An Old mystery ...

Roy C. Lackey · 05 Dec 2008, 05:46 · from 2008-December.txt.gz

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From: rclackey at stic.net (Roy C. Lackey)
Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 23:46:55 -0600
Subject: (urth) An Old mystery ...
References: <W90434011260011228410788@webmail24>
Message-ID: <020501c9569c$e6a48b80$cacc4a0c@rclackey>

Son of Witz quoted and wrote:
> >That's the essence of what I meant, that in Christian thought the birth,
> >life, death and resurrection of a god who was God was a one-time event, a
> >Big Deal, unlike the many "pagan" dying-and-resurrected gods before him.
> ...
> >-Roy
>
> Is "Christian Thought" the only reading of the Christian myth?  One can
stand outside the tradition of the church and still make interpretations of
this STORY.  It is a fiction.  It may be TRUE, but it is still a fiction, as
all histories truly are.  One can interpret myths from Greek, Hindu,
Persian, etc without having a perspective truly from their perspectives.
Sure some of the hairsplitting of theology could get wonky, but the essence
and spirit would not necessarily be far from the mark.
>
> I'm not asking Christians to accept that Severian is Christ, LITERALLY.
> that would counter their Christian thought, and, well, heaven forbid...<<

First off, I am not a Christian and have no interest in guarding the
sanctity of Christian tradition, if that is what you have assumed.

>>It does seem OBVIOUS that the abstracted notion of Christ is the template
for the Messiah of the New Sun. No one is suggesting a one to one mapping of
all the plot elements, NOR all of the official interpretations.  It would
seem wolfe wanted to write a story that dealt with Death and Resurrection on
a personal, societal, and cosmic level, and in doing so, he took the Christ
myth as an inspiration and tossed that essence of a symbol into his story.
There are so many parallels that it seems really obstinate and close minded
not to accept it.
>
>>By 'close-minded', I don't mean to insult anyone, just that if your ONLY
looking at this potential from within Correct Christian Thought, you will
probably be closed off to abstraction and recombination of the symbols that
inspire Christian Thought.  I've hardly seen anyone argue that Inire
couldn't be Daedalus because it doesn't truly fit the perspective of Greek
thought. Or that Daedalus was not a bent alien wearing a mask, so it just
doesn't compare.<<

Sure, there are parallels between Severian and Jesus. My point was that, in
the end, I don't think they compare very well, for reasons already given.
Let me put it another way: After Jesus did what he did on/for Earth, he
climbed back on the Heavenly Throne. After Severian did what he did to/for
Urth, he stuck around on Ushas and got the bejesus kicked out of his
god-like powers.

>>I'm curious as to your thoughts as to they deeper symbolic meanings, Roy,
as you've obviously parsed out the plot in a fairly watertight way. But what
does that plot all add up to you?  What level, besides plotting, do you
engage with this material on?<<

I don't pretend to have all the answers, much less The Answer. But I have
learned not to try to impose meaning on Wolfe's work by trying to use an
external template to extrapolate from in order to fill in narrative gaps. No
matter what sources Wolfe may incorporate into his stories--the Bible,
literature, mythology, folklore, whatever--he *never* recasts that source
material quite the way he found it. He adds things, subtracts things, mixes
things up. "The Tale of the Student and His Son" (CLAW, XVII) is a NS
example that contains elements from several recognizable sources, but the
whole is very different from its parts and is not defined by them. The
Cinderella bit in PEACE is all screwed up. The Arthurian material in
CASTLEVIEW is mixed up and mingled with unrelated material, etc.

In the Christian tradition, what Christ did on Earth was for the benefit of
all mankind. What the Conciliator did to Urth to bring about the New
Beginning of Ushas (something God in the O.T. tried with less than
satisfactory results) affected Urth-Ushas only. Mankind was on other planets
spread all over the galaxy. In the Urth Cycle, the Hierogrammates are
Severian's puppet masters and they are screwing around with the whole damn
universe, with or without the Increate's blessing.

What that adds up to on the symbolic level is debatable, and it has been
much debated here for a long time. Are the Hierogrammates good guys?
Personally, I'm generally inclined to think so, but it depends on which side
of the bed I get up on.

-Roy

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