You have the wrong creation you ninny - eschatology and genesis

Lee · 10 Sep 2014, 18:35 · from 2014-September.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee)
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2014 14:35:25 -0400
Subject: (urth) You have the wrong creation you ninny - eschatology and
	genesis
Message-ID: <BLU175-W5165BE88D6CF501616CE95CFCF0 at phx.gbl>

>Gerry Quinn: Well, you did ask what could be the purpose of 

>introducing an iterated universe, and this is an in-text reason 

>for it.

It was meant more rhetorically to address the thread topic, but okay.

>he makes it clear that this (Urth as past iteraton) is the sort of idea 

>that he was considering.  I don't think it necessarily establishes that 

>he intended it to be unambiguously determinable from the text.

Agreed, in similar fashion to the other recent topic, Dr. Marsch being

replaced by an abo. As discussed, that was an ambiguous point until the

Wolfe interview confirmed it. I find the Jordan interview to be confirming

on this issue.

>I don't see anything much in the text that 
>pushes us towards understanding it as a past iteration.

Agreed. In this case I find the interview to be the most compelling 

evidence for it and the text serving as confirmation. (I'm pretty 

sure Wolfe mentions the past iteration idea in other interviews also.

I'll try to find them if anyone is interested).

>He might have chosen this to avoid contrasting the Conciliator with a 
>past Incarnation.

On first reading, it is very possible to confuse the Conciliator with Jesus

who did serve to present a bridge of conciliation between those of heaven and 

those of earth. But, by the end of Citadel, we can be pretty sure The

Concilliator is Severian and UotNS confirms that.

>If so, though, it seems to me he changed his mind between New Sun and Long Sun.

Is this because of what Marc notes as the Catholic trappings of Silk's religion?

Or the vision of the Jesus-like figure? Both?

Until told by him otherwise, I must assume Gene Wolfe intended to be consistent 

in his transition from New Sun to Long Sun and Short Sun. Thus, Urth, The Whorl

and all of Briah are not in our universe but a past iteration. God (the Outsider)

appears in this universe as Dionysian and pre-Christian rather than Jehovian and

Christian. Crosses and priestly confessions and Jesus-figures may appear but they

are not (yet) related to Christ.

(I would not rule out that Silk's vision of the Jesus-figure was actually 

Jesus Christ of Earth but if so, he would be an example of Marc's "leakage"

between universes, much as Urth's "Typhon" and Green's vampiric "Inhumi" have 

leaked from Briah to our own myths and legends)

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