(urth) The Wizard

[Andrew Mason]

Regarding Kypris: I think within the _Sun_ cycle we see her
transcending her background as a mainly sexual figure, and becoming a
genuine love-goddess. (Remember that Mint is inspired by Kypris,
apparently with love of the city.) And yes, Scylla and Echidna aren't
particularly sexual figures, though they also aren't nice people.

Regarding the general theological set-up: while the Christian
references in _Long Sun/Short Sun_ are relatively few, they are almost
all linked with the Outsider; and in connection with him there are a
lot of them.  (Off the top of my head: the sign of addition, the
beating of the traders in sacrificial animals, Silk's vision of a man
riding through a city - possibly also the child in straw and the man
on the scaffold, but they are less explicit - the Adam and Eve story -
since we are told in the glossary that Ah-Lah is possibly the same as
the Outsider - rituals involving bread and wine and the words 'this is
my body', 'an unknown God'  - a title associated with the Christian
God, from Acts 17-  the vision of Elijah.)   That they don't dominate
the story more is unsurprising given that the story is set in what is,
symbolically, a pagan environment. The Outsider is - or at first
appears to be - outside; that is the point. But I think they are
enough to establish the Outsider as the Christian God.

Now there is no doubt that he is also associated with certain Whorl
gods and so, symbolically, with certain pagan gods. Explicitly, he is
linked with three; Kypris (Aphrodite), Quadrifons (Janus) and Thyone's
Son (Dionysus). I take this to mean that pagan gods can be
manifestations - 'forms' or 'aspects', in the language used in the
cycle - of the true God. Near the end the Rajan generalises the point
by saying . 'Insofar as they're gods at all - which isn't far, in most
cases - they are him.' So I don't have any difficulty seeing it as
fundamentally a Christian world and yet making sense of the pagan
references within it. I find it much harder to make sense of the
Christian references if it is a fundamentally pagan world.