Father Inire: teratoid

Lee Berman · 14 Dec 2010, 20:15 · from 2010-December.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2010 15:15:43 -0500
Subject: (urth) Father Inire: teratoid
Message-ID: <SNT123-W4270CA2A01BEE682284FA5CF130 at phx.gbl>

>David Stockhoff- That's an interesting point. Inire calls forth only fish and angels. Which makes him 
>seem not so satanic to me. What do you think? 

>But Hethor calls forth true monsters, and we are told they are conjured from mirrors.
>As for your last point about apports---they are monsters too, as a category.

Well, I have some thoughts but they are difficult to put into words. I have been trying with my Father
Inire theory.

For me, this is a gnostic, pre-Christian universe (some prefer it to be a futuristic post-Christian era of 
our own universe; I dunno).

As such, a nasty Urth is ruled by an essentially evil, materialistic demiurge who has created and who controls
everything. (some pagans posit that this demiurge was Jahweh, the genocidal, jealous god of the Old Testament.)
This demiurge controls everything with various agents in various shapes and forms from the noble Ultan to the
demonic Hethor. But all are aspects of the demiurge. Important to notice that his mirrors produce heavenly images, 
proving that he isn't really all bad. The central avatar of this being in our story is, of course, Father Inire.

Conversely, gnostic heaven is ruled by an essentially good, spiritual archangel, Tzadkiel who mostly stays above the 
fray (obeying the Prime Directive, heh) but not entirely. Both Yesod and The Ship (while travelling) exist outside 
Urth and the material universe and so may be considered as spiritual realms. Important to notice that mirror sails 
on the ship produce monsters leading to bloody, deadly conflict on the Ship and Yesod, proving that the heavenly 
archangel isn't really all good.   (Hethor's mirrors produce monsters because they are sail scraps). 

Together, Urth and The Ship/Yesod, Inire and Tzadkiel essentially form a gnostic Yin Yang symbol, dark balancing 
light with a mirror image dot of the opposite embedded on each side.

I agree with Jeff that Father Inire disappears from the story because his work on Urth is done. But I can't go with
the idea that he just dies and is gone. For me he is replaced in the story by his similar but opposite counterpart, 
Tzadkiel. They, like Dionysus/Great God Pan, are opposites but aspects of the same essential thing or being or greater 
god who is divided.

I'm not so good at religious, especially Christian, philosophy. But I get the impression Gene Wolfe believes in the
reality of the polytheistic pagan gods and the gnostic pre-Christ world of angels and demons. A universe ruled by a 
divided god.  This is our BotNS story.

I get the impression Wolfe feels we on Earth are lucky enough to have gotten Christ, so not only is there forgiveness 
of our sins, a reconcilliation between God and man, but also a joining of the various opposite aspects of gods from 
our gnostic past. They have been reconciled into one true, unified God. (that never quite happens in Briah or on 
Ushas).

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