Urth - Earth links

Antonin Scriabin · 14 Oct 2011, 19:09 · from 2011-October.txt.gz

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From: kierkegaurdian at gmail.com (Antonin Scriabin)
Date: Fri, 14 Oct 2011 15:09:49 -0400
Subject: (urth) Urth - Earth links
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When does Silk see Jesus?  I vaguely remember something like that; perhaps
in his meditations on the Outsider he comes to such a conclusion?

The Severian-as-a-type-of-Christ stuff isn't as obvious to me.  Severian is
not divine, and not in charge; he gives the appearance of both of these,
however, only because as the Conciliator he is wrenched forward and backward
in time by entities more powerful than him.  He is used as a pawn to usher
in the New Sun at the expense of (presumably) most of the life on Urth, but
this seems a decidedly un-Christlike salvation to me.  There are superficial
similarities between Christ and Severian (male, human yet more than human,
prophesied, etc.) but there differences enough that I see treating Severian
as allegorical to Christ as a desservice to the complexity of his character,
and the story.  Rather, Severian seems a sort of perversion of what we
consider Christ-like and heroic; Severian is decidedly flawed, mundane, and
unaware of himself in time, his role, and his powers for the majority of the
story.  When he becomes an amalgamation of the past Autarchs and Thecla, he
doesn't even retain a singular identity anymore; this is also very unlike
Christ.

On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 2:41 PM, Marc Aramini <marcaramini at yahoo.com> wrote:

>
> It's infinitely clear in New Sun that the Conciliator is a syncretic blend
> of a historical Christ and the legendary possibilities of his return,
> after-Christ, but it only becomes obvious in Urth how that syncretism comes
> about (robert and maria are missionaries, Silk sees Jesus, etc. etc., Jesus
> exists in the Solar Cycle, and Severian is not him though he may reenact
> portions of the Christian passion (as does Tzadkiel, for that matter).
> Sev's whole trial indicates that it is imitation and substitution at work in
> the salvation effort, he doesn't even bear the sacrificial burden there.
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