(urth) Like a good neighbor

[Marc Aramini]

--- On Wed, 11/23/11, James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: (urth) Like a good neighbor
> To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
> Cc: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
> Date: Wednesday, November 23, 2011, 5:51 AM
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
> On Nov 23, 2011, at 5:11 AM, Sergei SOLOVIEV <soloviev at irit.fr>
> wrote:
> 
> > My feeling is that while in Severian Wolfe
> investigates a personalty that in some
> > ways echoes Jesus, in the story of Horn and Silk he
> explores a "growth" of a saint
> > (from very imperfect "seeds").
> 
> Honestly, as my understanding of what is going on SS has
> developed, I have come to see the echoes in Sev to be of a
> gnostic Jesus but the echoes in the Rajan to be the more
> Orthodox version: mediator, divine Incarnate, Trinity...
> 
> _______________________________________________

Well, my problem with this assessment of Silk is that he has no real power to heal the sick and the dying, as Severian occasionally showed.  He can only spiritually abet them - he seems much more like an individual who might become a saint to me than a Jesus.  Sergei seems right on the money on that one.

Also, I know I've said this before, but I really don't like the clone Typhon-Silk because it does complicate the four parents on the aureate path: we CAN identify them if Silk is a son and that fits the details better (assuming the final picture of Silk with his head on Typhon is one of ascension and apotheosis of a son overtaking the demiurge, which actually seems a bit gnostic, no?).  The details of the text are also better fitted with Tussah as a being distinct from Typhon, honestly. There are no dream sequences equating them in the way that Mamelta/Hy/Kypris/Chenille are equated.  The best evidence for cloning is found in statements like "Pas grew himself from a seed" and the idea of a nightside and regular Silk, but the particulars of the text make it much more tenable to identify the parents if we are dealing with a son, which is, as Lemur said, what Typhon wanted to replace him. 

One of us is taking the statement of Tussah's parenthood and subjecting it to misprision.  I just really, really, really, no matter how I try, can't read it as you do - I don't think it's even a mysterious statement this particular time.