(urth) Corundum of the Claw

[David Stockhoff]

There's a bit in John that says (I paraphrase): Jesus does not come to 
put the world on trial or to condemn it, but to rescue it.

Severian comes to carry out a death sentence.

Mr Thalassocrat wrote:
>
>
> On Wed, Jun 23, 2010 at 3:01 AM, Son of Witz 
> <sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org <mailto:sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org>> wrote:
>
>
>     after the Crystal is broken, Severian understands it's ( now missing )
>     light as "the only light we had."  He finds the shards, and gives
>     them to
>     the see, literally burying the myth.  After the myth is disposed
>     of, he
>     finds the real Claw, the thorn, and he waxes philosophical:
>
>     "Whenever I looked at it, it seemed to erase thought. Not as wine and
>     certain drugs do, by rendering the mind unfit for it, but by
>     replacing it
>     with a higher state for which I know no name. Again and again I felt
>     myself enter this state, rising always higher until I feared I should
>     never return to the mode of consciousness I call normality; and
>     again and
>     again I tore myself from it. Each time I emerged, I felt I had
>     gained some
>     inexpressible insight into immense realities. At last, after a
>     long series
>     of these bold advances and fearful retreats, I came to understand
>     that I
>     should never reach any real knowledge of the tiny thing I held,
>     and with
>     that thought (for it was a thought) came a third state, one of happy
>     obedience to I knew not what, an obedience without reflection because
>     there was no longer anything to reflect upon, and without the least
>     tincture of rebellion."
>
>     There, at the end you have it. He has a happy obedience without
>     the least
>     tincture of rebellion. He has been put through his tests, and now
>     he is
>     taking up the mantle.
>
> The most interesting question for me is whether this unquestioning 
> acceptance is supposed to be a *good* thing.
>  
>  The Claw is only special because it has been soaked in Sev's blood, 
> while he was on the Ship (or at least that's what 
> giant-moth-woman-Morlock-bureaucrat Apheta tells him in UOTNS). The 
> religion of the New Sun only exists because of Sev's actions in "the 
> past". When he prays at the altar of the Pelerines in the lazarette, 
> he finds that he is praying to himself.
>  
> If you can import a notion from Long Sun/Short Sun, Sev's strivings 
> lead only back to himself, not outside, to the "Outsider".
>  
> And contrast Silk and SilkHorn's enlightenment and experience of the 
> presence of God, with the thoughtless, formless, fundamentally 
> non-intellectual nature of Sev's experience in this quote. Personally, 
> I don't think Wolfe has any time for this kind of mystical experience, 
> separated from the intellect. I read Pirate Freedom as a critique of 
> it - the worthlessness of feeling all holy when it's separated from 
> the conscious will to actually do good stuff. 
>  
> Sev, the avatar of *his* religion, of course ends up responsible for 
> the death of most of the people of Urth, without really thinking 
> about what he's actually doing or having clear sense of why.  
>  
> When you first read New Sun, and see the strange parallels between the 
> life of Christ and Sev's life, it's natural to wonder if it isn't all 
> a little blasphemous, coming from a Christian writer.
>  
> I think the answer is that Sev's career is indeed a kind of blasphemy. 
> He says to Aphata that he is worried that the Hieros are like the 
> magicians, promising wonders & delivering evil.
>  
> I think Sev for them serves much the same purpose as the mutilated 
> cock he & little Sev find, before they encounter the magicians. The 
> cock is a piece of apotropaic magic to ward off the coming of the New 
> Sun. I think the Hieros have moulded Sev as a tool to ward off the 
> coming of Christ, in some sense.
>  
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