(urth) Disembodied voices (was: Re: Tzadkiel and Severian and the Holy Trinity)

[brunians at brunians.org]

Gurloes is a tragic and interesting figure.

He is father to Severian in a way that Palaemon is not.

.


> On 13/07/10 22:08, Ryan Dunn wrote:
>> Interesting. I can think of at least one other disembodied voices, in
>> the Atrium of Time. Anywhere else?
>>
> That would be the voice of the 'mouths' in the apex of the Matachin
> Tower that speak to whoever is around and also to the 'mouths' in the
> other towers. Presumably some kind of automated communication mechanism
> - given the age of the ship/towers, it's quite possible that these
> 'mouths' also speak to the Whorl and may be responsible for some of the
> god-communications thereupon.
>
> I find it very interesting that of all the Guild, only Master Gurloes is
> not frightened by these 'mouths' and perhaps actively seeks out their uh
> ... company? Gurloes is a thwarted genius and a confirmed alcoholic, a
> very unhappy man indeed from what Severian tells us; but he does seem to
> have these strange insights (for instance: who exactly was it amongst
> the insane 'clients' of the Third Level that he chose to speak to, and
> what did they speak about?).
>
> jd
>
>
>
>> ...ryan
>>
>> On Jul 13, 2010, at 4:37 PM, Cliff Judge<transentient at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Where I am in my re-read of UotNS, it is clear that Tzadkiel is the
>>> ship itself and when the sailors refer to "the Captain" they mean the
>>> disembodied voice that speaks in their heads and that Severian has a
>>> conversation with at one point, I believe after he comes back from the
>>> dead when Sidero pulls his unconscious body out and, as it is implied,
>>> bangs him on the noggin hard enough to kill him.
>>>
>>> I found myself intrigued by that conversation - Tzadkiel was asking him
>>> if he would fight for him, and Severian kept calling Tzadkiel "Master."
>>>
>>> We also know that, though mortals beleive that there are many such
>>> ships as Tzadkiel, most sailors seem to understand that, as impossible
>>> as it seems, there is only one ship, and she may well be infinite.
>>> Presumably she would have to be infinite inside (logically, eventually
>>> people would run into each other no matter how big the ship was
>>> otherwise, and there is also the statement "there were many more than
>>> seven holds.")
>>>
>>> Thinking about the idea that Severian is a Christ-figure, could
>>> Tzadkiel be a sort of God figure? Or perhaps there is a trinity at work
>>> here, Severian, Zak, and the ship as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? I
>>> confess to being an ex-Catholic who didn't pay enough attention to his
>>> Catechism to know what else to look for to verify this. Or even who is
>>> who.
>>>
>>> I don't know exactly why, but I felt that, when Severian lies dead and
>>> the first-person narrator is suddenly somebody other than Severian,
>>> saying how "I was going to tell him what he must do (find another? or
>>> something else?) but he was cold and dead," to seem to blur the
>>> distinction between Severian and Tzadkiel. There may not be a strong
>>> link there, might just be my imagination.
>>>
>>> Then of course during the initial part of the judgment ceremony we have
>>> Tzadkiel being more like Christ and Severian being more like God the
>>> Father - Tzadkiel is a proxy, led in chains to a rock where there is a
>>> loop with a sliding link. Along the way, Severian steps into his role
>>> of Torturer with a little judo action, then suddenly takes his place.
>>>
>>> I'm going to digress for a moment because this isn't coming together as
>>> coherently as I had hoped when I started writing it. But at the end we
>>> do have the ship blotting out the sun to legitimize Apu-Punchau's
>>> divinity.
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