Increate on trial

James Wynn · 24 Mar 2005, 11:32 · from 2005-March.txt.gz

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From: thewynns at earthlink.net (James Wynn)
Date: Thu Mar 24 11:32:28 2005
Subject: (urth) Re:  Increate on trial
References: <001001c53040$15127ae0$f13ec6d8 at rclackey.stic.net>
Message-ID: <008501c530a8$34258400$60a3f63f@wynnhouse>

>>It seems to me that in Ashe's stream of time, many will
>>die early and unfruitful as the Old Sun dies out, and humanity is finished
>>as far as being a species with a significant future -- and the Hierodules
>>are seeking a significant future for humanity. They'll hold on on the
>>Typhon's and Tzadkiel's starcrossers and on a few scattered systems.
>
>You forget that Typhon "once ruled this planet, and many more."  (SWORD,
>p.-188)

Okay. But for all we know, he may be referring to Blue and Green and other 
such colonies founded by the Whorl. In that case, it is hardly a thriving 
empire.

>The survival of humanity does not depend on what happens on Urth, as
>I've said before. To remove any reasonable doubt, I submit the following
>quote:
>
>Severian to Apheta: URTH, p.-135, both hb & pb
>------------------------------------------------------
>"Is Urth really so important to you?"
>     She shook her head.
>     "Then why bother with it or me?"
>     "Because your race is important to us. It would be far
>less laborious if we could deal with it all at once, but you
>are sown over tens of thousands of worlds, and we cannot."
>----------------------------------------------------

Doesn't this quote suggest that the opposite is true? That the future of 
humanity hinges largely on the fate of Urth? Humanity may survive if Urth 
goes cold...heck, it most certainly will survive on the Tzadikel since the 
travel beyond Time itself...they might survive for millenia on other planets 
and on ships like the Whorl like pigmy wooly mammoths on isolated islands, 
but there will be no significant human civilization, no Green Man, and no 
Hierodules.

>>But Sev CAN objectively analyze both outcomes...He's a surgeon
>>performing triage on a dying world.

>The "ice future" was a contrived consequence of Man's uppity behavior. The
>coming of the New Sun, and the death and destruction it entailed for Man's
>ancestral home, was a symbolic sacrifice to appease a vengeful Increate.
>This is not merely my opinion; it is what the text says:
>
> Tzadkiel to Sev: URTH, p.-153
> ----------------------------------------------------
>"You are the New Sun. You will be returned
>to your Urth, and the White Fountain will go with you.
>The death agonies of the world you know will be offered to
>the Increate. And they will be indescribable--continents
>will founder, as has been said. Much that is beautiful will
>perish, and with it most of your race; but your home will
>be reborn."
> ----------------------------------------------------
>
>This isn't the first time I've posted this quote, but the
>sweetness-and-light variety of Christians seem to find it disturbing. I
>can't help that; I didn't write it, but there it is.

At risk of being identified for the first time in my life with some 
"sweetness-and-light" brigade, I have to ask for more support than this. 
This quote does not say the Sun was wounded by Hierodules..not for Man's 
uppity behavior or anything else. The line about the "death agonies" of Urth 
being "offered to the Increate" is enigmatic but it is surely a metaphor --  
for what, I have no idea. If the New Sun *is* some sort of 
virgin-into-the-volcano sacrifice (an angle belied by the Apheta quote you 
offered), there is no evidence that the Increate has ASKED for that 
sacrifice or that he/she is in any way involved.

So much could be made clear if I understood how Severian WAS the New Sun 
(which he and Apheta are somehow the parents of as well) or why a white 
fountain follows him to Urth and decides to plant itself in the Sun.

~ Crush

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