Necromancy, and Severian on trial

Thomas Bitterman · 21 Mar 2005, 18:58 · from 2005-March.txt.gz

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From: tom at bitterman.net (Thomas Bitterman)
Date: Mon Mar 21 18:58:57 2005
Subject: (urth) Necromancy, and Severian on trial
In-Reply-To: <BAY102-F11A4CFB410ED53E71165FA864D0 at phx.gbl>
References: <BAY102-F11A4CFB410ED53E71165FA864D0 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <423F89DE.4070708 at bitterman.net>

Chris wrote:

> This has been done to death from certain perspectives, but I am 
> interested in the reasons *why* we let Severian off as lightly as we 
> generally do.

Because we've all heard the story before.  All 3 major Western religions 
are built on events in
which either God Himself, or members of the religion with God's approval 
and help, kill bunches
of other people.  The holy books which are taught to us since childhood 
and inform our culture
approve of the killing.  So of course when somebody else comes along and 
says he had to kill a
bunch of people for a supreme being we find nothing unusual.

Was Wolfe thinking of this?  It makes some sense if we view Urth as 
stuck in a sort of pre-Old
Testament mode, when things were done that way.

Enamel

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