > among other things). Excuse me? I assume you are talking about the Book of Job. Ha-Shatan, the term used in the Book of Job, means 'the adversary'. It is not a proper name. If you get into Qabalah a bit you discover that this is the name of an office, which is filled by various archangels in shifts, and that the one who was filling it at the time of the Book of Job was the archangel aka Gabriel. . --- ### Chris *13 Mar 2003, 23:11 · follows Josh Geller* Posting for Dan'l, only a couple brief comments of my own. > Still can't post. >>> I have a slight complaint with this: "You can't just kill the Devil, >>> or >>> the game is over." This kind of trivializes the whole Problem Of >>> Evil[tm] as a game God is playing with humans; Wolfe, as a Catholic >>> Christian, won't buy that approach for a New York minute. >> I don't know that it trivializes it, but it seems off. I believe that >> if >> Wolfe believes in Satan, it's as an archetypal figure, a feature of >> the >> world. > My first reaction was to echo Josh's "If?" but I understand (or think > I do) what you're getting at, after your additional remarks. I think > I agree, to some extent, that Wolfe tends toward something resembling > the traditional Hebrew idea of "the satan," but that same tradition > also had very real demons (like the ones Christ went around driving > out; like Tiamat and Beelzebul and such) - indeed, by the time the NT > was written "the satan" had become the distinct person, Satan, to whom > Luke's Jesus refers several times (notably in the 'house divided' > bit and in "I saw Satan fall from Heaven;" whether this Satan is also > the "devil" who tempts Jesus in the wilderness can be argued). As > a rather conservative Catholic christian, Wolfe is not likely to demur > from the relatively-clear witness of the NT on the matter. >> You can't kill the archetype, you can only kill manifestations >> of the archetype (which Severian does). That is, until the >> second coming/judgment/end-of-the-universe I suppose, where >> you're free to start over by different rules and tell Satan >> he's not allowed to play. > Ah, yes, the Cosmic Reset Button ... > > [...] >> What I don't understand, though, is if Typhon had the >> technology to scan his personality and he had clones to work >> with, why didn't he use them earlier back on Urth? Unless he >> believed in a soul which wouldn't be transferred by the >> scanning process ... in which case, Typhon transferring >> himself to a body (Silk's or a hypothetical clone) wouldn't >> be intended as a way for Typhon to live on as Typhon, but >> rather an attempt to create a biological successor, a "son" >> who would be exactly like his father (who after all was >> perfect in his own mind). > An interesting analysis, but one that does not, I think, > take sufficient account of Typhon's personality as presented > in the texts ... It seems that, unlike the process that > produced Mister Million in 5HC, the scanning process in LS > is non-destructive. (Kypris says as much when she tells Silk > that he can be scanned and still continue with his Whorl-ly > life.) > > So: suppose Typhon produces a clone, then scans his own > personality into it. The result would be two Typhons running > around, a situation which neither, given his monstrous ego, > would find tolerable. There have been plenty of stories about > someone doing pretty much that and then the main conflict > is between the original and the duplicate ... They would > not be willing to share power, so there _would_ be a struggle. > If Typhon-2 wins, Typhon-1 loses; if Typhon-1 wins, Typhon-2 > is gone, and the whole process is for nothing. In short, > there is nothing to be gained. > > But wait! Suppose, then, that Typhon-1 went ahead and made > the clone, scanned himself into it, and then put it into the > same kind of "sleep" as the "Sleepers" on the Whorl, until > the death of Typhon-1? That won't do, for two reasons: first, > because it still involves his dying, which Typhon clearly > finds intolerable; and second, because Typhon-2 would not be > a full duplicate of Typhon-1; all experience from the time of > scanning to the moment of death would be lost -- again > intolerable. > > We can, I think, take it as given that Typhon is smart enough > (and sufficiently aware of his own nature) to work all this > out. So he comes up with the Piaton Process, which (as it > doesn't involve him dying at all) he finds infinitely preferable. > > > --Dan'l Re: both responses, yes, Satan as "role" is more or less what I was getting at. Re: Dan'l's analysis below, I don't think it disagrees with what I did say; the key point in both ways of describing it is that the copied Typhon is not THE Typhon. He achieves no personal, subjective immortality out of the deal and thus resorts to Piaton. This makes a difference w.r.t. his motives. --- ### Matthew Weber *13 Mar 2003, 23:56 · follows Chris* > At 06:10 PM 3/13/03 +1100, you wrote: > Perhaps Wolfe's point may be that men (even paragons like Severian) are > bound by the evil choices of fallen humanity; and Christ's sacrifice was a > unique act of compassion by God, not to be repeated. To be a Peter is the > practicable summit of human aspiration. Or something. I think this hits closer to the point: however far Severian has come in his Bildung, he has so far still to go! If anything, including this kind of episode so close to the end of the narrative emphasizes that Severian is *not* intended to be a Christ-analogue. > Maybe he would take a view that the important lessons for humanity in > Christ's day were compassion & a degree of selflessness, qualities which I > believe Wolfe in some interview rightly asserted as being lacking in > conventional ethics pre-Christ. Sev's society on the other hand is quite > emphatically post-Christian, IMO: it is rough & tough, because of resource > constraints, but moderated in many ways by something like a Christian ethic. > The Byzantine strand in the underpinning of the fictional world shows > through: the society "feels" like Byzantium under one of the more > enlightened, military emperors, not the hell-on-earth which was the > pre-Christian Roman empire. Such a (potentially, partially) "redeemed" world > needs struggle against evil, more than a spectacular act of love like > Christ's. Well, there are justifications for this in Catholic and Reformed theology, usually in terms of war or the state power as an ordination of God. Augustine had the just-war theory, and Luther took "render unto Caesar" to mean that the secular power should be complied with even if what it required was sinful when undertaken under a person's own volition (the exception, of course, being when you had a religion to reform ;)). I'm not all that familiar with the theology of violence, though, and I'll let someone else address the orthodoxy or heterodoxy of Wolfe's putative views. > But I find it easier to believe that Wolfe simply views active struggle > against evil, where possible, as morally superior to passive resistance. > Expressing that view in a story paralleling Christ's arrest & execution is > the kind of thing which IMO lifts Wolfe out of his genre. As I said above, my impression is that the parallel is there for the sake of contrast. And I do think it matters for whose interest the action is undertaken: e.g. it seems more in line with Christian morality to take up arms to prevent someone else from being oppressed rather than in self-defense. > It also, of course, raises doubts about his orthodoxy. In 1st C Jerusalem, > would he have been a Zealot, or a Christian? The apostle Simon (Zealotes) was both. I can't recall whether he was ever really rebuked for his Zealotry. Matthew Weber Curatorial Assistant Music Library University of California, Berkeley Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed. The Holy Bible (The Old Testament): _The Book of Job_, chapter 38, verse 11 --- ### James Wynn *14 Mar 2003, 17:08 · follows Matthew Weber* Non-theologian Crush swims beyond his depth.... Andrew Bollen gathers wool responding to Roy and Matt Weber: "I'd not be surprised to find that Wolfe regards Christ as something of a wimp, and I'm pretty sure he regards the pre-Horn Silk in the same way..." AND "If lethal self-defense and the slaying of evil prison warders & tyrants are un-Christian acts, then it seems he still has a long way to go in his imitation of Christ by the time the story draws to a close." Crush responds: The Jesus of the Gospels fulfills the role of the Messiah as suffering servant and sacrificial victim. This is because, in the theology of sacrifice in all religions, the victim **gives** itself willingly for the petitioner. This is still seen in Bull Fights which of course are not much as far as fights go but are more of a pageant sacrifice with the religious significance stripped away. A bull that uses cunning to take out the matadors and picadors is considered by Bull Fight fans guilty of the equivalent of unsportsman-like conduct. For an example of this, see the book "Eyewitness to History" for the 1950s news article on a bull that insisted on figuring out how to win a bull fight - the crowd became quite angry and considered the bull a cowardly spoiler. HOWEVER Christian theology recognizes another coming of the Messiah (Orthodox Jewish theology as well if one removes the word 'another') that is not meek. This is the coming expressed in many of the Old Testament Messianic texts, Paul in a Thessalonians letter and John in Revelation. So maybe Severian is a **kind** of Second Coming. And what then is Silk? :) -- Crush --- ### Andrew Bollen *14 Mar 2003, 17:27 · follows James Wynn* Crush bravely ventures into theology; I though clueless must follow .. > Christian theology recognizes another coming of the Messiah (Orthodox > Jewish > theology as well if one removes the word 'another') that is not meek. This > is the coming expressed in many of the Old Testament Messianic texts, Paul > in a Thessalonians letter and John in Revelation. So maybe Severian is a > **kind** of Second Coming. I guess that's kind of what I was thinking, or at least one of the things I was thinking. Doesn't Jesus say somewhere that next time, he will come with a sword? --- ### Matthew Weber *14 Mar 2003, 17:36 · follows Andrew Bollen* > At 04:27 AM 3/15/03 +1100, Andrew wrote: > Doesn't Jesus say somewhere that next time, he will come with a sword? He said in the First Coming "I came not to send peace, but a sword" (Matthew 10:34). The Revelation is full of references to the Son of Man coming again in glory, though, and the orthodox creeds all mention some sort of second coming as Judge of the living and the dead. Matthew Weber Curatorial Assistant Music Library University of California, Berkeley Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? or hast thou walked in the search of the depth? The Holy Bible (The Old Testament): _The Book of Job_, chapter 38, verse 16 --- ### Lisa Schaffer-Doggett *15 Mar 2003, 02:46 · follows Matthew Weber* -----Original Message----- > From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes > To: Roy C. Lackey > Date: Wednesday, March 12, 2003 2:49 PM > Subject: FW: (urth) Typhon, Sev, Silk Don (not Lisa) writes: First off, sorry for the double posts, I don't know what's going on with that. > Hi. > > Currently unable to post because of address stupidity, so replying > in person. If you feel like responding to any of this on list feel > free. > > First a "bravo!" to your main thesis -- Sev as Typhon's son simply does > not work for precisely the thematic reasons you put forth. I don't know what thematic reasons Roy put forth, but IMO there are plenty of thematic reasons for Sev to be Typhon's son. Aside from the Hidden King theme, which occurs at least twice, thrice if you count KJ, there is the Campbellian archetype of the Hero meeting his father who is unknown (?) to him (Darth Typhon), and there is the Gravesian Zeus/Cronos seasonal sun king relationship that would be between the two if they are son and father. In addition (and I realize this is somewhat circular) if Silk is Typhon (arguable) or possibly more likely a close blood relation of Typhon, this is a plausible and thematically satisfying reason for Silk and Sev to be brought together in Return to the Whorl. > (I also > wrote, > but could not post, a note on the question of just where Don believes > all these clones are coming from -- Silk-as-a-clone-of-Typhon is of > course an exception to this question -- but where are all these, > apparently > fresh and viable, clones of Ymar coming from, a chiliad later, and how > did they get growed, e.g., who put the one that grew into Severian into > Katherine's belly? Etc.) These fresh and viable clones would be easy to come by via the corridors of time. The woman in Jonas' story came from the stars. If Ymar's journey to Yesod was anything like Sev's he did a fair share of time travel himself. The embryo's came from Yesod as a part of the Hiero's manipulation. My theory is that they spread the seeds far and wide, possibly across every generation. I knew this would be a hard sell, but I am firmly convinced of its correctness. I am glad at least that you see my reasoning regarding Silk, whether you agree with it completely or not. I would add in reply to Roy that Typhon being the baddest man in the galaxy actually furthers my thematic argument of his redemption. Silk is arguably one of the best men in the galaxy. If they are the same person then, in addition to it being highly ironic (almost reason enough on its own), it is also the ultimate expression of the power and the Grace (in the theological sense) of the Outsider. Compare that to the ham fisted approach of the hiero's in dealing with the situation. Another thing, I believe that the reason that Typhon did not use the "possession" technology in order to change bodies has two possibilities. First, there was no way for him to bring a clone quickly to age. (Inire could possibly do this with the khaibits, but there is no indication that Typhon could). Another is that he planned on using Silk as a puppet. Pas, after all is a program and most likely Typhon had the ability to override it. Pas, possesses Silk and acts as a proxy for the Monarch until he establishes contact. Remember, Typhon was beginning to believe he might never die. Besides, Typhon is most likely more complex than Pas, so it would be an incomplete transfer. ---