Subject: (urth) Torturers as priests

From: mary whalen <marewhalen at yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 02 Jul 1998 18:46:42 +0000

This is Sean Whalen (prion).

It seems to me that the original form of the torturers guild was the
Roman Catholic Priesthood.  Gene Wolfe has said that he believes Jesus
Christ was actually a torturer, and that God created pain for a purpose.

They wear black, live in what has often been compared to a symbolic
church (the spaceport puts people in contact with "heaven").

There are many different kinds and orders of religious men named in
the books, but it is all unorganized.  Also, all of these might have
only come about after the arrival of the Conciliator.  The torturers
say that they are much more ancient than the Conciliator.

Also, when Palaemon and Gurloes are asking Severian if he wishes to
enter the guild or leave, they immediately compare being an initiate
of the Seekers for Truth and Penitence (a religious-sounding title if
I ever heard one) to being an epopt (initiate) of religion.  Then they
tell him the final secret of the guild.

Severian later reveals part of the secret when he leads the lake
people against Baldanders's keep.  He says the only purpose of the
torturers is to obey, immediately after a long speculation about his
knowledge of the Increate (God) and his relation to Him.  The main
purpose of the Church is to serve.

It seems quite likely to me that the RCC, over the huge span of
history separating Earth from Urth, became the torturers guild, as the
world changed.

prion

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From: Jason Voegele <voegele.6 at osu.edu>
Date: Fri, 03 Jul 1998 00:43:37 +0000

>Christ was actually a torturer, and that God created pain for a purpose.

Now that's an interesting and very plausible theory.  Just before reading
this post, I was reading a passage from TBOTNS that ties in nicely with the
Torturers as Priests theory.  It's from SHADOW, ch. XI, paragraph 10 ("The
Feast") describing the festivities of the Feast of Holy Katharine:

    "She stood between the wheel and the sword while Master Palaemon (as the
older of our masters) told us of the founding of the guild, and of our
precursors in the years before the ice came--this part was different each
year, as his scholarship decided.  Silent she stood too while we sang the
Fearful Song, the hymn of the guild, which apprentices must get by heart but
which is sung only on that one day of the year.  Silent she stood too while
we knelt among the broken pews and prayed."

The fact that the history of the guild is mentioned in the same passage as
"we knelt among the broken pews and prayed" is a bit much for coincidence,
especially for the Loop the Lupine school.  The fact that the pews are
broken could suggest the decay of the Church into its corrupted form of the
torturer's guild, or it could just harken to the fact that the pews are very
old and the Church has decayed over time.

Jason Voegele

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From: mary whalen <marewhalen at yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 02 Jul 1998 23:17:02 +0000

I just thought of the fact that the Autarch Ymar ordered that the
female Jailers/torturers no longer be allowed to be members because of
their cruelty.  This seems a pretty strong reason supporting the
torturers-are-priests theory. It symbolizes that there are no women
priests in the RCC.

I'm glad Jason Voegele and I agree on this one.

prion

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From: Matthew Malthouse <matthew.malthouse at guardian.co.uk>
Date: Thu, 09 Jul 1998 02:19:18 +0000

> I'm glad Jason Voegele and I agree on this one.

I find that the logic fails me here.

The existance of women in the order is a difference that distinguishes it from
the priesthood that we know. Lacking any history between times the presence of
women in a previously all male hierarchy is inexplicable.

More generally: the development of priest as torturer isn't too far fetched,
it's happened before after all. But what has become of the theological and
liturgical functions of the priesthood?

The Order has its ceremonies in the Citadel chapel in contrast to the
Archivists who use the city cathederal. While this is seen as a mark of
distinction at the time it would imply a theocratic structure over which the
order did not have any control or influence which strikes me as odd.

How does the order stand in relation to the other guilds attached to the
citadel such as the witches? Are they all remnants of clericals? The question
is prompted because Sev. sees a spiritual aspect to the order, but that
strikes me as a late development. Falible memory puts me at risk here but my
impression of the order in the time of Ymar was that they lacked any such
aspect and I take Mstr Pal's unquoted (and apparnetly variable) history of the
order at the ceremony to be a developed mythology rather than a plausible
explication of origins.

The order serves. Yet it's origin might as well been in a secret or military
police and inteligence force.

Matthew

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From: mary whalen <marewhalen at yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 09 Jul 1998 01:28:40 +0000

Matt, I just added this as part of some of my previous posts of the
theory that the torturers are the Urth form of Catholic priests.

If they can change from being priests to being torturers, it seems
that along the way they could have evolved to include women in some
incarnation(s) of their function, and we don't even know if the women
had differing roles in the past.  I meant also that the fact that they
originally had no women (as priests), gained them (as jailers), and
then lost them again (after becoming torturers) is part of the
cyclic/repetitive structure Wolfe likes to use.

I also think this theory is part of the fact that Wolfe purposely
writes the plot and setting of New Sun to be an amalgam of every SF
cliche and standard there is.  A well-known current organization that
changes form in the far future to an ironic form is one of these.

Lastly, I just read on the Whorl archive list that when Gene Wolfe was
asked the question of "Is there a past, current, or future member of
the Order of Seekers of Truth and Penitence on the Whorl?", he says
"Yes, Silk.
"  I take it to mean that Silk is a member of this order because he's
a priest/worshipper of the Outsider (God), and this seems to indicate
that the torturers are, too.

prion

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From: mary whalen <marewhalen at yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 09 Jul 1998 01:23:03 +0000

prion

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From: Matthew Malthouse <matthew.malthouse at guardian.co.uk>
Date: Thu, 09 Jul 1998 19:04:54 +0000

> cyclic/repetitive structure Wolfe likes to use.

That's fine. But while one is searching for evidence to support a theory
filling the lacunae with "it's a long time, anything could have happend" seems
a little less than rigourous.

> that the torturers are, too.

But note that the gender roles in the Whorl are diferentiated in a manner
reminicent of the church today. That doesn't appear to be the case with the
torturers of Ymar's time.

Is the equation of Silk with a torturer one of formal function or role performed?

Matthew

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From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Date: Thu, 09 Jul 1998 17:19:05 +0000

> women in a previously all male hierarchy is inexplicable.

Aha!  The torturer's guild descends from Episcopalians!

-Rostrum

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From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Date: Thu, 09 Jul 1998 17:24:08 +0000

> that the torturers are, too.

I always interpreted that remark as Wolfe playing with the ambiguity of
the phrase "Seekers of Truth and Penitence."  Silk is literally such a
seeker in the sense of seeking truth and his own penitence, whereas for
the torturers guild it's somewhat of a euphemism (although literally true
for them too).

Also, the "all men are torturers" theme gives Wolfe lots of wiggle room.

-Rostrum