typhon's knowledge

maa32 · 31 Dec 2002, 18:04 · from urth-v0212.mbox · original

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From: maa32 <maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu>
Subject: (urth) typhon's knowledge
Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2002 11:04:22 -0700
Message-ID: <urth-v0212-2575 at digest.urth.net>
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Roy claims that Typhon knows very little about the conciliator or about=20
flooding.  However, he hints at several things in his appearance in Sword o=
f=20
the Lictor.  He claims that water brings new life and rebirth.  He understa=
nds=20
the role of the conciliator and his idenitity, promising Severian that if h=
e=20
kneels before him, the Conciliator come again will also kneel before him.  =
And=20
what does Severian see when he looks out the eyes of Typhon?  A vast plain =
of=20
water.  This is what Typhon sees from his mountain, with his false eyes. =20
As for  the idea of the Conciliator was not unknown in Typhon's time - the=20
conciliator was a rewriting of christology - an echo of the promise of a=20
savior that MUST have been extent if Buzz Aldron was extent in that distant=20
future.  The conciliator became meshed with Christ in myth- and of course=20
Typhon knew about that, since he is an allegory of Satan.  He is re-enactin=
g=20
the temptation scene - he knows everything about the conciliator and his=20
mission.  Even if there was no need for a sun before the age of Typhon, the=
re=20
was still need of a spiritual salvation with which the conciliator became=20
associated.  Come now.  How can the memory of Buzz Aldron outlive the memor=
y=20
of Christ?  You really believe that Typhon, the satan figure of the text of=20
New Sun, is ignorant of the role of the savior figure?  He might, after all=
,=20
have had access to the book of Canog that Dr. Talos must have perused to wr=
ite=20
Eschatology and Genesis.  And the whole secret of the future is of course i=
n=20
that text, composed from notes Severian revealed at the time when he meets=20
Typhon in the past and is incarcerated.  If Typhon lived even another year =
or=20
two, he might have seen that text, with its gnostic eschatology and genesis=20
ripe for his analysis. He might have even tried to use it when he took all =
the=20
other writings of ready-made religions and made his whorl.  (if the whorl w=
as=20
already sent, then he still had an immense storehouse of myths that would=20
become inseparable from the story of the Conciliator, who, before the=20
publication of Urth of the New Sun, seemed to be homologous with Jesus Chri=
st.
 Could Sappho and Aurelius outlive the documents of Christ in someplace lik=
e=20
Buenos Aires?).

Marc Aramini

--=20

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