(urth) Appearances of Inire

[Roy C. Lackey]

This is probably a futile attempt to drag this discussion back to what Wolfe
actually wrote, but I am going to do it anyway.

What has gotten lost is the truth of what Dan'l and John Watkins alluded to.
I invite anyone who doesn't understand or doesn't remember the "The Key to
the Universe" chapter (XXXIV) of CITADEL to read it again. (There is more on
the topic in URTH.) It contains a summary of Severian's understanding.

This is the gist. The human beings of the First Empire formed (that is the
verb used) a new race of beings. The new beings were cruelly fashioned from
lesser beings (less than humans). The end result was the race we know as the
Hierogrammates. The cruel humans who formed them were the Hieros.

That much is straightforward. Here is where the subject turns tricky and
leads some to question the motives and moral authority of the
Hierogrammates. (Peter Wright comes to mind.)

"However it may be, they [the Hierogrammates] shape us now as they
themselves were shaped; it is at once their repayment and their revenge.
    "The Hierodules they have found too, and formed more quickly, to serve
them in this universe."

These are the textual facts, as Severian understood them. The Hierogrammates
are doing unto human beings much the same thing that humans had done unto
them. They also tinkered with some sort of beings to form their holy slaves.

-Roy