Damn filthy Hiero-wasp-creatures

Roy C. Lackey · 08 Jan 2008, 06:37 · from 2008-January.txt.gz

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From: rclackey at stic.net (Roy C. Lackey)
Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2008 00:37:27 -0600
Subject: (urth) Damn filthy Hiero-wasp-creatures
Message-ID: <000c01c851c0$f2be7d40$38ca5a42 at rclackey.stic.net>

Andrew wrote:
>There is no evidence whatsoever that they are part of a holy
>hierarchy with the Increate at its apex.

As you are doubtless aware, I have argued the opposite view before, so I
won't bother to repeat it all. I can't, of course, prove the Increate's
involvement because the Increate never appears on the stage. Just a few
comments.

>Sev's religion is based ultimately on Sev's own claims to be a
>Conciliator and the "miracles" he performed; of course these
>"miracles" were merely phenomena of a higher technology.

Sev's abilities to heal and to raise the dead to life again are not the
products of alien high-tech. Even mighty Tzadkiel could not heal Herena's
arm or raise Zama to life the way Sev did, as Barbatus explained when Sev
complained of being brought back to life as a mere high-tech eidolon. (URTH,
359-60)

>One of his functions no doubt is to take the burden of guilt for
>the coming destruction away from the Hiero-dudes. As T says in his
>parting words, Urth will be destroyed at *Sev's* command - not T's.

And just before saying that, Tzadkiel said, "The death agonies of the world
you know will be offered to the Increate. [. . .] Much that is beautiful
will perish, and with it most of your race; but your home will be reborn."
(153) And that seems to be the point of it all. Bad-ol'-Man needed to be
slapped down -- again. That's how the god-game works. Sacrifice in an
attempt to placate a wrathful god, a conciliation made by a conciliator.
Only Sev isn't the one who had to pay the price, no matter how bad he said
he felt about it all after the fact. After all, torturers are famous for
their sympathetic qualities.

In any event, BF&O thought of themselves as holy slaves, but they were not
Tzadkiel's slaves, even though they had been fashioned by the
Hierogrammates. As Famulimus said, " How could Hierodules be holy, did we
not serve the Increate? Our master is he, and he only." (36) My point here
is that both the Hierogrammates and their helpers seem to believe that they
were serving the Increate when they did what they did, to, for and about the
people of Urth.

>Perhaps this points to another reason for Wolfe including the
>SilkHorn-meets-Sev scenes in SS: the (IMO) far greater work
>expunging or perhaps redeeming the lesser ...

Silkhorn continued to make sacrificial offerings to the Outsider, even after
he was on Blue and gave up on being just a reader of entrails. You seem to
think Silkhorn a fine, upstanding dude and the Outsider the True God.
Silkhorn did the same thing Severian-the-Conciliator did, only on a smaller
scale; a matter of degree, not kind. If Wolfe's work is any indicator of his
religious leanings, he seems to regard the concept of religious sacrifice in
a favorable light.

-Roy

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