Antipolaric brothers

Son of Witz · 26 Nov 2010, 17:09 · from 2010-November.txt.gz

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From: Sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org (Son of Witz)
Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2010 09:09:08 -0800
Subject: (urth) Antipolaric brothers
In-Reply-To: <4CEFE2BE.4070009 at io.com>
References: <SNT123-W38865BC51B74C4E35CF6DCF210 at phx.gbl>
	<4CEFE2BE.4070009 at io.com>
Message-ID: <277F8A87-77EC-40CD-97F0-7F86F6AEBA4F at butcherbaker.org>

On Nov 26, 2010, at 8:39 AM, Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com> wrote:

> On 11/26/2010 9:32 AM, Lee Berman wrote:
>> I think this dream scene was the germ of a continuing gnostic theme in Wolfe's work. In BotNS
>> Typhon takes the role of light, over-controlling Creator while Severian is his antipolaric
>> brother, the dark, chaos-bringing Destroyer.                       
> 
> I'm pretty sure that Severian's destruction of Typhon shuld be seen to prevent an enormous amount of chaos; at the very least Typhon's return to the Commonwealth would mean a civil war, and if he won, a tyranny of his whim would descend where no one could be secure in anything. T's mind-control power eliminates the need for him to treat even his most powerful allies well, leaving not even a show of mutuality to leaven his dominion once the oath has been sworn.
> 
> In this, Severian is the rightful executioner of the man who sought to usurp all authority, even the Increate's, and allows what pitiful remnant of law and order the Urthlings have managed to keep together to endure a little longer.
> 
> -- 
> Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
> Computational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana
> < http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >
> _______________________________________________

Yes, thank you. I was digging Lee's post until that.
Severian is a star of light and life, not a dark chaotic force. Typhon is clearly the master of the failed state of humanity that Severian is destined to wash away. Typhon is the crown on the thousands of years of stagnant humanity. Destruction is only one side of Severian's coin. What he did was bring life. The destruction was already in place, in slow motion. He reanimate the sun and urth, he doesn't destroy them. If he failed, they would self destruct.

For myself, the antipolaric brother comment mostly serves to focus on the Hut in the Jungle as an opposite to an Oubliette cell. It is hard to see much significance in that scene until that line. Now we have some context for it.  In the cell there is no true light, and no hope.  In the hut in the Jungle, we've got light and hope, and an interesting culture clash where both sides are not hearing each other talk about the same sort of thing.  The missionaries are preaching New Testament and Insangoma is preaching New Sun. It's pretty funny actually.

~witz

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