Lives of the Great Beasts

David Stockhoff · 03 Jul 2010, 17:38 · from 2010-July.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Sat, 03 Jul 2010 13:38:04 -0400
Subject: (urth) Lives of the Great Beasts
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Or, the argument could be purely literary. Anybody NOT heard of the 
"Lives of the Saints"?

It's not much of a stretch to combine that with an interesting coinage 
for the Beast of Revelation, whatever the source, in a novel about the 
destruction of the world.

Jonathan Goodwin wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 3, 2010 at 12:23 AM, Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com> wrote:
>
>   
>> I still don't see it as necessarily hinging on Crowley's anything.
>>     
>
>
> It's possible that I don't understand what you're arguing, then. I
> thought it went something like this: Crowley was a magician. Crowley
> called himself the "megatherion," his own coinage for the Beast of
> Revelation. There are magicians in BoTNS.* Therefore, the Lives of the
> Seventeen Megatherians likely refers to similar self-styled "great
> beasts" who were magicians rather than to the powers in the sea.
>
> This argument, if I've reproduced it correctly, goes wrong by
> overestimating the likely relevance of the first two steps, or,
> perhaps, by assuming a broader context for the second step than it in
> fact has.
>
> If you're also suggesting, as I think you might be, that a title
> modeled on Plutarch or Vasari would be inappropriate for still-living
> beasts and would be better applied to their vassals, perhaps the Group
> of Seventeen, who might well be thought of as magicians, that's one
> thing. I don't see why they would die, either, though. The title would
> be appropriate if they change while growing as much as I had earlier
> assumed, though.
>
> *Probably not really, though. Severian's suggestible, and it's
> directly stated that the Ascians and others are controlled by
> thoughts. Typhon's oath seems to be an incipient bit of mind-control
> in the same way that the duel with the magician is, or at least
> Severian perceives it that way; but it's difficult to ascribe this to
> magic or even charisma.
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