Fairies and Wolfe

Lee Berman · 02 Apr 2012, 16:59 · from 2012-April.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2012 12:59:31 -0400
Subject: (urth) Fairies and Wolfe
Message-ID: <SNT123-W3596C37EF41B5045A4A487CF4C0 at phx.gbl>

>David Stockhoff: That term [Pancreator] occurs in embedded stories 
>rather than in Severian's mouth at least half the time, which has 
>led me to consider it a kind of secondary belief, i.e., perhaps 
>folkloric. Note that in your quote Severian sees the Pancreator with 
>a hand, unlike the Increate, so it is in a way a specifically human 
>understanding or extension of the Increate's being. As such it must 
>fall short.

Unless...going back to previous discussions, unless the text is viewed
from a gnostic point of view in which there is a creative demiurge who
is at least partially distinct from the true, Christian God. Perhaps
this is the reason Wolfe uses both the terms "Increate" and "Pancreator".
I think a writer trying to convey the modern monistic Christian view of 
God would use only "the Increate".

Maybe it would be possible to argue it from the Catholic point of view:
that Pancreator, Theanthropos and Increate correspond to Father, Son and 
Holy Spirit. But as James has noted, though the Sun Series shows glimpses
of Christian symbology, it is far more explicitly a pagan/gnostic sort of
universe being depicted, full of gods, monsters, witches, vampires and
pagan rites.

I like David's observation that The Pancreator is largely presented in a
folkloric context in BotNS. For me this corresponds to the gnostic earthly 
belief in a Dionysian possibly Satanic creative demiurge, stories of whom
are highly folkloric in today's world.

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