(urth) Re: urth-urth.net Digest, Vol 7, Issue 24
Kieran Mullen
kieran at ou.edu
Thu Mar 31 15:17:31 PST 2005
> I've never really understood how Christian readers of Wolfe can take
> the
> Christian imagery surrounding the New Sun at face value, ignoring the
> fact
> that unlike Jesus, it brings not salvation but indiscriminate death and
> damnation.
>
Well, as a Catholic and a reader of Wolfe I have found this thread to
be rather odd. Your point seems to be that any change in the future
of Urth that causes the death of anyone is immoral. The supposition
is that the "Frozen Urth" future is the "true future" and that "Reborn
Urth" is some choice that Severian makes leading to the deaths of
millions.
Neither future is real until it happens. We see people from both
(Master Ash and the Green Man). It is true that Severian chooses the
cataclysm of rebirth. However, to choose the Frozen Future would be
to condemn the Green Man and all those who might live in the future to
non-existence. Is that inately better?
I always thought that the inhabitants of Urth got to choose their
future - that was the point of the battle in UotNS. Those who opposed
the New Sun fought those who favored it. The New Sun won.
For me the analogy is a poisoned bog that has some critters eking out
some existence in it. You might choose to clean it up, but in doing so
you wreak havoc on those already there, or who are adapted to the
poisons. So you should just leave it a toxic dump.
Let's say Severian had to go to Briah to *stop* the arrival of the
White Fountain and keep the Urth on its current path of freezing in the
dark. Are you arguing that that would be a better choice?
Kieran Mullen
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