(urth) What's So Great About Ushas?

[Paul B]

Accidental outcomes have nothing to do with it.  I'm saying that an evil act
that results in a good outcome is still evil, even if the good outcome was
intended.

On Mon, Jul 14, 2008 at 4:16 PM, John Watkins <john.watkins04 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I think Wolfe's point is deeper than merely "evil actions can produce good
> results."  There's a significant difference from the fate of, for example,
> Gollum in the Lord of the Rings, who does evil things which lead to good
> results, and the fate of Kypris or Quetzal, whose evil is, to some degree,
> masquerading as good.  In the Urth cycle, evil that masquerades as good
> winds up becoming good to some degree--not just accidently having a good
> result, but changing internally to reflect the good that it imitates.  This
> change isn't absolute--Quetzal still picks Green (although possibly that was
> a ploy to get them to Blue) and still drinks blood to survive.  But it is
> significant.
>
> At least, that's the sense I get from the juxtaposition of "time turns our
> lies into truths" and "When a demon mimics a god, it can not help in some
> ways becoming like a god."  I would be surprised, with the significance this
> theme has in the Long Sun, with Quetzal and Kypris, and in the Short Sun,
> with the merger of the demonic Pas with the personality of the saintly Silk,
> if this same theme has no bearing on the New Sun.
>
> This does not mean that I think the Hierogrammates are properly understood
> as archangels.  Despite the name, Tzadkiel seems more sinister than that,
> and the scheme--genocide to further evolution--seems very morally
> problematic.  But, again, I'd be surprised if the presumably evil
> Hierogrammates posing as presumably good angelic beings has no significance
> other than messing with our and Severian's assumptions.  There's got to be
> something more going on than evil aliens manipulating Severian to bring
> about devastation--I just don't know what it is.
>
> On 7/14/08, Paul B <pb.stuff at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Okay, but then you're simply saying that evil actions can produce good
>> results.  That is a truism which doesn't help determine the morality of the
>> Hierogrammates' actions, which is what we're after.
>> I'm certainly willing to concede that some good came of what they did, but
>> that does nothing to excuse the Hierogrammates.
>>
>> Paul
>>
>> On Mon, Jul 14, 2008 at 1:58 PM, John Watkins <john.watkins04 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I don't think it means anything like the idea that everything is part of
>>> God's plan and thus morality is meaningless.  I think it means something
>>> much more mundane--that, as Severian himself notes "time turns our lies into
>>> truths."  In an even less poetic phrasing, habituation works--we become the
>>> thing we discipline ourself to feign being because that's how character is
>>> shaped.
>>>
>>> When the lie in question is that we speak for the divine, habituation and
>>> the Increate together act to annex our actions.  For Patera Quetzal, a
>>> bloodsucking alien pretending to be a kindly old priest, this meant that he
>>> called off the human sacrifices and generally operated as a strong and
>>> faithful leader for his flock.  For Kypris, and arguably even for Pas, it
>>> means that the sham religion of the Whorl is still operating to some degree
>>> to further the Outsider's ends.
>>>
>>> I'm suggesting that a similar explanation could be at work behind the
>>> plans of the Hierogrammates, although in a more opaque manner.  I am not
>>> suggesting that there is no basis for judging the actions of the
>>> Hierogrammates--their part in a divine plan could be necessary but
>>> completely unwitting.
>>>
>>>
>>
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