Who's Right?

Gerry Quinn · 02 Dec 2010, 19:25 · from 2010-December.txt.gz

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From: gerryq at indigo.ie (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2010 19:25:24 -0000
Subject: (urth) Who's Right?
References: <SNT123-W4850036C247BBF2002B80CF260 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <DCF427ABA9624F4294F000AEFC3CADAE@jill>

From: "Lee Berman" <severiansola at hotmail.com>
>>James Wynn: I should also say, Gerry, that I don't follow every thread 
>>really
>>closely so I'm not exactly clear what you said to which Lee took offense..
>
> Since the topic is up, Gerry did say something recently which left me 
> puzzled, though not
> offended. It was something like, "your theory on Shadow Children is bad 
> but it is much
> better than your abyssmal theory on Father Inire".

Just for the record, my objections to the Father Inire as omnipresent monkey 
theory was not personal, I didn't erven think about who formulated it. Also 
it is not the worst theory in my mind, I reserve that honour for the 
Severian-incest complex, which seems to go something like:

X, Y, and Z (any females) must be close relatives of Severian because they 
have [insert any hair colour] and because Severian only has sex with close 
relatives.  How do we know that Severian only has sex with close relatives? 
Because he has sex with X, Y and Z.

Sorry if that one is yours too, Lee!  But it's the one that bugs me the 
most.

It is not so much the implausibility of the theories that bothers me, as the 
global implications.  If somebody believes that Agia is a robot, for 
example - well, I don't believe it but it affects very little anyway.

> There are others who take a similar view of my Inire theory (still a work 
> in progress)
> but I am confused as to why it might provoke such rancor. The major 
> premises it is based
> on are:
>
> 1. BotNS draws from Greek and other pagan mythology
>
> 2. Greek and other pagan mythological gods often changed their shape and 
> size and walked
> the earth in various human and animal guises.
>
> 3. It is a not-uncommon SF trope to conflate pagan gods and angels with 
> aliens.
>
> 4. In BotNS, Father Inire is an alien.
>
> 5. In Tzadkiel/Zak we see an alien/angelic creature appear and reappear in 
> various animal
> and human guises.

And to me, those don't amount to even indicative value!  Inire is an alien, 
certainly, but he does not appear to be an alien of the same kind as 
Tzadkiel.  Tzadkiel is - as you note - a very special alien; indeed, he/she 
seems more like an angel.  So I don't think Tzadkiel's abilities really tell 
us anything at all about the abilities of aliens in general!

I will grant you that the cacogens do wear masks, and even masks over masks. 
But it is a far cry from mask-wearing to the type of things that you are 
attributing to Inire.

> There are dozens of minor bits of evidence which can be added but just 
> given these five
> premises I think it is very reasonable to consider that Father Inire 
> appears and reappears
> in BotNS in various human and animal guises. This theory has helped me 
> onto a path of
> understanding some mysteries about this story which had bothered me for 
> years.
>
> I don't think or expect it would be so helpful for everyone else but is it 
> really that bad?
> Perhaps Gerry or others can explain which of the five premises is false, 
> irrelevant
> or otherwise invalid, thus making my theory of Father Inire the archetype 
> of bad theories.

'Some aliens have property X.  Inire is an alien.  Therefore Inire has 
property X.'  This is a well-known logical fallacy.

Now of course nothing I've said proves that Inire does not in fact go around 
in disguise behind the scenes, manipulating everyone and everything, in 
addition to his apparent role as a kind of Grand Vizier and advisor to the 
the Autarch.  But to believe it, I need evidence, and convincing me takes 
stronger evidence than somebody seeing a monkey in the jungle.  Because you 
know, even in a book by Gene Wolfe it could have been just a monkey!

- Gerry

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