(urth) Lame Protagonists

[JBarach at aol.com]

In a message dated 6/15/2011 2:41:10 P.M. Central Daylight Time,  
kierkegaurdian at gmail.com writes:
 
> I just finished Peace (which was absolutely wonderful) and
> am now reading the last half of The Book of the Long  Sun.
> I noticed when reading Peace, one short sentence in  which
> the narrator references his bad leg, which is  dragging
> behind him.  Of course, Severian is famously lame,  and
> for the larger portion of Long Sun, Patera Silk has  a
> wounded leg that is mentioned several times.  I  was
> wondering what people thought the significance is,  and
> if there were other protagonists in Wolfe novels  who
> are lame.

 
My guess, without looking at it closely, would be that Wolfe might have  
Genesis 3 in mind.  In God's curse on the serpent, we read that he will  
impose enmity between the serpent and the woman and between the serpent's seed  
(offspring) and the woman's seed (offspring), an enmity which will culminate  
this way: "He will bruise/crush your head and you will bruise/crush his  
heel."  
 
That verse is often called the protoevangelium, because it is seen by  
Christians as referring to Jesus' death on the cross, whereby he also crushed  
the head of the serpent (Satan).  The cross is the crushing/bruising of  
Jesus' heel, the serpent's strike at Jesus, which results in Jesus' death ...  
but that death isn't final, and in the serpent's striking at Jesus, the 
serpent  ends up with his own head crushed. 
 
Moreover, Paul applies that promise to the whole church in Romans 16 when  
he promises the church in Rome that "the God of peace will crush Satan under 
 your feet shortly."  So it is not just that Jesus crushes the serpent's  
head.  It is also that God crushes the serpent (Satan) under the feet of  the 
church.  And if that's the case, then it's not surprising that in  crushing 
the serpent, the church also sustains a foot wound.
 
So perhaps there's some connection between the lameness of these  
characters and the promise in Genesis 3.  But I wonder if there isn't  perhaps also a 
connection with the Jacob narrative: When Jacob wrestles the  Angel, who 
turns out to be YHWH himself, he learns that all of his wrestling  with man 
throughout his life (Isaac, Esau, Laban) has actually been wrestling  with God 
... and that in that wrestling, far from losing, he has actually been  
winning.  Now, wrestling with the Angel, he is winning again.  But the  Angel 
simply touches Jacob's hip and the result is that Jacob limps for the rest  of 
his life.  That limp, though a weakness, is not a sign of his loss but  of 
his victory.  He is now Israel, the one who wrestles with God and  prevails. 
 And maybe these Wolfean characters are to be viewed as Jacobs,  as those 
who are wrestling with God.
 
I'll let others carry these thoughts further if they wish.  (By the  way, 
this sort of imagery is also present, even more strongly, in the works of  
Tim Powers.  How many of Powers' characters are wounded in their heads,  
hands, and feet in the course of the story?)
 
John

 
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