Standard Wolfean Riddle

António Pedro Marques · 16 Aug 2010, 15:03 · from 2010-August.txt.gz

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From: entonio at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?B?QW50w7NuaW8gUGVkcm8gTWFycXVlcw==?=)
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 16:03:03 +0100
Subject: (urth) Standard Wolfean Riddle
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Ryan Dunn wrote (16-08-2010 15:33):
> 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.

I don't think anything below answers it.

>>> 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 does resurrect some people, but not as part of a ministry. He doesn't
even know that he's doing soemthing. He doesn't 'save' the world in the same
sense Christ does.

>>> 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 don't think anything above answers it.

>>> 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?

Again, that is not the problem. It's noe thing to be different, another to
be damned. People are all different, but they are equal before God.

>>> 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?

That's a good point. He certainly vanished from common knowledge - as did
ebrtything that pertains to our history, even though bits are there as a
vague memory.

> We get plenty of Saint names.

Not even one. The only memory of a saint that we get is Holy Katharine. I
see no St Dorcas in the text.

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