Ultan's Library Shadows of the New Sun Interviews

Lee Berman · 20 Jun 2013, 12:01 · from 2013-June.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2013 08:01:57 -0400
Subject: (urth) Ultan's Library Shadows of the New Sun Interviews
Message-ID: <BLU175-W251CB9052B51069D769054CF8E0 at phx.gbl>

>jbarach:If Kypris is in proper relation to the Outsider, then she's just love, 
>isn't she?  If you worship Love as a goddess while not serving the Outsider....

Within the lupine universes, is it possible to not serve the Outsider?

In my view of BotNS, we have humans who are "pawns" who can only move one step 
forward at a time, in contrast with a "queen" like Tzadkiel who can presumably
move multiple steps in any direction on the chessboard. Yet above Tzadkiel is the
Increate, who is so simultaneous on every square and within every chess piece that
it becomes impossible to do anything (even breaking chess rules) which is not a
part of the Increate and his plan.

I'm not sure whether the Outsider is meant to represent the Increate or perhaps an
order of divinity somewhere between Tzadkiel and the Increate. If the Outsider
is the Increate I think it would be impossible not to serve him and his plan.

But if the Outsider is meant as something a bit lower in divinity and closer and
more involved with humanity (as I suspect, due to the direct Silk-Outsider connection;
such a connection doesn't seem possible with the Increate), then deviation is possible.

In my view, Wolfe moves from a BotNS game analogy of chess to cards in Long/Short Sun. 
The gods of the Whorl are physically encoded in cards and these cards get shuffled into
new combinations and new card "games" on Blue and even on the later Whorl with its godlings
and Silk (silent and silver) as a new mainframe god. In this reshuffling, the Outsider goes 
from being a minor god to a somewhat all-encompassing god as the 7 book Long/Short series 
progresses.

This might be an analogy for what Wolfe sees happening with spiritual progression on 
earth. Perhaps it is a reshuffling of divine cards which allows deities such as
Dionysus and Pan and even Jahweh to move from minor, localized gods to major, global
gods (and back to minor in the case of Dionysus and Pan).

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