Conditional Concession to Lee

Lee · 10 Sep 2014, 13:01 · from 2014-September.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee)
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2014 09:01:16 -0400
Subject: (urth) Conditional Concession to Lee
Message-ID: <BLU175-W791F07478B72D5E3B7EF8CFCF0 at phx.gbl>

>Jeffery Wilson: I've long been one of the people pooh-poohing Lee's 

>notion of Inire as a multiple creature and shapeshifter like Tzadkiel, 

>despite them being at opposite extremes of the visible Yesodi ranks.

Tzadkiel and Inire being at the opposite extremes is actually at the heart 

of my view. The religious/mythological model is that of angels and demons.

These are both the same sort of creatures. Both are superhuman, pluralized,

genderless, shapeshifting beings with animal associations. The main 

difference is that demons are fallen angels who dwell on earth (and

below?) rather than in heaven.

I notice that Tzadkiel (as far as we know) never appears on Urth. The

lower orders of Hieros such as Barbatus and Famulimus only make brief

appearances on Urth. Others such as Father Inire, the Cumaean (and Abaia

and Undines) are on Urth all the time for at least a thousand years. It

seems pretty clear which of these are "demons" and Wolfe goes so far as

to specifically call Juturna that name.

There is a specific Biblical demon that I find especially relevant to 

BotNS: 

>1 Enoch portrays Azazel as responsible for teaching people to make weapons 

>and cosmetics, for which he was cast out of heaven. 1 Enoch 8:1?3a

A lot of stories have war in them but I was always intrigued by Wolfe's

emphasis on beautification in BotNS. I think this connection explains it.

Building on that:

>According to 1 Enoch (a book of the Apocrypha), Azazel (here spelled ??z??zy?l) 

>was one of the chief Grigori, a group of fallen angels who married women. This 

>same story (without any mention of Azazel) is told in Genesis 6:2?4:

This human-demon interbreeding, producing the "Nephilim" is interpreted by many 

as the real Biblical reason for the need for a purifying Flood. If Father Inire

is responsible for bringing the tools of warfare and beautification to the 

Commonwealth, perhaps we are also invited to wonder why he is called "Father".

His interest in young human girls must surely serve a storyline purpose.

Azazel is strongly associated with the goat, leading to the depiction of Satan

as hooved, horned and goat-eyed. This goat-connection is related to the pagan 

god Pan or Faunus, (known for his sexual proclivity and lust for human women)

which leads to a direct connection to (who else?) Dionysus.

>However, seeing the juxtaposition of classes and people here reminds me 
>that Inire is the supplier of cloning and bestifying/anthopofying 
>technology with his hands in the khaibits and the anpiels and 
>mastiffmen. So he does have something of these abilities, only as lab 
>technology rather than an inborn ability like the Hierogrammates.

I think we should not ignore Wolfe's repeated urgings that we not draw such a

strict dividing line between magic and science. Nor between biology and 

technology.

>So, perhaps Rudesind is rather a *clone* of Inire himself, explaining 
>their similarity of simian build. This  goes for the other suspects like 
>the autocthonous shaman and Isangoma.

I think this is the way we were meant to see it. With remembrance that one of the

goat-god Pan's best tricks was to be able to multiply himself into a small army of

iterations. Here is an interesting story about one of those iterations:

>Pan could be multiplied into a swarm of Pans, and even be given individual names, 

>as in Nonnus' Dionysiaca, where the god Pan had twelve sons that helped Dionysus...

>..Aegipan, literally "goat-Pan," was a Pan who was fully goatlike, rather than 

>half-goat and half-man. When the Olympians fled from the monstrous giant Typhoeus 

>and hid themselves in animal form, Aegipan assumed the form of a fish-tailed goat. 

>Later he came to the aid of Zeus in his battle with Typhoeus, by stealing back Zeus' 

>stolen sinews.

Typhoeus being Typhon, of course.

The question might arise as to why Father Inire (and some of his iterations) were seen

as monkey-like rather than goat-like. My guess is that Wolfe thought that "goat" would 

make the puzzle too easy to solve. But "monkey" was not chosen randomly.

Searching out the name "Inire" provides the Latin meaning of "sexual entrance" and the 

likely inspiration for that word being from Innuus, an epithet of Pan reflecting his 

sexual nature. The demonic name "Incubus" is related to this.

As it happens, there is a tailless monkey named Macacus innuus, so named for its highly

sexual nature. I think Father Inire's name and monkey resemblance is riff on this.

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