The Wizard

Gerry Quinn · 09 Mar 2012, 15:57 · from 2012-March.txt.gz

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From: gerry at bindweed.com (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2012 15:57:33 -0000
Subject: (urth) The Wizard
In-Reply-To: <4F58CD7D.8090707 at gmail.com>
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	<4F58CD7D.8090707 at gmail.com>
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From: Ant?nio Pedro Marques 
Gerry Quinn wrote (08-03-2012 14:42):

> > The big problem I see with this interpretation is not the interpretation
> > itself but that Wolfe mentions Jesus and yet seems to give no indication
> > at all that this is the interpretation he is promoting. Suppose you were
>  > writing an alternate history where Hitler became a monk and WWII never
> > occurred. Would you gratuitously insert a clear reference (and old piece
> > of newsreel, say) to Hitler orating at a Nuremberg Rally, while never
> > ever making any reference to Hitler taking vows? To me that seems
> > analogous to what you are proposing as a ?secret history? behind the
> > Solar Cycle.

> I don't know that I like to see *this particular* comparison between Jesus
> and H?ttler. For some reason I can't explain, I find that more offensive
> than, say, comparing religion to belief in the tooth fairy.
I?m sorry you found it offensive.  I wasn?t trying to make a comparison as such, just giving an example of how one would not write an alternate history.  Hitler frequently features in alternate histories, and I selected him more or less at random.
Is it so terrible to posit that Hitler might have been redeemed by faith, though?


> But aside from that, I think Lee has a point. Taking 'our' Jesus for granted
> just because there seems to have been *a* Jesus on Urth is legitimate but
> not unquestionable. I find it unchristian to think the 'real' Church could
> have failed (but of course that's a catholic view). Rather, either the Jesus
> was the same but Humanity was fundamentally worse, or Humanity was more or
> less the same but the Jesus wasn't really Jesus.


We don?t really know it has failed, though certainly it is a legitimate speculation.  New Sun simply doesn?t deal much with religion.  In a previous post I suggested that putting Christianity centre stage would be problematic because New Sun is based on an SF conceit that to some extent mirrors the Christian story, with a physical New Sun (technically, the old sun renewed I suppose) mirroring the Christian promise of Salvation. 


> Think of it - if God has already come to this world and it still ended up 
> the way Urth did, then what hope is there of it ever becoming right, Ushas 
> or no Ushas?


Would you have argued the same during the Roman persecutions?  Christianity went through a bad time then and it might again.  There are suggestions that Typhon may have done something similar.

You might even argue that it would be *worse* if the Church were visibly presiding over Urth in Severian?s time!

- Gerry Quinn

 
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