Urth - Earth links

Antonin Scriabin · 14 Oct 2011, 19:31 · from 2011-October.txt.gz

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From: kierkegaurdian at gmail.com (Antonin Scriabin)
Date: Fri, 14 Oct 2011 15:31:47 -0400
Subject: (urth) Urth - Earth links
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I was indeed brought up in a very religious household, with all of those
things you mentioned; I didn't take the apparent reference to Christ to be
anything more than a secular adjustment of present-day myths for a
far-future Urth.  Our entire mythology, Christian or otherwise, is condensed
to some bizarre miasma in the dying Sun days; whatever resemblance they have
to present Christianity is the result of cultural evolution.  It seems to me
that Holy Catherine (sp? I don't have the book in front of me) isn't even a
religious figure; just a left-over tradition from long ago that the Guild
retains for tradition's sake.  Despite initial impressions, I think it
becomes clear that the Conciliator is not Christ (or a type of Christ), and
when you read what Wolfe wrote about concerning the "translation" of TBONS,
it becomes further clear that references to saints, the use of Latin, etc.,
are just contrivances by the "translator" to make the story accessible to
the reader.  We aren't supposed to think that they are actually referring to
"saints" as we know them; the word "saint" is just supposed to the closest
equivalent for the purposes of translation.

On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 3:24 PM, Marc Aramini <marcaramini at yahoo.com> wrote:

>
>
> --- On *Fri, 10/14/11, Antonin Scriabin <kierkegaurdian at gmail.com>* wrote:
>
>
> 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<http://us.mc1618.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=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.
>
>
>
>
> Most assuredly it is because when you read the opening of Shadow of the
> torturer the conciliator is a blatant rip of Christ from the middle ages:
> seen with his dark halo, called the greatest of good men.  The New Sun
> hinted at early are clearly Parousia Christ legends.
>
> It just so happens somehow Sev, while hinting all along that he is the New
> Sun and Concialiator (The conciliator might be at this party with Cyriaca
> and not even know it!  Oh yeah, that's me!) actually becomes them.  Making
> the previous hints that the cociliator was Christ seem less solid.
>
> I think if you grow up reading religious texts and seeing all the drawings
> and lives of the saints and going to mass in a fancy stain glass cathedral
> or basilica you would naturally naturally assume the conciliator was christ
> from those early descriptions, for sure.
> Also, everybody is named after saints! clearly an attempt at a religious
> manuscript.
>
>
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