(urth) heartburn was: Re: travelling north

[brunians at brunians.org]

Severian is a Descent of Christ.

.

> On 03/06/10 23:21, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:
>> I think it's #2 that gives some people heartburn.
>>
> while commenting upon:
>
> On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 3:19 PM, John Watkins<john.watkins04 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> >  I think this has been covered, right?
>> >
>> >  1)  Obviously there are intentional parallels between Severian and
>> Jesus.
>> >  2)  Obviously Severian is not a literal stand-in for or equivalent to
>> Jesus.
>>
>
>
> Heartburn being an understatement no doubt! Regarding this, I feel that
> one of the most interesting passages of all occurs toward the end of
> 'The Urth of the New Sun'. [I know there are those who do not care for
> the sequel, but Wolfe wrote it also, to continue Severian's story, and
> so I feel it should at least be mentioned.]
>
> Severian has  traveled via the Corridors of Time to the ancient past of
> the Stone Town, where he has been taken by its people for (what appears
> to approximate to) a solar deity. To the extent that when he attempts
> seriously to leave, they kill him in order to keep him with them for
> ever. The whole referring back of course to the episode in *Conciliator*
> where we first get a heads up that Severian and the vivimancer
> Apu-Punchau are in some sense the same person (or
> Copenhagen-interpretation iterations of the same entity).
>
> Severian wakes up in Apu-Punchau's tomb, with the dead body of his
> 'other self' alongside him; he is baffled (as usual!) and frightened,
> but fortunately the white-clad figures of the Hierodules are there to
> explain things to him, or to help him construct his own explanation.
> During the course of this Ossipago offers to take all of them back to a
> 'better time'; an offer that is refused. Over the page Famulimus tells
> Severian that if they had allowed Ossipago to do this, he would have
> taken them back to an earlier time and 'That would not have been a
> better place for you, I think.' All this after the two non-machine
> Hierodules have prostrated themselves before the 'resurrected' Severian,
> 'the head of his  race and its savior'.
>
> One is left with supposition. Are we to gather that if so allowed,
> Ossipago would have transported the party 'back' in time (using
> Severian's perspective) to another tomb, and another Resurrection?
> Famulimus forbids it, thus preventing this final merging of timelines.
> On this interpretation, while Severian grows and evolves to become a
> kind of savior, the Powers do not allow that final identification of
> Severian with Christ himself. On the other hand, since Severian/the
> Sleeper is now  a practised wanderer of the Corridors of Time, nowhere
> is it excluded that somewhere along the line, with his further internal
> spiritual evolution perhaps, this identification could happen. Maybe
> Famulimus is saying 'Not right now' (that is, Severian's 'now'), rather
> than 'No way that's wrong and always will be.'
>>>>> On the other hand, the intended parallels do pile up. To once again
>>>>> quote Castle of the Otter/Castle of Days:
>>>>> "Many of us have read so often that he was a "humble carpenter"...The
>>>>> man who built the built the cross was as much a carpenter too...The
>>>>> only
>>>>> object we
>>>>> are specifically told he made was not a table or a chair, but a
>>>>> whip...Christ knew not only the pain of torture but the pain of being
>>>>> a
>>>>> torturer..."
>>>>>
>>>> That's a good one, which I'd forgotten.  But it doesn't mean Severian
>>>> is
>>>> like Christ or that he did for his universe what Wolfe believes Jesus
>>>> did
>>>> for ours.  Severian is far from perfect.
>>>>
>>>> Wolfe also points out a parallel to someone who was presumably not a
>>>> savior at all, the carpenter who made the cross.
>>>>
> Hmm. To veer off topic a little -  there is another writer - a devout
> Orthodox (big 'O') Christian - who has (to the best of my recollection)
> used exactly this last notion in writing of Christ himself. Nikos
> Kazantzakis in 'The Last Temptation of Christ' has Christ as an
> apprentice carpenter building crosses, instruments of torture and death,
> for the Occupying Power. (I will not comment on this; I'm just relaying
> the information.) Does the Guild of Seekers for Truth and Penitence have
> their apprentices help to build their 'apparatus'?
>
> It *is* off topic of course; but still, since it is many years since I
> read that book please correct me if I have remembered LTOC wrong.
>
> I don't think I have though - It's so unlikely I'd have invented this
> idea myself back then.
>
> regards
>
> JD
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Urth Mailing List
> To post, write urth at urth.net
> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
>