(urth) Tzadkiel/Melek Taus

António Pedro Marques entonio at gmail.com
Fri Jul 9 08:37:38 PDT 2010


John Watkins wrote (09-07-2010 16:18):
> 2010/7/9 António Pedro Marques entonio at gmail.com <mailto:entonio at gmail.com>
>
>     If Tzadkiel is a liar, then I don't see what does he gain by
>     destroying the world. Sure, he could do it out of sheer evilness,
>     but I don't find it convincing that he would take all that trouble
>     just to have a 5 minute massacre sport. We tend to associate evil
>     with selfishness, and to annihilate your potential servants makes
>     little sense selfishly. And if the intent is to take pleasure in
>     killing them, then a global drowning is possibly one of the least
>     interesting methods - quick and clean. If otoh he wishes to wipe out
>     Humanity for whatever reason, giving a renewed planet to a reduced
>     population seems to run counter to the objective.
>
> This is actually pretty clear in the text, IMHO.  The Hierogrammates are
> trying to breed a new race of Hieros.  Severian's task as epitome of
> Urth is to persuade Tzadkiel that the humans of Urth have the genetic
> materials needed for potential future Hieros.  The destruction of Urth
> is followed by partial repopulation by humans hand-picked by the
> Hierodules, presumably for their genetic materials.
> This actually makes some sense of the family tree and incest
> preoccupations of the text, and of the monkey preoccupation--we know
> from the man-apes that there are degraded, semi-ape humans (as well as
> humans who have probably interbred with aliens of some kind, and humans
> who do really screwy things to their biology, like Baldanders.)  In
> short, the purification of Urth by massive slaughter makes perfect
> sense--Tzadkiel is wiping the bad crap out of a petri dish he's decided
> to keep using.

It makes a lot of sense. But why couldn't he cherry pick his humans and take 
them to a different planet where they would have everything they needed at 
their disposal? (Instead of a renewed but blank Earth)

Or is the breeding of hieros an end that justifies the means?

>     Moreover, if Tzadkiel could send the new sun to destroy the world,
>     why not just do it without all the hocus pocus? And if he didn't
>     have that power all by himself, then whoever did have the power is
>     calling the shots, not Tzakdiel.
>
> I think this is a trickier question.

One for which I have no answer, one way or the other.

Put another way: as a necessary theological axiom, the Increate gets a free 
pass when it comes to evil. But lesser beings don't. Unless they can derive 
their actions from the very Increate. Which brings us to the start without 
the $20.

>     Does Severian not asking for an evacuation imply that he is evil as
>     well? I suppose your idea is that he is so embroiled in Tzadkiel's
>     way of presenting things that such a question doesn't even cross his
>     mind.
>
> This seems to fit, doesn't it?  Severian is part of a cult-like order
> that trained him to obey authority, in particular when that authority
> instructs him to torture or kill.

That much is true, but I've always looked at Wolfe's characters as growing 
out of their original constraints.



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