(urth) Tzadkiel's form

Marc Aramini marcaramini at gmail.com
Fri Sep 12 11:34:11 PDT 2014


There is a statue of Nox/night in the second chapter of Book of the New Sun
after Juturna casts him out, linking that scene directly with Abaia.
On Fri, Sep 12, 2014 at 6:08 AM, Lee <severiansola at hotmail.com> wrote:

> >Daniel Otto Jack Petersen: That's a kind of beautiful theory, Lee
>
>
> Thanks, DOJP. Ship's sails as angel wings does work rather poetically.
> Credit to
>
> Wolfe for that.  I am wondering if this theme of large beings being
> mistaken
>
> (or conflated) with ships might be related to the theme of large,
> fish-monster
>
> mouths being mistaken for caves.
>
>
> >james ford: I was always under the assumption that the tale of the
> naviscaput was
>
> >about Abaia.
>
>
> Yes, I think Severian himself muses on that. But here is an interesting
> consideration:
>
>
> The daughter of the Naviscaput, Noctua, reports that her father had taken
> her mother,
>
> "Night" by force. In Greek mythology, Night or Nyx  is mated with her
> primeval god-
>
> brother Erebus.
>
>
> So maybe the Naviscaput is Erebus instead of Abaia? Given the odd ways
> these giant
>
> creatures can reproduce themselves I'm not sure there is quite the
> distinction between
>
> their identities as there would be for sexually produced, born creatures
> such as ourselves.
>
>
> Also of interest (to me, anyway), one of the mythological offspring of
> Erebus and Nyx is
>
> the boatman of the dead, Charon. I think he makes an appearance in BotNS.
>
>
> >The implication of Tzadkiel and the beasts on Urth sharing a common
> >origin is great and well worth looking into. Why would these monsters, as
> >possible offshoots of the Hierogrammates, work against the coming of the
> >New Sun? What caused the schism? Or is it really as simple as the monsters
> >being "fallen" versions of Tzadkiel?
>
>
> For me, it is a general principle for the whole Sun Series that when Wolfe
> has left gaps
>
> in the story regarding mythologically named beings, that the gaps can
> often be filled by
>
> turning to mythology (or religion, as it were).
>
>
> So in trying to understand the opposition of the megatherians to the New
> Sun I think a
>
> good starting point is to understand why Lucifer and the fallen angels
> mutinied and
>
> opposed God (and Jesus) and left heaven and fell to earth.
>
>
> I used that word because a "mutiny" is the primary storyline we see play
> out while
>
> Severian is on Tzadkiel's Ship. Perhaps we cannot understand Ship politics
> any more
>
> than we can understand heavenly politics in the Bible.  We may have to
> just shrug and
>
> say pride, power and control are the issues and these guys decided they
> would rather
>
> reign on Urth than serve in heaven (metaphor- Ship).
>
>
> We are shown one of the mutineers (jibers) resembling Hethor. Given that
> the "old sailor"
>
>  Hethor, in his urthly ramblings, seems to say that he HAD been a mutineer
> on his vessel,
>
> I think we can safely conclude that Severian does see Hethor on the Ship
> but a younger
>
> version of him, from before they encounter each other on Urth.
>
>
> Given Hethor's mastery of mirrors and monsters, I don't find it a stretch
> that he is
>
> associated with the fallen angels/demons who reside on Urth. My guess is
> that, in parallel
>
> to the Biblical story,  all of the monsters fallen to  Urth originated as
> mutineers from Tzadkiel's
>
> Ship. By name alone, this would include Typhon.
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