(urth) Standard Wolfean Riddle

[Ryan Dunn]

On Aug 16, 2010, at 11:03 AM, António Pedro Marques wrote:

>>> If a Severian-like fellow appears here on our Earth some one hundred
>>> thousand years from now, in what way will he be a fake Jesus?
>> 
>> See below.
> 
> I don't think anything below answers it.

- You don't think a man walking the Earth performing miracles would be perceived as Christlike? And you honestly think that in this future, Christ is completely forgotten? I find it much more plausible to believe that Christianity never existed on Urth, though it definitely is implied that it DID or DOES exist on another iteration of Briah, in another divine year either forward or backward from the one where Urth exists.


>>> Again, what's Christ-like about him?
>> 
>> He performs miracles due to the power of something cosmic in the heavens.
>> He saves the world.
> 
> He does resurrect some people, but not as part of a ministry. He doesn't
> even know that he's doing soemthing. He doesn't 'save' the world in the same
> sense Christ does.

- Christ wasn't part of a ministry during many of his miracles, was he? And no, I'm not saying Severian is Christ. I'm saying he is Christlike. The fact that he is not as good as Christ, if you think that way, or if he is better than Christ, if that is your feeling, would play into the rant Severian gives about each divine year producing advancements in the next blossoming of the Universe that died.

It's the same species of flower, but a different flower. It has the same color petals, but different striped patterns on each one. It has the same stem, but maybe an extra leaf, and they are better formed. It has a savior, but the Butterfly Effect might produce a wholly different kind of savior.


>>>> He saves the world from dying by purging it of countless thousands
>>>> of people in a massive flood.
>>> 
>>> But that was the new sun, brought by Severian. Not the historical
>>> Conciliator.
>> 
>> See above.
> 
> I don't think anything above answers it.

- My point is being Christlike, not being Christ. And my argument posits that this divine year contains nobody by the name of Jesus, with the last name Christ. That is what I have deduced from the text, and from some of the extra-cirricular statements from Gene in interviews. Wolfe rejects that Severian represents Jesus. But he does not say that he is this divine year's savior.

After all, the hierogrammates select Severian to be the bringer of the New Sun, above all else. Meaning he is essentially the most valuable human being on Urth. He is special, different, and better than the rest in their eyes, and he is qualified to carry out this task. And he survives it.


>>> Why did God not come to Urth? It's one thing to make it a little
>>> different from Earth. Quite another to leave the local humanity without
>>> a redeemer.
>> 
>> Don't ask a Pantheistic that question. We agree though that Earth !=
>> Urth, yes?
> 
> Again, that is not the problem. It's noe thing to be different, another to
> be damned. People are all different, but they are equal before God.

- Why isn't Severian the redeemer? Urth is a dying planet, a projection to Earthlings reading Gene's book of what might happen to our own planet. In Wolfe's metaverse, Severian represents the empirical center of the Universe (Urth) and he restores the sun, which means that Urth will flourish again, at least that is the inference of the text.


>>>> I see Severian as similar but different to Christ. And I don't see
>>>> Christ in Severian's divine year of Briah.
>>> 
>>> ...because the story takes place at least tens of thousands of years
>>> after Christ.

- Gene doesn't provide dates, and neither does Severian. They certainly don't provide dates representing the distance from our real Earth. Do we assume that a painting of a moon man will live in a picture gallery for tens of thousands of years, but a painting of Jesus Christ would not? Or that a spaceship from the 1960's would still be standing and inhabited by a Guild of Torturers tens of thousands of years into the future?


>> Christ is supposed to come back in the end, why wouldn't his name come up
>> even once in any of the five volumes set in this world?
> 
> That's a good point. He certainly vanished from common knowledge - as did
> ebrtything that pertains to our history, even though bits are there as a
> vague memory.

- See below regarding vague memories and the use of ancient Saint names. By that logic, there should be a character in the text named Jesus, in honor of the savior who forgave all of humanity for their sins on the orders of his Father, the Increate.


>> We get plenty of Saint names.
> 
> Not even one. The only memory of a saint that we get is Holy Katharine. I
> see no St Dorcas in the text.

- Even more to my point. These saint names are used, however obscure they might be. And yet you claim that the Urthian society has long since forgotten the name of Jesus? Most of the Catholics I know wouldn't know half the saint names Wolfe uses in his text.

...ryan