The Wizard

Gerry Quinn · 06 Mar 2012, 15:21 · from 2012-March.txt.gz

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From: gerry at bindweed.com (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2012 15:21:51 -0000
Subject: (urth) The Wizard
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From: Lee Berman 


> > Dan'l Danehey-Oakes:  Not to agree with Gerry or anything, but clearly the Christian
> > allusions are primary.

> Perhaps we can all agree that what we see as "primary" might say more about who we are
> than what is clear in the books. Allusions to pagan mythology and Christianity are 
> both there. So which is more important?
What does ?more important? mean here?  They are both there and they both have their place.  It?s like asking whether spaceships are more or less important to the story than planets.
Allusions don?t mean much in themselves; they are pointers to a theme.  It is the theme that is important, either for itself or for its place in the story.  


> The pagan and gnostic references do seem more primary to me. As I see it, the references
> to Christianity are about the trappings of the church, not Christ himself. There are 
> roods and gammdions and signs of addition. There are various forms of the eucharist and 
> sermons and confessions and so on.
If the trappings exist, presumably they have been co-opted by the state religion, but existed before that in their original form.  The Sign of Addition appears to be an allusion to the Sign of the Cross.  If so, in Silk?s universe there must at one time have been a cross that was central to events that people found noteworthy, no?  

 
> There is even a guy who resembles Jesus. But I see no Christ. 

So why do you think Wolfe put Jesus in?  To confuse people?  There was nothing that obliged him to put in the reference.  Or if he really did want to say that Jesus in Silk?s universe was not Christ, he could have put some hint in here.  (But then why does the Outsider show him to Silk?)


> I see no christian salvation

> offered by anyone; not Severian, not Silk, not SilkHorn, not even The Outsider. All  these 
> guys seem to offer is material salvation not spiritual. Salvation means surviving. Moving 
> to a different planet or having your planet reformed or something like that  

Wolfe is writing science fiction, set in the material universe.  The material salvation reflects the more spiritual themes.  What do you want, _The Last Battle_ with inhumi instead of Calormen?
> And that is the differece between, say, Moses and Jesus Christ. And perhaps the difference 
> between the brutal Old Testament demiurge and the forgiving New Testament God. Moses led
> the chosen to a Promised Land. Christ led (and leads) to an entirely new plane of existence.

He was also big on parables.
 

> Wolfe talks about the Sun Series taking place in an alternate universe than our own and I
> think this is the reason he needed that device. He could not build a futuristic gnostic
> monster and horror filled world in a universe where Jesus Christ has already appeared.
> Once Christ has been here, that's it. Christian salvation becomes an option. An option 
> seemingly unavailable to anyone in Briah.      
He said he was thinking about cosmic cycles, and he does suggest that the Solar cycle takes place some time in such a series.  It?s part of the story, in fact.  It?s by no means obvious whether Urth exists in a past, future or current iteration.  Indeed, either successive iterations are very similar, or it must be our own.  And for that matter it does not seem all that much more horrible than ours, at least if we set aside some of the more baroque touches such as the alzabo, which is certainly a horrible monster but exists because Urth is a SF world rather than an especially horrible one.  There are as many wonders as there are monsters.  Urth?s entropic condition has historic reasons, and at the end it is cured, though not without catastrophic convulsions.  
I can see the interpretation you are proposing, and it is an interesting idea - but I don?t see where Wolfe has put in reasons for us to believe it.    
- Gerry Quinn
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