Standard Wolfean Riddle

Ryan Dunn · 16 Aug 2010, 14:33 · from 2010-August.txt.gz

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From: ryan at liftingfaces.com (Ryan Dunn)
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 10:33:07 -0400
Subject: (urth) Standard Wolfean Riddle
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On Aug 16, 2010, at 10:12 AM, Ant?nio Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com> wrote:

> Ryan Dunn wrote (16-08-2010 15:03):
>> Jesus in the Briah with Urth makes Severian something of a false figure.
> 
> Why?
> 
> If a Severian-like fellow appears here on our Earth some one hundred thousand years from now, in what way will he be a fake Jesus?

See below.

> 
>> He is Christlike and yet nearly the opposite in Wolfe's embodiment of
>> him.
> 
> Again, what's Christ-like about him?

He performs miracles due to the power of something cosmic in the heavens. He saves the world.

> 
>> He saves the world from dying by purging it of countless thousands of
>> people in a massive flood.
> 
> But that was the new sun, brought by Severian. Not the historical Conciliator.

See above.

> 
>> I know there is the spaceship yard turned Citadel, the image if a Moon
>> man, and many other references to Earth, but this is Urth aka "similar
>> but different".
> 
> Why did God not come to Urth? It's one thing to make it a little different
> from Earth. Quite another to leave the local humanity without a redeemer.

Don't ask a Pantheistic that question. We agree though that Earth != Urth, yes?

> 
>> I see Severian as similar but different to Christ. And I don't see
>> Christ in Severian's divine year of Briah.
> 
> ...because the story takes place at least tens of thousands of years after
> Christ.

Christ is supposed to come back in the end, why wouldn't his name come up even once in any of the five volumes set in this world? We get plenty of Saint names.

...ryan
>

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