The Wizard

James Wynn · 28 Feb 2012, 17:12 · from 2012-February.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2012 11:12:04 -0600
Subject: (urth) The Wizard
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At the end of The Wizard, Able feeds his blood to Disiri until she is 
raised to his level, from an Aelf (her true form being mud and sticks 
and leaves) to human. This is a very eucharistic theme, I think. A very 
overtly Christian theme and IIRC some on this list considered it too 
overt for their tastes.
J.

On 2/28/2012 4:11 AM, Daniel Petersen wrote:
> Sorry, I should clarify that I didn't detect any overt Judeo-Christian 
> elements (especially compared to other major Wolfe works) except 
> Michael.  But, yes, as has been mentioned, the very concept of a Most 
> High God is lifted straight from Old Testament scripture (and other 
> ancient Mesopotamian texts?).  And yes, Michael's position to the Oden 
> figure is surely significant (symbolised by size-proportion to 
> tingling effect, I thought).  And yes, I was trying to say that I 
> suspected Wolfe wove his Catholic worldview deeply into the fabric of 
> Wizard-Knight through various means other than (what seems to me the 
> mostly absent) way of direct allusion.  I can't remember the ending of 
> The Wizard, but the way The Knight ended seemed fairly Christian 
> 'eternal reward'/'heaven'-ish (and again probably subsuming other 
> myths of afterlife).
> I guess I'm fairly shocked not to detect a eucharistic element, which 
> usually seems central to Wolfe's epic works.  But maybe that's the point?
> -DOJP
> On Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 8:21 AM, James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com 
> <mailto:crushtv at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     IIRC when things go to hell, the Most Low God turns and runs away.
>     We see his back, so we know he was lying about the worlds being
>     circular. And surely the Most Low God must always lie.
>
>         >"I didn't detect any Judeo-Christian element except for the
>         (pretty amazing) appearance of
>         > Michael the Archangel."
>
>
>     The ending of The Wizard was as close to straight allegory
>     (Christian allegory) as Wolfe gets.
>     As for why the connection between Alfather and Michael, well I
>     believe it has to do with the fact that in Germany the chapels to
>     St. Michael  (that is, the angel) were built over sites of worship
>     to Woden.
>     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W%C5%8Ddanaz#Medieval_reception
>
>     Michael consumed all the all nobel aspects of Woden (Odin,
>     All-father). Or perhaps as Wolfe sees it, Michael is a *higher
>     form* of Allfather.
>
>     J.
>
>
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