started my second read of New Sun

Jeff Wilson · 15 May 2010, 00:30 · from 2010-May.txt.gz

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From: jwilson at io.com (Jeff Wilson)
Date: Fri, 14 May 2010 19:30:34 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: (urth) started my second read of New Sun
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> It would still be more efficient for Tzadkiel/Hierogrammates/whomever
> to send the White Fountain without the need for the test or
> maneuvering Severian on the throne.  While we might argue that God (or
> other such omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent being) must work
> through intermediaries because his nature prevents direct
> intervention, Tzadkiel and the Hieros have no such restrictions.  Or
> do they just mirror their reflections in the universe above Yesod and
> act by circumspect means because in their image are they created?

I think they interfere as little as possible both because they are at base
moral creatures who know they constantly risk catastrophic changes in
their "client" civilizations and because of limited resources, as each
group of islands on Yesod is responsible for an entire galaxy in Briah.
Tzadkiel needs Severian's coming to confirm when his personal attention
will be needed and where along the timeline to aim the Fountain, so he is
available to supervise the other worlds in his teritory.

> (Aside, and literary connection, complete with spoilers for those who
> have not read _Anathem_:  this is somewhat akin to Neal Stephenson's
> faux-Platonic idea of "propagation along the wick," where the Daban
> Urnood travels through successive iterations of Earth _backwards_
> along a chain of ever-worsening reflections of the Platonic ideal
> Earth.  Although it is interesting to note that Man of Science
> Stephenson sees traveling toward "more perfect" universes as moving
> backward, while for Man of Faith Wolfe doing so is traveling
> "upward.")

I think this could be an artifact of the borrowing from Plato; wasn't the
Hellenic cultural view of time as if they stood by a river looking
downstream as it carried figures of the past into the distance while those
of the unknowable future are behind them, only the largest foreshadowed by
ripples if at all?

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