(urth) Hierogrammates, Briah and Yesod
James Wynn
crushtv at gmail.com
Tue Aug 10 10:31:04 PDT 2010
On 8/10/2010 12:18 PM, DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:
>
>
> --- On *Tue, 8/10/10, James Wynn /<crushtv at gmail.com>/* wrote:
>
>
>
>>Severian says that the power to travel the corridors of Time is the
same for escaping the universe.
>>
>> "The hammer they wield is their ability to draw their servants back,
down the corridors of time,
>> and to send them hurtling forward to the future. (This power is in
essence the same as that
>> which permitted them to evade the death of their universe--to enter
the corridors of time
>>is to leave the universe.)"
>>
>> If one had to travel to the beginning or end of the universe to
access Yesod [assuming I
>> am understanding the propose model], then you would have to have a
separate method
>> of Time travel to reach the beginnings and endings of universes.
>That's a good point. But then there is ship-travel, and then there is
other time travel.
>
>Or so I assume, since the green man does not ride the ship. If I
understand correctly,
>Severian uses both methods at different times.
Well, the Severian says here that the technology is the same. Tzakiel (a
Hierogrammate) IS the ship, right?
So unless Tzakiel has a method of travel that is different from his
brethern...
Essentially, as Sev paints it, in order to travel through time, you have
to have the ability to exit your universe into the meta-universe. This
defeats the Laws of Relativity.
The truth is, I really like this model as I understand it: that
Hierogrammates escaped their universe to the next one in line...that
there is no "other", just a succession of universes through which
Tzadkiel travels as though along a chain. I'd like for Wolfe to have
employed it, but I don't see how it can be managed given what Severian
says in _Citadel_ both in the passage above and this one here:
"I was not told what became of the Humanity of that cycle. Perhaps it
survived until the implosion of the universe, then perished with it.
Perhaps it evolved beyond our recognition. But the beings Humanity had
shaped into what men and women wished to be escaped, opening a passage
to Yesod, the universe higher than our own, where they created worlds
suited to what they had become. *From that vantage point they look both
forward and back*, and in so looking they
have discovered us."
The use of the term "vantage point" implies something apart...but it
does not not require it, I admit. However, that they looked forward and
back implies that they did not escape only one manvantara away. Why look
for Severian in Abbadon if they had just come from there? And if they
could leap-frog universes...well, the model begins to lose it's elegance.
u+16b9
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