{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4721", "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": 4721, "subject": "A very interesting interview indeed (Daniel D Jones)", "messages": 1, "voices": 1, "first": "2006-09-10T13:36:33+00:00", "last": "2006-09-10T13:36:33+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "<2e6fee3b0609100636k62f23ee6u989631b97e0f64d1@mail.gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "Josh Young", "address": "greatoaktree at gmail.com" }, "date": "2006-09-10T13:36:33+00:00", "subject": "(urth) A very interesting interview indeed (Daniel D Jones)", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Today's Topics:\n\n 1. Re: A very interesting interview indeed (Daniel D Jones)\n 2. Re: Close Reading: Torturer Chapter I (Robin Hankin)\n 3. Wolfe being clear on 5HoC (Tony Ellis)\n 4. Re: Wolfe being clear on 5HoC (Dan'l Danehy-Oakes)\n\n\n----------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nMessage: 1\nDate: Sat, 9 Sep 2006 09:22:41 -0400\nFrom: Daniel D Jones \nSubject: Re: (urth) A very interesting interview indeed\nTo: The Urth Mailing List \nMessage-ID: <200609090922.41575.ddjones at riddlemaster.org>\nContent-Type: text/plain; charset=\"utf-8\"\n\nOn Friday 08 September 2006 07:04, thalassocrat at nym.hush.com wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On Fri, 08 Sep 2006 05:36:38 +1000 Adam Thornton \n\nwrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "I was reading the recently-posted Larry McCaffery interview, in\nwhich\nthe mystery of 5HC is \"given away\" (http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/\ninterviews/wolfe46interview.htm)\n\nThere's the following quotation in it too:\n\n\"The fact that you stand there and let someone hit you in the face\n\n\ndoesn't do anything to eliminate violence (it may even contribute\nto\nfurther violence) ?which is one of the underlying themes in The\nBook\nof the New Sun.\"\n\nThat seems a very explicit repudiation of one of the more\nmemorable\npassages in a book that's generally considered to be a pretty huge\n\n\ninfluence on Wolfe's work generally and BotNS in particular." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "The most striking manifestation of this to me is Sev's behavior\nwhen he's arrested in UOTNS. He messes up bunch of soldiers, and\nthen he kills the prison governess almost immediately upon meeting\nher. If I were a Christian, I'd find those pretty disturbing events\nin Sev's \"ministry\".\n\nI can never make up my mind whether (a) Wolfe thinks Jesus was a\nwuss & that Sev is showing how a non-wuss handles this kind of\nsituation (b) it's another indication that the universe of New Sun\nisn't ours, in line with theories I've posted previously (c) Wolfe\nthinks the Bible got it wrong and that, in fact, Jesus went down\nfighting (d) some other damn thing." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think seeing Sev as a direct parallel to Jesus is a mistake. Certainly,\nhe\nis in some sense a Messiah figure but I think that's he's both more and\nless.\nMore, in that there are a great many other themes and issues being\naddressed\nthan solely a Messiah, and less in that Sev certainly isn't in any sense a\nperfect representative as Christ was supposed to be. If you're a\nChristian,\nyou're supposed to use Christ's actions as a model on which to base your\nown.\nIt's become a trite phrase but that's exactly what WWJD means. I don't\nthink\nWolfe ever intended anyone to ask WWSD, so trying to draw critiques of\nChrist's actions from Sev's actions is, I think, missing the mark." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I read an interview with Wolfe somewhere in which he stated that Sev is not\nsupposed to be a Christ-figure, just a Christian-figure. There are definite\nMessianic parrallels, yes, but according to Christian theology, a Christian\nis supposed to be a mini-Messiah, more or less. Working for someone else\n(Yesod, in Sev's case) for a higher good. However, a keep difference between\nChristians and Christ is that Christians mess up constantly. Which Sev does.\nHe's not initially an admirable man; leaving aside Christian injunctions\nagainst (consentual) adultery, he rapes Jolenta, kills, tortures, lies...\nIt's not until after his hierophany in book 4 that anything even close to\nsomething admirable begins to emerge.\n\nBesides which, characters with faults are -far- more interesting than\nwithout. Christian or not, I'd be bored out of my mind reading 1000+ pages\nof a direct parallel to Christ. Faultless characters are just too\nunbelievable.\n\nAlthough, interestingly.... Sev and Silk are sort of mirror opposites of\neach other. Sev starts off as someone without much admirability, and becomes\nmore admirable as the time progresses, and Silk starts off as admirable and\nregresses. Although perhaps his mistakes in BotSS are more an influence of\nHorn's. Hmm. I'm going to have to reread.[/thinking out loud]" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "~Joshua Young\n_____________________________________\n\"Fear is the mind killer\" - Frank Herbert's Dune\n\"If you want to get warm, you must stand near the fire. If you want to be\nwet, you must get into the water. If you want joy, power, peace, eternal\nlife, you must get close to... the thing that has them. They are not the\nsort of prize that God....[would].... just hand out to anyone.\" - CS Lewis,\nMere Christianity\n\"Mortal love is merely our introduction to the immortal\" - Margaret Weis &\nTracy Hickman's The Seventh Gate" } ] } ] }