The green man is a fake

Gerry Quinn · 16 Jan 2011, 18:01 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: gerryq at indigo.ie (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2011 18:01:54 -0000
Subject: (urth) The green man is a fake
References: <SNT123-W358B848CDF3BEC307BB043CFF50 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <F62DE84A31734BAA9E76586471608470@jill>

From: "Lee Berman" <severiansola at hotmail.com>
> The amount of sunlight hitting the area of human skin is not enough 
> energty to allow
> homeothermy and movement. And we know that the Green Man is a walker 
> through the corridors
> of time, which requires energy approaching full stellar output. Something 
> is not right with
> this guy.

Correct about homeothermy and movement.  As has been noted before, Wolfe is 
not writing hard SF, for most authors of which this would be a slight 
stumbling block. As for Severian's even more thermodynamically challenging 
capabilities such as resurrection of the dead and walking the corridors of 
time, it is not really clear how much energy it requires.  The merchanism 
used by the Green Man appears to be different anyway, as he can apparently 
range through a wider period of time.

> It could be argued that Wolfe was aware of these problems but created a 
> fictional green man anyway
> just because he is a cool character. I'd be happy with this explanation 
> except the green man
> is not a cool guy. He is a self-admitted liar and he has the creepy laugh 
> that is even worse
> than the alzabo's. What purpose does this laugh serve? He also fails to 
> live up to his promise
> to rescue Severian in repayment for being rescued by him.

The laughter is easily explained as expressing the Green Man's 
disappointment and despair after he had briefly hoped in Severian, and then 
found him to be an ignorant primitive babbling about a New Sun of which the 
green Man had no knowledge (because in his time it is forgotten).  And he 
never promises to rescue Severrian.  He does help Severian with information, 
which proves to be correct.  And that's basically all we know about him. 
Seems cool enough to me.

- Gerry Quinn

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