(urth) Re: Increate on trial

Roy C. Lackey rclackey at stic.net
Fri Mar 25 01:05:45 PST 2005


Crush quoted me and wrote:
>>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.

You're really reaching now. You know perfectly well that Typhon established
his Second Empire before he even came to Urth; that the _Whorl_ was built
and stocked _after_ he came to Urth (Marble and Hammerstone were
manufactured on Urth, and where do you think those "sleepers" came from?
Remember Duko Rigoglio, aka Roger? He recognized his former neighborhood in
the ruins of Nessus and said "They forced me to board the _Whorl_ and put me
to sleep." IGJ, p.-315), and that Typhon ruled neither Blue nor Green, which
were colonized three centuries (ship's time) after his death.

>>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.

What part of "you are sown over tens of thousands of worlds" do you find
ambiguous? As for the Hierodules, see p.-137-38 in URTH. To summarize: In a
previous iteration of universes, uppity Man created the Hierogrammates. That
universe died and the Hierogrammates were the only work of Man to survive
its death. The Hierodules were created by the Hierogrammates to be their
servants. My point here is that the Hierogrammates exist _outside_ of time
and the boom/bust cycle of universes. If the Hierogrammates can survive the
death of a whole universe, then they will certainly survive anything that
happens to a single planet.

In the current universe, where Urth's sun is dying, Typhon set out to build
a Second Empire to rival the First. The H's weren't going to let him. They
stopped him, partly out of spite, as revenge for the wrongs done to their
ancestors during the course of their creation by Man, and partly at the
behest of the Increate, who had been down that road before and didn't like
where it ended. The H's are archangels who have the ear of the Increate, and
who do his bidding. If that last statement isn't true, then Severian was a
colossal dupe in an epic crime and Wolfe's Urth Cycle is a farce.

>>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.

Do you think Tzadkiel lied? I don't. Do archangels lie? If he lied about
that he may have lied about everything. Do we get to choose which things to
believe? Urth wasn't drowned by a metaphor. Two things are certain; the New
Sun was created by the efforts of the Hierogrammates, and old Urth was wiped
clean by it. If the Increate, who "so loved the world ...", allowed that
world to be destroyed, then it must have been by his will; that or he was
powerless to stop it and the H's were running the show. Pick one. Either
one. If the former then the text means just what it says; if the latter then
the Christian veneer of the New Sun/Conciliator falls to pieces.

-Roy




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