{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/416",
    "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": 416,
    "subject": "Severian & Christ, Wolfe &",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "1998-03-12T15:10:03+00:00",
    "last": "1998-03-13T09:37:38+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0008-0619@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Tony Ellis",
        "address": "tony.ellis at futurenet.co.uk"
      },
      "date": "1998-03-12T15:10:03+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Severian & Christ, Wolfe &",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "                                                                      \n12/03/98\n                                                                      11:44\n Severian & Christ, Wolfe & Yeats"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Peter Stephenson wrote:\nEven if this isn't what happens in this particular episode, it's\ncertainly striking how quickly Severian `falls off' in any episode\nwhere he is somehow fleetingly put up against Christ...  In the first\nexample I hazarded, which looked a bit like Christ before Pilate, the\nchapter ends with Severian demonstrating his torturing skills on one\nof the soldiers (at the lochage's suggestion, it should be said). "
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "There -are- parallels between this scene and Christ before Pilate, \nbut I feel it's too lightweight for the significance you're giving it.\nWhen Christ appeared before Pilate he was in deep shit: he had\nbeen denounced by the religious authorities, flogged, and was \nnow effectively on trial for his life. Pilate asks him \"what is Truth?\".\nTheologically speaking, it's a pretty pivotal scene. Severian, on\nthe other hand, has merely been called in for a little chat \nbecause the Lochage is concerned that his dramatic \nappearance may cause public alarm."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "...In the last, he ends up by killing Typhon/Piaton"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I think if you want to look for examples of Severian being \"put\nup against Christ\" you're on firmer ground with Severian before\nTyphon, certainly. And how about the scenes in UOTNS where\nhe is beaten and denounced for performing miracles? I think he\ncompares quite favorably to the big J.C. on all these\noccasions.\n\nRe: Connections between Wolfe and Yeats"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Anyway, that's what's occurred to me. i) Clutching at straws;\nii) Interesting parallels; iii) something more?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Interesting parallels, certainly ...Although cyclical time,\nantithetical \"masks\" etc are such big, abstract themes that\nit's inevitable that they pop up again and again in \ndifferent forms.\n\nYeat's world-view (as represented by his gyres and masks) was\nvery dualistic, and I would say that there we have a crucial \ndifference between him and Wolfe. Wolfe's Urth universe\nis ultimately Unary: there is really only one side, and everyone\nis on it - they just don't all realise it. <g>"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0008-0623@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Peter Stephenson",
        "address": "pws at ifh.de"
      },
      "date": "1998-03-13T09:37:38+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (urth) Severian & Christ, Wolfe &",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0008-0619@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Tony Ellis wrote:\nThere -are- parallels between this scene and Christ before Pilate, \nbut I feel it's too lightweight for the significance you're giving it."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "There are certainly no major thematic links, I didn't want to\nimply a deep relationship."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Yeat's world-view (as represented by his gyres and masks) was\nvery dualistic, and I would say that there we have a crucial \ndifference between him and Wolfe. Wolfe's Urth universe\nis ultimately Unary: there is really only one side, and everyone\nis on it - they just don't all realise it. <g>"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Certainly there are differences of this kind.  I would say, though,\nthat when looking for particular themes this isn't going to worry the\nreader --- even the careful reader --- too much of the time (which\nreally amounts to your last remark).  In Yeats the oppositions tend\nmostly to be night/day, male/female, living/dead and so on.  In Wolfe\nthere are also such complexities: dying sun and white fountain, cold\nand warm futures, death and resurrection; I would tentatively say,\nperhaps even a stronger sense of good and evil.  You don't often find\nthe directness of Severian vs. Typhon or Agia in Yeats, as regards\nordinary humans at any rate --- but I suppose that's in the nature of\nlyric poetry.\n\nPeter"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}