{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/553",
    "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": 553,
    "subject": "\"The First Severian\"",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1998-05-04T07:01:01+00:00",
    "last": "1998-05-04T07:01:01+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0010-0078@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Dan'l Danehy Oakes",
        "address": "ddanehyo at us.oracle.com"
      },
      "date": "1998-05-04T07:01:01+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) \"The First Severian\"",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I was at first surprised at all the stuff about who \"the first  \nSeverian\" was.  The Severian who writes tBotNS -- the one who tells \nus \"I know that I am not the first Severian\" -- has been killed and \nresurrected/reconstructed from a \"ghost\" (aqastor, whatchmajiggy) \nmore than once, after all. \n \nBut that doesn't cover what he means; he talks about a Severian who \nhas a parallel career but does not bring the New Sun. \n \nSo -- consider another possibility.  Wolfe, as an intellectual \nRoman Catholic, is very aware of the distinction between the view \nof Eternity and that of Space/Time. \n \nSo consider (if you will) the world as the artwork of a Creator. He  \n(and, from the RC PoV, there is really very little alternative to \nusing the masculine singular pronoun) creates a world as a \"first \ndraft.\"  It goes along according to its natural laws -- and the \nCreator is _not_ pleased with the way it comes out. \n \nSo He intervenes.  From in spacetime, these look like suspensions  \nof natural law -- we call them \"miracles.\"  (From outside  \nspacetime, from the Eternal point of view, of course, they're  \nperfectly natural.) But they change the flow of history.  Before  \nthe Creator intervenes, for example, Joshua and his army get  \nwiped out at Jericho; then the Creator intervenes and the walls  \nfall. \n \nAnd, from the spacetime point of view _it has always happened that  \nway_. \n \nSeverian-1 is the Severian of the \"first draft.\"  (Actually, the \n_nth_ draft, since until certain events in dimmer history -- like \nJericho -- have taken place, events will produce no Severian at all:   \nbut he is the first draft of Severian.)  He does the things  \nSeverian-2 describes.  Then the Creator -- or, perhaps, His servants \nlike Tzadkiel -- intervene, probably from the moment of his \nconception (not immaculate, but special), linking his being with \nthat of the White Fountain.  That is the Severian-2 we know and, \nwell, whatever.  (He's not terribly lovable, is he...?) \n \n-------------------------------------------------------------------- \n|--Dan'l Danehy-Oakes            | Can you believe that the eagle  | \n|  Staff Curriculum Developer    |    will fly with the dove?      | \n|  Oracle World-Wide Education   | Can you believe in the rose     | \n|  email: ddanehyo at us.oracle.com |    in the raised fisted glove?  | \n|  phone: 650-506-0793           |        -- John Michael Talbot   | \n-------------------------------------------------------------------- "
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}