(urth) The Wizard

[Jeff Wilson]

On 3/10/2012 10:33 AM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
> *From:* Craig Brewer <mailto:cnbrewer at yahoo.com>
>>  I forget which interview it is where Wolfe says that Silk is a member
> of the
>>  "Order of the Seekers of Truth andPenitence" ... which I think a lot
> of people
>>  (me included) interpreted as saying not that he's secretly a torturer,
> but that
>>  the and the Seekers are actually members of "The Church."
> I can’t say I have ever thought that, and to be honest I don’t find it
> credible. The name is surely just an ironically appropriate one for the
> guild of Torturers. We are told of other guilds, chiefly the Animal
> Trainers and the Witches. All three guilds have weird, unique rituals
> and ceremonies. The Witches seem closer to a religion than the others.
> As for the Torturers, they take their business seriously but not to my
> mind in a religious fashion. And their history insofar as it is
> described is entirely secular, except that they have a patron saint –
> which I think many guilds might do, even in the real world.

Severian does remark on how the lore of the other guilds is largely the 
same, and I don't think the guilds can be entirely secular, as they 
serve the head of the church, the Autarch. I would also think that if 
they had no standing in the church, it would be a gross sacrilege to 
perform their ceremony of elevation in a chapel.

It's true they speak of initiates of religion in the third person, but 
that could be their idiomatic way of referring to the priests and others 
in the church leadership, rather than the specialist service guilds. 
Masters may serve as vicars or deacons who minister to the journeymen, 
apprentices, and clients.


-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at clueland.com
Computational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana
< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >