Sev as anti-hero

Roy C. Lackey · 06 Apr 1999, 00:08 · from urth-v0025.mbox · original

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From: "Roy C. Lackey" <rclackey at stic.net>
Subject: (urth) Sev as anti-hero
Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1999 00:08:26
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On 4-4-99 Alex David Groce wrote:

<snip>
>>However, I don't think he means us to reject these figures--rather, to
see ourselves in them, with veins of dark and light.  A picture of a (to sue
the religious terms that are relevant) sinful but redeemable man.  And I
think
it's clear that there IS moral growth in Severian throughout the BOTNS.  The
final talk with Palaemon, in my opinion, establishes that for the pre-Urth
Severian, at least.<<


    Oh, I agree he makes moral progress. I said much the same thing in an
off-list e-mail to someone here. But I still do not like Sev and have
trouble seeing him as Everyman--even a dark Everyman. Silk, Weer, and the
other figures you mention are much more sympathetic figures, whatever their
flaws, because they come closer to Everyman than Sev. They do not wield the
powers, temporal or supernatural, that Sev does. They do not have his
capacity for doing harm. mantis used the term "anti-hero" and I have to
agree with it. I could never identify with Sev, as I could with Weer or
Green or Silk or Free's boarders.

Roy



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