(urth) Severian as reverse Christ (or something)

Craig Brewer cnbrewer at yahoo.com
Thu Nov 20 23:10:26 PST 2008


Son of Witz,

I think our difference may have less to do with "ethics" or "religion"
and more to do with how we see the symbols operating in the book.
You're absolutely correct that Severian is covered with Christ imagery
and is often related to the Conciliator. In other words, I agree with
every citation you made in that post. (Which, by the way, I saved
because you pointed to most of the good stuff...nice to have all that
in one place.)

Our difference seems to be how we understand
those symbols to operate. To me, they stay figurative, i.e.,
non-literal, even WITHIN the plot. Severian's role in the plot
essentially carries out, in literal terms, the trajectory of what the
Conciliator represented symbolically. But does that mean that Severian
*is* the Conciliator who, at least according to Urth's legends, was a
divine figure? Or does he do in a "worldly" sense what the Conciliator
did in a "supernatural" sense?

I've never been convinced that
Urth of the New Sun proves that there was anything supernatural about
Severian. Another way to put it is that there was plenty there that was
"science fiction-y" but not "fantasy," if we take "fantasy" here to
mean supernatural. One can construe the plot in completely
"science-fiction"-y terms that don't rely on divinity at all: The
Hieros created a situation in which humans would evolve to a point
where they, the humans, would create the Hieros (who live backwards in
time...and here I take it that time travel and time weirdness isn't
necessarily a "divine" thing). Bringing about the New Sun is one
complicated pre-requisite for that, and the Hieros needed to know that
humanity was ready, so they tested various "Severians" that they'd
engineered. Our Severian happens to be the best, and so he "saves"
humanity by convincing the Hieros that it's time to dump that
white-hole back into the sun and change the course of human history. (Pardon my likely faulty summary here...it's off the cuff and, admittedly, been at least a year since I last read _Urth_.)

Now,
nowhere in all of that does Severian have to be divine. What he
certainly *is* is living out a story that, in metaphor, tells a story
of humanity's supernatural salvation. But I take it as something very
similar to Silk's epiphany: Silk had a single moment of divine insight,
but everything that happened afterward, while it followed a divine
symbolism, did not actually have supernatural consequences. Learning
the truth did not bring Silk to heaven...it just got him out of the Whorl.
So there were two transcendences: the real one was also the most
symbolic, as in Silk being granted truth from the Outsider. The
transcendence of the story was "worldly", though: he led the people
from their prison in the Whorl and their false gods to something better.

So
did Severian have to be divine, within the context of the story, to be
the New Sun? Or was he doing, in a "worldly" sense, what the
Conciliator did, or was supposed to have done, in a divine sense?

I
have to say that your talk about the LOGOS might in the end be a way of
not having to make the divine/worldly distinction I'm hung up on. And,
for that, I've got to say thanks. (And, to be honest, the more I push this distinction, the less sure I am it's appropriate.)

Craig


      



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