(urth) The Wizard
Lee Berman
severiansola at hotmail.com
Sat Mar 10 20:31:17 PST 2012
>Craig Brewer: Here's the link. Random q&a from the list a long time ago.
>http://www.ansible.co.uk/cc/cc77.html
Thanks Craig. That was fanstastic! I'd seen excerpts from that interview
before but never the whole thing.
One significant thing I noticed regarding the previous debate (which I acknowlege you
find moot) is this question and the form of the answer:
>Q.Is the Outsider a spiritual God? Or another virtual being? – A. The Outsider is a spiritual God.
If Gene Wolfe submitted his answer in writing and it was faithfully reproduced then the use of a
capital G does add evidence that he considers The Outsider to be our one, true Christian God.
The mention of Silk being broadly considered a member of the Order of Seekers of Truth and Penitence
makes some sense to me in light of a personal interpretation of the text which has been batted
around here in the past. A certain passage leads me to believe that the animal sacrifice found in
the religion of Viron has its roots in human sacrifice back on Urth. The words of Typhon to Severian
suggest it and I think that's why Echidna brings it back by roasting Musk when given a chance.
So if Silk is seeking truth by cutting open animals, so were his antecedents, the Torturers, seeking
truth by cutting open humans (the penitence part could be debated later). I'm guessing this is what
Wolfe was getting at by the suggestion of "Silk as Torturer".
Of course the issue of human sacrifice has a deeper pagan/religious significance. The barbaric nature
of God in the OT by 21st century moral standards has been debated here. But I think most could agree
that pagan and barbaric as He might seem to some today, He was a cut above the other gods of the time
by proscribing human sacrifice and demanding more personal diligence and greater sexual purity among
his followers.(imho, these qualities are what have made Judaism and Christianity [and Islam] the
powerful cultural forces they remain to this day).
I think the worst characters in the Sun Series might be marked by their propensity for human sacrifice
(e.g. Baldanders).
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