The Wizard Knight Theology

James Wynn · 03 Jul 2010, 21:31 · from 2010-July.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Sat, 03 Jul 2010 16:31:47 -0500
Subject: (urth) The Wizard Knight Theology
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> **
>> And what about/The Wizard Knight/?  The Aelf could be toys
>> in the hands of evil humans if the humans realized it, just
>> as humans sometimes are for Lothur.
>> (But then the whole non-Christian deism of TWK is strange.
>> Humans seem to be at the bottom instead of in the middle.)
>
> > I think that was the point. Human degeneracy had caused them to be 
> enslaved by their lowest
> > instincts. Humanity ought to have been seeking to serve the ideals 
> of Valfather and then Michael's
> > and then discover the ideals that are even higher still.
>
> I agree with that.
>
> > Due to their enslavement to Arnthor
>
> He's not a good ruler (although not such a bad one, in Able's 
> judgement), but I don't see that people are enslaved to him--certainly 
> not humanity as a whole.
>
He's a figure. Everyone in the story is within his realm IIRC.

>
> > (a dragon in disguise from a realm two levels lower),
>
> Half-dragon?  Is that ever made clear?
I thought it was clear that Arnthor, his sister, and Garsecg/Setr were 
actually dragons in the lower world, Muspel. They simultaneously exist 
there as dragons. Humanity Rule by Dragons is a figure, I think, of a 
man ruled by his base instincts: sex, food, acquisition.

>
> > even  Aelfrice (representing lower instincts but higher than those 
> that had enslaved humanity) was > also enslaved by those instincts and 
> hence rebelled -- because humans had relinquished the ideals
> > necessary to hold the beings of Aelfrice in awe.
>
> > This is a picture of a man with his priorities upside down.
>
> The Seven Worlds are a picture of a man?  Not, maybe, a society?

Well, to the extent that society is an extrapolation of the people 
within it, yeah. But the book is about following "knightly ideals", and 
one needs a society to act within in order to become a knight. So it 
works better I think if the figure is individualized. Able is us, in a 
sense. And Mythgarthr is Able.

(*) I'm putting a mark about this next paragraph to reference it later.

I say the novel is a "figure", because it is the wrong way around to ask 
"well, were the dragons were doing the wrong thing in attempting to go 
to Mythgarthr? Were the people of Skai doing the wrong thing in allowing 
Able to be a hero there?" It's not about them. It's a novel about people 
not Overcyns.

>
> > TWK might well be viewed as the most moralistic novel Wolfe has ever 
> written.
>
> For one thing, it's one of the few where sexual fidelity seems like it 
> might be a good idea.

Well, that's part of it. Able conquers his Dragony baser instincts for 
the sake of the instincts of Aelfrice -- What those greater instincts 
are is not clear, but let's say they are Romantic Love and Beauty. 
Ironically without those Dragony instincts, he would not find the 
Aelfrice instincts appealing. By the same token, his love for Aelfrice's 
Disiri causes him  to relinquish a chance to be near her and to live in 
Skai. The lower worlds, in their proper place, drives the hero to the 
higher worlds.

>
> > The following is
> > a key scene: Valfather bowing before Michael, as Michael tells Abel 
> that to be a knight he must be
> > able to command Disiri with the same authority.
>
> Not to be a knight, unless I'm missing something.  All I see is that 
> Michael is answering Able's question of how to find her (TK, Ch. 44).
Well, it's true I'm speaking in terms of the intended message as I see 
it. Michael says that in order true have Disiri, Able must learn to 
summon her...that is he must be her her master...that is, he must master 
his lower desires. In order to do that, he defeats his dragon Grengarm 
and goes --the opposite direction from Aelfrice-- to Skai. After that, 
he has become a knight Mythgarthr sense and can perform all the duties 
of a knight that he has pledged. And *then* he can summon Disiri.

>
> It's certainly a key scene, and beautifully done, but I get the 
> feeling other scenes show humanity at the bottom.  I can't imagine 
> that humans could impress the Overcyns and trick them into worshiping 
> us the way the Aelf have done to some humans, or even pester Overcyns 
> the way Uri and Baki pester Able.  Or that any human could transform 
> an Overcyn the way Disiri transforms Able. Both the Aelf and the 
> Overcyns have supernatural powers, but humans don't seem to have any 
> powers that the Aelf don't have (except summoning them).  Both the 
> Overcyns and the Aelf have special leaders, such as the Valfather or 
> Disiri, but humanity doesn't--who is the model for Aelf fathers or 
> kings? Able presumably has his priorities as straight as anyone, and 
> his feelings toward the Valfather are very different from his feelings 
> toward Arnthor, but he treats them the same way: respect, obedience, 
> and a little civil disobedience.So what's going on?
>

See (*)
Michael is on a quest because he has dishonored himself in some way. So 
ostensibly it is possible for the people of each level to fail in some 
way. But it's a novel about people. The Aelf and the Overcyns are 
devices within that theme.

u+169b
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