Babbie

David Stockhoff · 19 Mar 2009, 14:43 · from 2009-March.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2009 10:43:57 -0400
Subject: (urth) Babbie
In-Reply-To: <mailman.8702.1237472566.18432.urth-urth.net at lists.urth.net>
References: <mailman.8702.1237472566.18432.urth-urth.net at lists.urth.net>
Message-ID: <49C25A2D.1050406 at verizon.net>

I forget the name of the character, but I recall that the farthest-down "deity" is pretty clearly identified with the farthest-up. His/her dealings with Abel thus parallel Abaia's undines' dealings with Severian. There are wars and rebellions, but they resemble Vodalus' rebellion against the State but which did not necessarily oppose the Autarch. If these creatures' offers are temptations, they are also tests.

In other words, it's far more complex than simple oppositional dualism. 

Falling into error doesn't doom one's soul and make one a social outcast, as the Devil giggles and snorts with glee, as in the Victorian or Protestant German imagination. So perhaps Wolfean characters do in fact treat with the devil all the time, but he is surely an aspect of the divine and thus not really the devil. Or something like that.

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Message: 1
Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2009 09:54:30 -0400
From: John Watkins <john.watkins04 at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Babbie
To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
Message-ID:
	<93d4039f0903190654p11fd2b42ge04c4adb1ccce5ee at mail.gmail.com>
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On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 7:43 AM, David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>wrote:

> >
> > Thus, even the dead ends are not really "dead" just as the gods and their
> > myths are not really "false," and since the "traps and snares" I referred to
> > (Milton) are always set by the Devil, who apparently has no presence in
> > Wolfe (or if he does he works for the Increate), they don't exist. It's an
> > interesting contrast with Protestantism---and Satan-obsessed Catholicism?
> >
> > I think the Devil does exist in Wolfe's work.  He's portrayed pretty
>   
directly in Wizard Knight, for example, and I'm not sure we're supposed to
think that there's anything redeemable about the Squid God and his ilk.

That said, I do think that Wolfe flirts with the Origenism we see in George
MacDonald and, to a lesser extent, C.S. Lewis.

> >
> > ------------------------------

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