Corundum of the Claw

John Watkins · 24 Jun 2010, 14:53 · from 2010-June.txt.gz

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From: john.watkins04 at gmail.com (John Watkins)
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 2010 10:53:05 -0400
Subject: (urth) Corundum of the Claw
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I sort of can't believe we're having this discussion again, so I will
simply restate my point.

1)  Gene Wolfe tells us he's an orthodox Catholic, and we have no
reason to disbelieve him.

2)  Severian is pretty clearly not literally the Jesus guy orthodox
Catholics say they believe in.  He is a killer, likely a rapist,
interested in worldy power, et cetera.

3)  Severian is also pretty clearly surrounded by Christlike imagery.
Some of this seems almost parodic, some of it seems almost reverent.

There are many hypotheses consistent with these facts.  The hypotheses
that aren't consistent are

a)  Severian is a literal stand-in for Jesus Christ as understood by the author,

b)  The author just screwed up and put in a lot of Jesus stuff for no reason.

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