The significance of Dr. Talos and Baldanders in Book of the New Sun

Jeff Wilson · 02 Apr 2007, 03:13 · from 2007-April.txt.gz

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From: jwilson at io.com (Jeff Wilson)
Date: Sun, 01 Apr 2007 22:13:47 -0500
Subject: (urth) The significance of Dr. Talos and Baldanders in Book of
 the	New Sun
In-Reply-To: <57093.75.72.182.194.1175482143.squirrel at webmail.mcad.edu>
References: <57093.75.72.182.194.1175482143.squirrel at webmail.mcad.edu>
Message-ID: <461074EB.20208 at io.com>

Joshua Mattson wrote:
> I recently finished Book of the New Sun for the first time, and, today,
> Robert Borski's Solar Labyrinth. Absent from it was specific information
> on Baldanders and Dr. Talos. These two, to me, are two of the most
> compelling characters in BotNS.
> 
> I've heard that Baldanders in some sense is a Satanic/Luciferic figure and
> is aligned with the alien monsters of Urth. But how does Dr. Talos fit
> into the story? Why exactly is Baldanders an alternate candidate to bring
> the New Sun? I thought that only Autrarchs could be candidates.

Within the context of the Book + Urth's cosmology (as I and most listers 
understand it), there are no "candidates", only Severian, Who _is_ the 
New Sun. The various powers and posers who have imperfect knowledge of 
the New Sun's nature of course do not realize this, and they believe it 
is possible for a sufficiently powerful person or faction to sieze 
divine favor by fulfilling the prophecy, similar to the Nazis trying 
manipulate moral authority by seizing the Holy Grail or the Ark of the 
Covenant in the Indian Jones films.

So it's not the lack of being Autarch that is holding Baldanders back; 
he could eat brains along with the best of them. It is the lack of his 
being the Theoanthropos; that is, he's not God.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
< http://www.io.com/~jwilson >

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