Typhon's Confidence (plus some other questions)

Darrell Burgan · 31 Jan 2014, 04:37 · from 2014-January.txt.gz

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From: darrell.burgan at gmail.com (Darrell Burgan)
Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2014 22:37:44 -0600
Subject: (urth) Typhon's Confidence (plus some other questions)
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I know Severian is broadly considered to be a Christ figure, but to me that
symbolism goes only so far. Severian is also capable of acts of
considerable violence and other deplorable acts, things that the Christ
would never do. Ironically I find Silk to be much more of a Christlike
figure in that regard. Severian did save the world, so he is definitely a
messiah figure, but he also killed almost everyone in the process. One of
the things I love about Wolfe is that his symbols are a patchwork. Rotate
the view 90 degrees and everything is different. It's one of the reasons I
can read his books again and again and never get bored.

On Wed, Jan 29, 2014 at 3:59 PM, Marc Aramini <marcaramini at yahoo.com> wrote:

> There are a lot of biblical parallels (usually name references like
> Dorcas/tabitha) in Wolfe but that scene is probably the most direct riff he
> has ever done, offer for offer by Satan to Jesus.  It is memorable but also
> unusually heavy handed for Wolfe- almost ironically so, I think, when we
> consider how many people Severian actually saves.  It's also why having
> Silk be Typhon's heir (biological or otherwise) is so interesting.
>
>
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