(urth) Abaia and the undines

[Son of Witz]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Dave Tallman [mailto:davetallman at msn.com]
>Sent: Friday, December 12, 2008 12:36 PM
>To: urth at lists.urth.net
>Subject: Re: (urth) Abaia and the undines
>
>David Stockhoff wrote:
>> Problems: ---He can't yet know 
>> that HD/AP is himself in his own future, as well as an aquastor who 
>> presumably is immortal. Later he is stunned when he finds out. So he 
>> must be another Severian---Sev 1 out of 2, or else a corpse the single 
>> Severian left behind. ---If the man in the tomb is Severian 1, who put 
>> him in it? You can build your own tomb but you can't put yourself in it. 
>> Also, you wouldn't build your own tomb unless you expected to die, and 
>> any Severian who is mature and alive before Severian himself is born 
>> knows he won't ever die, because otherwise, what would he be doing 
>> there?
>I believe these assumptions about immortality of aquastors, and even 
>Severian himself, to be unwarranted. Aquastors can age, be injured, or 
>die. One of the B,F and O trio even say that all of us can be regarded 
>as aquastors of the Increate.
>
>Severian knows that he himself will eventually die -- he doesn't have to 
>keep resurrecting if there is no reason for it, after all. Neither does 
>once being connected to the White Fountain make him immortal, since that 
>connection ceases after it has served its purpose.
>
>I see no reason why he cannot plan his own tomb and eventually be buried 
>there.



Immortal may be the wrong word.  Severian's various bodies live and die, but his consciousness does not die and is continous between the "lives" of his various bodies. And it probably doesn't die when he finally rests in his tomb.  Midway through Urth, he very clearly understands his body is a puppet.  Puppet of what? A white fountain? a New Sun?  what powers do these have to raise the dead if this is all mechanical astroengineering? 
It's METAPHOR.  It's a HEAVENLY BODY.  Severian's consciousness is up there in the cosmos, and it has many instantiations in the temporal world. Just, as I believe, the LOGOS does, which is why I've generally tried to use Logos rather than Christ, because everyone seems to get caught up in the specific history of this Jesus character as if that's all there is to the Logos. as if the concept of the Logos didn't preexist Jesus. As if the concept of a redemptive figure that must die so that life can come anew didn't preexist Christ.  This is what I'm getting at, nothing Moral or Doctrinal, or, *shudder*, historical.

But that bit about all of us being regarded as aquastors of the increate is dead on. That's what a lot of this is about. Christ isn't the only instance of the God, we all are, that's why one finds Christ in their hearts. God is right there. 

~sonofwitz