Spiritual and Ecological Sucession

Lee Berman · 11 Jan 2011, 22:33 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2011 17:33:47 -0500
Subject: (urth) Spiritual and Ecological Sucession
Message-ID: <SNT123-W532DC54F49A24E39D58A34CF0F0 at phx.gbl>

>Jordon Flato: So if Green is Urth, to me this sets up a clear metaphor that Green is a
>symbol of what Urth would have become without a flood.  A world ruled by
>monsters, taken over by survival of the fittest, and left to rot and decay
>in it's own filth.  Sure it's lush, but it's a lushness of hell.  So, yes,
>clearing the sewers is a highly resonant act to Severian bringing the flood.
>And Blue has a number of thematic resonances with Ushas.  So Wolfe has set
>up a great system for us where he can play with the symbolic consequences of
>a Urth without Flood (Green) and an Urth with flood (Blue).

Yes, this is certainly along the lines of my own thoughts on the matter. But, I still get
a sense that this is more than just a symbolic, thematic similarity. There are ruins on
Green. There are ruins beneath the waves of Blue (and Ushas). We have the portents of a
Flood in Dr. Talos' play but I think we also have some historical allusion to a "Deluge" in 
the history of Urth.  We have forests on Lune but no apparent civilization remaining.

I am seeing evidence of a planetary cycle. I consider also the evidence of Fomalhaut. This is
a yellow star in our earthly time, just like Sol. Yet in BotNS both are unnaturally red long
before their time to go red giant. Even if we ignore the connection of "Fishes Mouth" to all 
the fishy and cavey stuff on Urth, the redness of Fomalhaut by itself (and the implied 
destruction of planets there) suggests a cosmic cycle we only get to see small portions of in
the Sun Series books.

(As Dan'l hints at, perhaps this is even an adjunct exploration of what happens to a planet when 
humanity has been replaced by a shadowy, abo-ey, faerie, inhumani type species.;- ) At the end of
RttW, there is a potential war set up between humans and inhumi on Blue. In the end, who will win?)

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