Father Inire as Dionysus

Lee Berman · 24 Oct 2011, 20:11 · from 2011-October.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Mon, 24 Oct 2011 16:11:44 -0400
Subject: (urth) Father Inire as Dionysus
Message-ID: <SNT123-W11EB8F1B8FC249215FFE3ACFEF0 at phx.gbl>

>David Stockhoff- By that very resume, yes, Hethor seems fairly ineffective to me, 
>compared with Inire. Hethor is the very type of a sailor who'll take any 
>job.  However, you have a point about being First Mate on Tzadkiel's ship, if 
>that's the same ship that banished him. That would make him a kind of 
>Lucifer.

I take Hethor's rising status of ship's crew jobs as a sign of his ambition. surely
an attribute also found in Lucifer.

> Perhaps we should remember that Tzadkiel claims that he was, in a previous creation,
> an acolyte of Severian's. Doesn't that suggest that we should be able to spot
> Tzadkiel as a worshipper of Severian earlier in the story?  Or later if he is an
> acolyte of Severian as Conciliator. Actually, I think he can be found in both places.

>David: If anything, that suggests to me that Tzadkiel used to be Hethor.

Well yes. that's what I meant.  But "used to be" invokes a time sequence and cause and effect 
which may not be applicable to beings such as these.  But yes, perhaps Hethor/Inire are linked 
to Tzadkiel as as Lucifer is an aspect of his creator, God. 

Going this far feels pretty freaky, even for me. But it may tie into Wolfe's philosophy 
that good and evil or dark and light or pagan and Christian or whatever dichotomy you 
prefer, both sides are the arms of God and serve His will with every action (willingly or not).

> Both Hethor and Inire seem to share a fascination for young women,  
> however.

>Antonio Pedro Marques: Not only that - for some reason, Hethor and FI strike me as creepy in  
>a sexual way more than any other characters, and this in a book filled  with sexual creepiness.

Yes. For me also. Supporting this theme is the liklihood (in my estimation) that Father Inire's
name is derived from Inuus, the epithet of Faunus which reflects his sexual nature.

Of course Faunus is stereotypically known for chasing and ravishing young nymphs. But the Inuus
epithet reflects a propensity for intercourse with animals. I'm not sure if the mating of a
demi-god and human (or alien and human) might qualify as a form of beastiality. But maybe
Wolfe thought of this.

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