Career of Severian as Conciliator

Dan Rabin · 25 Oct 2006, 21:55 · from 2006-October.txt.gz

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From: wolfe-lists at danrabin.com (Dan Rabin)
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2006 14:55:35 -0700
Subject: (urth) Career of Severian as Conciliator
Message-ID: <p06230903c1658b0cd59b@[209.157.132.35]>

At 2:21 PM -0600 10/25/06, Jack Redelfs wrote:
>I found his on-screen turn as the Conciliator to be quite
>underwhelming. I just expected more. He carreer as Conciliator
>lasted for, 1 day, was it?

I don't think the narrative of _The Urth of the New Sun_ covers all 
appearances of Severian as the Conciliator:

1. I recall a couple of references in _The Book of the New Sun_ 
(spoken by ?Typhon, ?Agia) to the Conciliator having disappeared and 
reappeared.

2. In _Urth_, Severian wonders how many of the guests at the inn 
where he fights the zombie are him.  At the time of his writing in 
Ushas, at least, he seems to assume either that he's going to do a 
lot more walking in the Corridors of Time, or that more replicas will 
be constructed in different threads of the tapestry of time.

...and I just noticed a Wolfean inversion between _Book of the_ and 
_Urth of the_: In _Citadel_, Severian becomes the Autarch, "who in 
one body is a thousand" (ch. 27); whereas in _Urth_ his one person is 
dispersed into a succession of bodies.

Could we have the opinions of our knowledgeable Christian 
contributors on how these two details might reflect religious themes?

   -- Dan Rabin

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