Urth & Earth (was "Travelling North aka miscellaneous thoughts on Wolfe")

John Watkins · 04 Jun 2010, 20:02 · from 2010-June.txt.gz

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From: john.watkins04 at gmail.com (John Watkins)
Date: Fri, 4 Jun 2010 16:02:24 -0400
Subject: (urth) Urth & Earth (was "Travelling North aka miscellaneous
	thoughts on Wolfe")
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No, I know that.

Well, perhaps with interlocutors like you two, I should be very clear in
what I mean.  You are both very smart and know a lot about this stuff and so
may have more refined understandings.

The anti-Christ is a speculative figure in Christian mythology.  To the
degree that there is/will be such a person, he seems to be a false or dark
messiah--a human being or demon in human form--someone who usurps Christ's
expected role in the Second Coming for a period and brings about various
catastrophes before decisive defeat at the hands of Christ.
The demiurge, as I understand it, is a Gnostic interpretation of the God of
the Old Testament.  In Gnostic myth this character is evil or stupid, at
least in comparison to the real God, and responsible for this world being
kind of, well, crappy.  He is falsely believed by many to be the real God
and may even style himself as such.

The two characters are not really similar except that they both contrast
with the true divinity of their respective mythologies and are significant
for their false representation as the true divinity.  In Long Sun, at least,
Pas much more closely mimics the demiurge.

Or to put it another way:

Anti-Christ:  Brother Justin Crowe
Demiurge:  Dalek Emperor.
On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 3:52 PM, <brunians at brunians.org> wrote:

> Antichrist and demiurge are such totally different things, though.
>
> .
>
>
> >
> >> Because Wolfe is also playing with the notions of an anti-Christ or
> >> demiurge.  Falsity and pretence to authority are pretty key parts of
> >> those notions.
> >
> > Well, it works for that too.
> > Like I said, one could argue that the religion on which the Chapter is
> > based is not the Catholic Church, but I think that is quite cumbersome
> > and distracts from the parallels and themes that (I think) Wolfe is
> > intentionally toying with. It's unsatisfying to me.
> >
> >> (And frankly Pas is a lot more demiurge than anti-Christ.)
> >
> > I could not agree more than I am agreeing at this very moment. See my
> > conversation with David Stockhoff.
> >
> >
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