(urth) the Epitome
Chris
rasputin_ at hotmail.com
Wed Apr 6 00:06:51 PDT 2005
Hold up a second. This interpretation of the Hierodules/Hierogrammates is
something that I find to be surprising, which is not to say it's incorrect
necessarily, but this was not how I was seeing things. This may be a
straightforward error on my part; I really ought to buy an electronic copy
of the books if one is available just to look up things like this.
I thought that what you are calling the creation of the Hierogrammates was a
"shaping", that is, the men of the previous universe influenced their
development rather than created them from whole cloth. And in turn the
Hierogrammates were influencing the humans of Severian's universe to return
the favor. Rather than being a great sin I thought this was something that
was supposed to elevate each in turn.
>I don't know if my use of "H's" as shorthand for Hierogrammates is causing
>confusion with Hieros, or what. Anyway, to be clear, the Hieros were the
>humans of a previous universe who caused the eventual creation of the
>Hierogrammates. That creation was their great sin; a sin certainly in the
>eyes of the H's, but also, more importantly, in the eyes of the Increate.
>Finally, if Wolfe didn't intend the destruction of Urth and the birth of
>Ushas to be, in a religious sense, a good thing, why did he write it that
>way? Why write it at all?
>
>-Roy
Do authors intend every event they write about to be interpreted as a good
thing? Well, that's not quite what I mean. How about: does Wolfe present it
to us as a good thing, or is it *Severian* who presents it to us as a good
thing? Again I think this is a shortcut to avoid rationally examining our
reasons for thinking of the birth of Ushas to be a good thing.
Unquestioningly accepting the value judgments of the narrator does not
provide us with solid ground for an interpretation.
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