(urth) Time, Not Cloning

David Stockhoff dstockhoff at verizon.net
Thu Aug 1 05:10:42 PDT 2013


On 8/1/2013 7:35 AM, Lee Berman wrote:
>> Jeff Wilson: Mass is sticky and inert energy, sure, but it makes more thematic
>> sense to me that matter is not native to Yesod but can exist there, since that
>> makes it more spiritual. There allegedly is a more spiritual plane still
>> above Yesod where the Hieros went after entirely discarding their material
>> forms, where Yesdis cannot yet follow.
> Damn, you are on such a roll. Brilliant connection. I agree that Yesod and the
> concept of ever reborn universes implies spiritual progression. But I think you
> are showing that Wolfe uses matter and energy as metaphors for the balance
> of material and spiritual in the nature of things. I like it a lot.
>
>> Here's my shot at making it implode: I meant to write "the torturers'
>> benefit" above, but perhaps the Increate guided my hand. If Holy Katherine
>> *is* an eidolon form Sev's mind, then she *is* a shadow of Severian The
>> Torturer's, and is the title character of the first book!
> Oh crap. Now you've given me the head explosion. Yes, tangentially, if
> the Katharine maid is copied from Severian in any way she might qualify
> for the title: Shadow Of The Torturer. But...
>
> There is a more direct and literal interpretaton of that title. "Khaibit"
> is Arabic for "shadow".  More specifically,
>
>> "the shadow of a soul, deemed to be a spiritual essence that was capable of freeing
>> itself at the moment of death."
> The concept is more from Coptic beliefs than Islam; a better fit within Wolfe's
> gnostic paradigm.
>
> I've known that definition of "khaibit" for a while but I never connected it with the
> title of the first book. Most likely others have and I was just being dense. Not that
> Severian being a clone of some sort (biological material, energy-based and/or spiritual)
> is a new idea.
>
> But I had never thought about how explicitly Severian's clone status is given to us by
> Wolfe in the title of that first book. 		 	   		
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Lee, I my not quite follow how "freeing itself at the moment of death" 
fits in here. What about Severian frees itself at the moment of death? I 
suppose since Severian dies many times, this should be discernible. (But 
we know Wolfe is versed in complicated theories of the soul that have 
little meaning to us.)

Or is it more just that a khaibit is specifically the shadow, i.e., 
copy, of a soul? That would be enough for the clone theory. But we also 
know that Severian is a copy of himself. If he does drown on page 1, 
then the first book is indeed about his shadow.

When is his first known "resurrection"?



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