{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/5702", "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": 5702, "subject": "Good and Evil in BotNS", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "2010-08-12T16:06:46+00:00", "last": "2010-08-12T16:13:24+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-12T16:06:46+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Good and Evil in BotNS", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Roy C. Lackey- " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I have already given my summary of your Grand Unified Theory. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nI remember responding to that because I remember my mental head scratching\nat the suggestion it was a Paradise Lost knock-off (to my shame, I haven't\nread that)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Aside from the details, what really gets my goat about it is that it is a logical dead\nend.\nJust suppose you are right, that alien Inire (for whatever reasons) was a\nfallen Hierogrammate who coupled with human women and this unholy union\nwas\na Bad Thing. Enter Severian, Epitome of Urth, Willing Savior or Grand\nDupe.\nHe goes to Yesod to win a new sun which is also the New Sun which is also\nHimself. He succeeds, wins a new sun and Ushas is born. Exactly how did he\ndo it? *He screwed an alien.* Hallelujah! Let's sing another verse.\nI never got an explanation for the difference, so I'm asking again. What is\nthe difference between:\n Alien + human female = Bad\nand\nHuman male + alien = Good?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Sorry I missed this question but I do think it is a very excellent one. For me\nit claws to the heart of the religious philosophy in BotNS. In some other posts\nI have answered it but perhaps now I can answer it even better.\n \nFirst with regard to Severian and Apheta. I think you are correct to use a \nquestion mark on whether it was \"good\". Apheta clearly doesn't think so. She tells\nSeverian afterward, that he was wrong to think she desired him. In fact she considers \nhim to be a particularly horrible monster. After she got to know him a little better \nshe despises him only slightly less, but enough to be truthful with him. Obviously this \nwasn't something she wanted to do but was compelled to do. Perhaps she did it against her \nwill but more likely out of duty to her race. She seems clearly revolted by the act. The \nonly sense I can see it was \"good\" for her is that it allowed the formation of Ushas, and \nthus her own race to be created.\n \nLikewise I think Father Inire is painted as a morally ambiguous character. Kinda cool with all\nhis arts and inventions. Kinda creepy with his little girl fascination. (Likewise the old \nAutarch- kinda nice and kindly, kinda creepy with his need for pimping khaibits-- all \ndescriptions I've read of personal meetings with Gene Wolfe have described him as very \ngenial and pleasant.).\n \nSo, in regard to aliens mating with human females, is it bad or good? Greek mythology \nseems rather tolerant of it. Might be a bit creepy for Zeus to rape Europa but hey we\ngot a continent out of it. More seriously, the Greeks got Heracles and Theseus and Perseus\nand other heroes from such god-human matings. Isn't that a good thing?\n \nOn the other hand, the Judeo-Christians frowned mightily upon it. Only a fallen angel would\nmate with a human, and the product was a whole host of demons and giants and vampires and such.\n \n(my own anthropological interpretations are that these legends and sexual morality concerns were \nthe result of various primitive warring tribes, foreign rulers, occupying soldiers and the \nresultant matings, not real aliens or gods. but this is about Gene Wolfe, not me).\n \nWe might be tempted to assume that Wolfe considers the Judeo-Christian view to be the \"good\" one\nand others as \"evil\" but I detect a deeper moral sensibility in his writing. Sexuality aside, there\nis surely much which has been done in the name of Judeo-Christianity which would be considered evil\nby almost anyone's standards.\n \nThe creepiness, the duplicity, the double dealing, the sham wars and trials by supposedly \"good\" \ncharacters in this story suggest to me that Wolfe finds divine action to be more than a battle between \ngood and evil. In fact such moral concepts are for human beings only, to help guide us with the curse \nthat led to our Original Sin, that curse being Free Will. I think the implication is, as for Apheta, \nthe closer you are to God/The Increate the less Free Will, the fewer choices you have. All the way up \nto God, Himself who is everything, Alpha and Omega, and whose choices can be summed up with \n\"I am that I am\". You just have to have faith in Him.\n \nRoy, my answer, which relies on the ambiguity of morality, may not be what you were looking for. But it\nis truly the religious/ethical philosophy that I see in BotNS and other Wolfe works. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4C641DA4.9000609@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Pedro Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-08-12T16:13:24+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Good and Evil in BotNS", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Lee Berman wrote (12-08-2010 17:06):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "First with regard to Severian and Apheta. I think you are correct to use\na question mark on whether it was \"good\". Apheta clearly doesn't think\nso. She tells Severian afterward, that he was wrong to think she desired\nhim. In fact she considers him to be a particularly horrible monster.\nAfter she got to know him a little better she despises him only slightly\nless, but enough to be truthful with him." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Tzadkiel reveres Severian and Apheta despises him?" } ] } ] }