(urth) Urth Digest, Vol 70, Issue 15

[David Stockhoff]

James, you should post this kind of stuff more often. 

Would it be safe to say that the apparent theme or motif of incest committed by Severian derives directly from the twinned sexes comprising the gnostic God? 

If so, necessarily, Valeria must be Severian's sister, as has been suggested. 

If Severian is always mating with his female counterparts/family members through TBotNS, is this a process of the Keymaster always trying to fit his Key into the right Gatekeeper (iirc) so that a new universe may be born?

(See John Crowley, Endless Things etc., for an account of an apparently failed attempt to do this, or maybe not failed at all...)

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Message: 3
Date: Thu, 03 Jun 2010 23:47:49 -0500
From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
Subject: Re: (urth) travelling north
Message-ID: <4C088575.5010807 at gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

 >>The figurative worlds of Severian and Silk are Gnostic
 >>ones not Judeo-Apostolic ones. Those protagonists act,
 >>and achieve, within their worlds as the Gnostic Christ does.
 >>Not as the Johanine Christ acts.

 >David Stockhoff wrote:
 >Interesting. Can you elaborate on the distinction?
 >(I'm not familiar with the Gnostic Christ's achievements.)

Well, for starters, the Gnostic Christ does not save anyone 
individually. He saves mankind as a whole through the example of his 
enlightenment. This is closer to the salvation of Silk and Severian than 
Jesus. Additionally "the Christ" is merely the male half of God 
(although even that term has a somewhat different meaning). With the 
female half they form the syzygy of their particular Aeon. This is 
Severian and Thecla. Silk and Hyacinth are a retelling of the gnostic 
story of Simon Magus and Helena. Helena was the Ennoia who had fallen 
into the lower aeons and become trapped in matter. "The Father", 
manifesting himself as Simon Magus, "The Son", finds her in a brothel 
suffering abuse, and rescues her. There's also Ophis, the serpent, mixed 
up in the story. It would difficult, but take fewer words, to detail the 
ways that New Sun and Long Son are inconsistant with what we know of the 
teachings of  guys like Tatian and Valentinus or the group founded on 
their teachings known as the Severians.

J


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