TWK: The Aelf dilemma

Roy C. Lackey · 05 Dec 2005, 18:44 · from 2005-December.txt.gz

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From: rclackey at stic.net (Roy C. Lackey)
Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2005 12:44:43 -0600
Subject: (urth) TWK: The Aelf dilemma
Message-ID: <000a01c5f9cc$0b68f680$153ec6d8 at rclackey.stic.net>

Andrew wrote:
>- Promotion: Valfather etc => human heroes; I believe this is
>paralleled by Able => Dsiri
>
>The last surely indicates that Aelf are not eternally & necessarily
>soul-less. That would go against all of my understanding of Wolfe's
>metaphysics. With "divine" assistance, all creation can rise
>through the spheres and meet the One True God.

And Cliff wrote:
>Why does it follow that they have no hope of eternal reward? For the
>Aelf, the eternal reward would be to gain a soul, to become human.

It was not my deduction that the Aelf have no eternal existence; it's a
textual given. In the scene where Toug healed Baki, Able said the Aelf were
long-lived, and goes on to say: "Much longer-lived than we are. But
short-lived as we are, we're immortal. Our spirits don't die. It's not like
that for the Aelf. Dead, they're gone completely." (W, 46)

Baki then gives a synopsis of the Seven World creation myth, and Mani
concludes with, "The gods of each world are the people of the next one up.
That's Skai for us, and us for Aelfrice." (49) The Aelf are in a situation
much like Mani, whose ninth death will mark the absolute end of his
existence.

-Roy

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