(urth) The Wizard

[Lee Berman]

>Dan'l Danehy-Oakes: But I hold that Wolfe's major method is to create 
>a non-Christian reality and embed it into a larger reality that is 
>Christian -- as it were, other realities created by the One God.
 
Well, I tend to agree. I think "The Increate" mentioned in the Sun Series
does represent the one true God. However I think "The Pancreator" and
"The Demiurge" represent something different. Something lesser, darker and
more materialistic than the one true God. Something similar to what was
ruling the earth before Christ and had created such a nasty world full of
monsters and demigods and demons. These horrors (be they real or allegory
for our sins) represent what Christ saved us from, giving us the choice of
salvation. Previous to Christ they (as on pre-flood Urth) were too powerful
for humanity to resist.
 
My view is that with Urth, Wolfe created a world where Christ never appeared,
where all the ancient gods and horrors remained in control. A "what if" 
thought experiment. And you are right. In Wizard/Knight the Christian world is
not inaccessible.  There is a passageway, so we have a more direct contrast.
 
>Daniel Petersen: the whole point in Wolfe is for there to be few and oblique
>Christian references that are completely outnumbered and
>out-everything-elsed that still end up subverting the hordes of 'pagan'
>overlords.
 
That sounds good but it just isn't what I am seeing in the Sun Series. BotNS
ends with the worship of a pantheon of gods based on normal people from the past,
with demonic fish women still lurking around.  And Short Sun ends with 
swarms of inhumi threatening the future of humanity. I am left with the feeling
they are in need of something more to attain the higher level of spirituality 
that we (Christians) have here on earth.
 
>He graciously invites readers to hear the Outsider and be part of Silk's
>revolution, exodus, and new frontier.
 
I am confused. Are you saying The Outsider is our Christian God and Silk is the 
second (or tenth or whatever) coming of Jesus? If not, we might be in agreement.
 
I think The Increate in the Sun Series is our Christian God. Is The Outsider 
actually The Increate? I don't find that likely. The Increate is too impossibly
distant from humanity to directly interact while The Outsider gets right into
our business on a personal level. (more like the Old Testament God)
 
>Marc Aramini: I think the intention of Wolfe in There are Doors was very different
> than the Sun stories: the sex goddess/death of males after mating is simply not 
>the dominant paradigm in the Sun Cycle, where we may see female beings of power, 
>but they are ultimately trumped and always seem to be stuck in a primarily sexual 
>mindset (Kypris, etc)
 
The specifics may be different but I think the intent is the same- Wolfe's purpose 
was to show the result of having unworthy pagan gods (like Aphrodite or Abaia or 
Typhon) still being worshipped because Christ never appeared to show humanity the 
true God. Though not God, these beings were real and might have had superhuman powers.  
Wolfe himself says:
 
>GW: Laura is my idea of what a pagan goddess might be who survived into the Christian 
>world. One of the places where I probably split off from conventional Catholic thinking 
>is that I believe that the gods of paganism were real. I don't think that they are 
>entitled to the worship that they received from the pagans. I think what many of the 
>biblical writers are saying is, "Yes, these are real powers, but it is wrong for you 
>to give to them the honors that are due to God alone." And I think that that is exactly 
>correct. Now, if Aphrodite were to survive into the contemporary world, what would she 
>be like? Well, Laura was a shot at trying to show what she might be like.
 
>Gerry Quinn: Don’t confuse the names with the significance.  The monarch named Typhon is 
>*not* the ancient monster Typhon. 
 
You don't know that. The monarach could have been the source of our Typhon myth, in the
manner described by Dr. Talos.
 
>Only Thyone on that list above is the same Thyone.
 
You don't know that either. You have no basis for making such flat statements of fact 
regarding fiction.

>Whereas if the ‘Sign of Addition’ comes from the Cross it is more than a name.

It is good you use the word "if" here. The swastika has Hindu origins and is sometimes
called "the twisted cross". This does not mean the swastika must be considered only
a Hindu or Christian symbol.
 
As I see it, the "sign of addition" is this: +.  This is not a Christian cross but,
like a swastika or gammadion, a distorted version of the Cross which has a longer
vertical bar than horizontal bar.
 
For me this demonstrate's Wolfe's intention to depict the religion and the gods of the
Sun Series as distortions of our Christianity, not the real thing. As previously mentioned
in this story, only The Increate (who is not The Outsider) seems to fall into a definition 
which is aligned with our own God.