(urth) Lame Protagonists

[Son Of Witz]

That is what I was gonna ask. Does GW have a limp?

~M

On Jun 15, 2011, at 6:10 PM, Jack Smith wrote:

> Gene Wolfe seems to walk with a cane.  Silk is limping through much of the Long Sun, and the Rajan has his strange staff in the Short Sun.
> 
> 
> On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 4:17 PM, James B. Jordan <jbjordan4 at cox.net> wrote:
> IIRC it's also in The Hero as Werewolf.
> 
> JBJordan
> 
> 
> At 03:07 PM 6/15/2011, you wrote:
>> 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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> James B. Jordan
> Director, Biblical Horizons
> Box 1096
> Niceville, FL 32588
> http://www.biblicalhorizons.com
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> -- 
> Best wishes,
> Jack
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