Father Inire Theory

Lee Berman · 04 Dec 2010, 09:46 · from 2010-December.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Sat, 4 Dec 2010 04:46:27 -0500
Subject: (urth) Father Inire Theory
Message-ID: <SNT123-W34AD4BC1CDA6EDE18CE72CCF290 at phx.gbl>

>Andrew Mason: I'm a bit at a loss here because I've come in at the end of an argument. 
>Can you tell me briefly what the Inire theory is? It seems to me _obvious_ that Inire 
>is keeping an eye on Severian and guiding him.

Drawn out to its conclusions it is pretty expansive but I'll try for brevity. It may be
better seen as a model than a theory.

Its origin, as far as I know, is from Borski's Solar Labyrinth, where he notices a number
of characters who resemble the never-seen Inire. The monkey stuff gets over-emphasized;
perhaps most by those hoping to gainsay the theory. Foila's story suggests a shapeshifter
may be identified by more than one feature (in her case, a gold ring and brown clothing/
feathers). For Father Inire, Borski identifies the monkey stuff, being small, old and bent,
and having obscured eyes (I'm a bit iffy on the eyes, myself, but only a bit).

Borski's conclusion is that Father Inire may be modelled as a Moses figure. I depart there
and find that taking on various human and animal guises sounds more like the earthly 
appearances of the Greek gods. Father Inire is a alien but many SF stories have conflated
the Greek gods with aliens (who could forget Spock and Kirk being tossed about the bridge
as giant Apollo shakes the Enterprise between his pinched fingers?)

I tried to peruse the text for more possible appearances of Inire and most of those
I found have been mentioned by others in the previous thread. The one that hasn't been 
mentioned is the one that has caused the most objection to my version of the theory in
the past: The Boatman. He is a small, bent old man though with no monkey features or 
obscured eyes mentioned. I find the fact that he hangs out in the Botanic Garden and
discusses Father Inire's appearance (same as his own) and actions to be clues that he is
a possible version of Inire, though others disagree.

But the main point of objection for Boatman=Inire is that Boatman is eventually revealed to be 
Dorcas' husband. How could an alien mate with a human? And why? Also, the problem is that
Severian is Dorcas' grandson so this implies that Severian is part alien. HOw could that be?

But if we switch to the Greek mythology model I think it starts to make perfect sense. The
Greek gods were always taking human form and mating with humans. And they often had offspring
who became the heroes of legend, like Heracles, Theseus and Perseus. Moreover, Severian's life 
follows the arc of a Greek hero fairly closely- ambiguous parentage, special childhood training, 
exile, adventure, quest etc. (Campbellian archetype noted)

I think part of the problem is that this story is told in First Person. It is all very well for
us to read in Third Person about Zeus coming to earth and ravishing women and having heroic 
sons raised thinking they were fully human. But if that stuff had happened to our own lives, and
we discovered it, there is an "ewww" factor which I think WOlfe was actually going for. Severian 
never openly tells us he had sex with his grandmother we have to figure it out. I think there are 
many other, even more disguised "eewww" mysteries in BotNS we are meant to figure out for ourselves.

Accepting Boatman=Inire can have far-reaching implications for the story, regarding Severian's 
family and regarding religious philosophical themes. But I'll leave it at this for now. Hopefully
it was brief enough.

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