Sev's family tree

Jeff Wilson · 28 Jan 2011, 04:25 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: jwilson at io.com (Jeff Wilson)
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2011 22:25:54 -0600
Subject: (urth) Sev's family tree
In-Reply-To: <29B87DA5-DEF8-47F0-A45B-FAB85DD1D584 at butcherbaker.org>
References: <SNT123-W25C62CAB686174CDDF6FEBCFFF0 at phx.gbl>	<454A2FAE-7B89-408B-A433-DC9AE77CC631 at butcherbaker.org>	<AANLkTikZgvy6hZD9675H1kxFN-Zc38qUuG0Rnm_v7ZJp at mail.gmail.com>	<249C0E3BF446437A88AF4E5110DF594B@jill>
	<29B87DA5-DEF8-47F0-A45B-FAB85DD1D584 at butcherbaker.org>
Message-ID: <4D424552.5090808 at io.com>

On 1/27/2011 3:29 PM, Son of Witz wrote:
> I love the fact that the book is this slippery, and this can all be
> gleaned from what is actually there on the paper, without external or
> even complicated internal cross references.

Beware! Ambiguity is the devil's volley ball.

> To answer Jeff, I guess I mean that there are two major, er,
> soothsayer level readings that are opposed but square with the
> "letter" of the text. Those are, in a nutshell, that the Heirodules
> are playing God for their own purposes and keeping humanity down,
> while duping Severian, ie, an absolutely negative result to the
> events in the book. The other is that they are messengers of the
> increate, helping things toward a positive goal.


I thought we already went there a few months ago. One of the themes of 
the book, and of much else what Wolfe writes, is that both are true; the 
hurtful acts of evil forces ultimately serve the greater good of the 
Increate. And even the Yesodis who want to be benevolent and 
intentionally do good in the eyes of the Increate will fall short, 
because they are the flawed image of the flawed image of the Increate. 
But, in their sincere desire to be good like Him, they approach His 
ideal more and more closely.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
Computational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana
< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >

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