Wind god

Gerry Quinn · 05 Nov 2010, 15:34 · from 2010-November.txt.gz

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From: gerryq at indigo.ie (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2010 15:34:14 -0000
Subject: (urth) Wind god
References: <SNT123-W5634C50BE81C94730D7093CF4C0 at phx.gbl>
	<2102886A-243D-430A-BA40-F157597B1937 at butcherbaker.org>
Message-ID: <A655E4BED698482A8A7EC76AE3DFEB5D@jill>

  From: Sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org 
  On Nov 5, 2010, at 5:57 AM, Lee Berman <severiansola at hotmail.com> wrote:

      or that the Conciliator is a composite figure made up of various people, of whom Jesus is, perhaps, the 

      first, and Severian the last.

    This doesn't work for me, especially since my understanding of the sub-textual story of BotNS requires that
    this world/universe never had a Jesus. But this touches on many previous debates on whether Urth is Earth, 
    which is past which is future etc.

  I REALLY don't want to start the whole debate over about Sev-Christ, really, I don't.

  But I just noticed thid great bit in CLAW, Dorcas says, " To me you're Life, and you're a young man named Severian, and if you wanted to put on different clothes and become a carpenter or a fisherman, no one could stop you."

  "Carpenter" "Fisherman"  hmmm......

  Just pointing that bit out, not trying to prove anyone wrong.

Also, in BotLS, Silk has a vision of Jesus on Palm Sunday.  Quetzal mentions the 'forgotten' god Ah-lah, and tells a version of the Adam and Eve story.  For me, these are pretty good evidence that the prehistory of Urth, even if it was not exactly our Earth (as Wolfe has suggested), was rather similar in certain respects.  Having recently read BotSS, I noticed Horn/Silk invents a version of the Eucharist to worship the Outsider, whom he identifies as the god of the Neighbours.

Of course one can make various alternative hypotheses.  The hero on Palm Sunday might have been a previous iteration of Jesus.  The Outsider might have vouchsafed Silk a vision from a different universe. 

My feeling is that while Wolfe is certainly a complex and subtle author, his works are not best understood as puzzle boxes with a hidden primary meaning.  

Also, if I were made Pope for a day I would declare that overthinking theological issues is a very great sin ;-)

- Gerry Quinn

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