{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4686",
    "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": 4686,
    "subject": "Severian's virtue",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2006-08-09T16:17:05+00:00",
    "last": "2006-08-09T16:17:05+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<BAY103-F31FA4F292943D5243AA5A5D7550@phx.gbl>",
      "from": {
        "name": "b sharp",
        "address": "bsharporflat at hotmail.com"
      },
      "date": "2006-08-09T16:17:05+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Severian's virtue",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Sorry for this flurry of posts, but I can't resist responding right away to \nRoy's Apheta-Bug (aphid?)post, which made me laugh out loud.  Okay, fine, \nshe is larva, she lights like a glow-worm when she is ready to mate, she \nlives in a spiral burrow, she has a stump tongue. I  still won't \"scruple to \ncall her human\" until I see six limbs and copper based blood :-)).\n\nDiscussing my theory that Severian's family is contaminated by alien/pagan \ngod interbreeding,      Roy asks:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "If this is true, how is Severian as Conciliator/New Sun an improvement, \nanalogous to a righteous >Noah? He went to Yesod and fathered a New Sun \n--who was/is himself. (URTH, 145)\nYou can't get much more incestuous than that. Further, he fathered himself \non an insect from >another universe, who was the larval stage of a \ngod-like, angelic being. How is that any better\nthan Adam's tribe and the \"Nephilim\"? I would think it even worse, because\nthe Hierogrammates were man-made to begin with."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "and asks:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Wherever did you get the idea that the marriage was celibate?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "First, you've mixed my analogies.  It was the sailors, landed on Urth on \nflood day, who were analogous to Noah's family, repopulating a flooded \nEarth, not Severian.  Note the Hieros, er.. Hierarchs were careful to ensure \nthe crew going with Severian to Yesod were all Urth born.\n\nSecond, I take the whole star-spurting, self-conceiving orgasm Sev has with \nApheta much less literally than you.  I don't take it to mean he \"fathered \nhimself\" but rather that from that union a new (and temporary) aspect of \nhimself was created, the blue star/white fountain.   The HHH's, knowing \nSeverian's flaws, found a very appropriate way to create his nascent source \nof power. Anyway, Roy I thought you were firmly against the possibility of \nconception resulting from the mating of a human with any non-human in BotNS.\n\nThird, I think Severian is (and was written to be) a notably flawed \ncharacter. Not genetically worthy of re-populating Ushas anyway.  Not worthy \nof reproducing at all, even after 10 years of marriage to Valeria.  My light \nconjecture on celibate marriage stems from this but isn't very crucial to my \noverall theory.  If they did have sex, did Sev use a condom for 10 years? \nDid Valeria use cacogen hormone pills?  Was Sev sterile? The celibacy \nexplanation retains the historical and religious tone of BotNS better, for \nme.  Moreover, Valeria has children with her second husband, Dux Caesidus, \nright? (books not here)\n\nI think previous posts have discussed the virtues Severian might have which \nqualify him for his special status.  So, I'll take a different, perhaps \nirreverent approach and suggest this is a bit of auctorial narcissism.  This \nnarcissism (which I don't condemn, and in fact roundly appreciate)  inspires \nGene Wolfe to put his own books on the shelf next to Vernor Vinge's in 5HoC \nand (I think) inspires him to put his own face on the funeral bronze in \nSev's mausoleum (cameo appearance, right?) and inspires him to put wolves \ninto various places in his stories.  I think this same narcissism allows him \nto create in his own literary avatar, Severian, a morally flawed person \nwhose redeeming qualities still make him worthy of demi-god status.\n\nOf course, I should be careful in addressing such thoughts to Roy/Lackey, \nour King/Servant who  has yet to deny he really is Gene Wolfe ;-).\n\n-bsharp"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}