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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Ignacio as an older Chris, laboring
diligently to create exactly the Chris he was as a young man, makes an interesting
and creepy contrast to the life of Severian, molded by the hierodules, possibly
more than once, to be a better man (or perhaps a worse – he is a mass
murderer, after all) than the rough torturer he started out as.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Chris is a child of privilege (in a Mafia
family, of course) whose life, looked at from his own selfish point of view,
works out nearly perfectly until he loses Novia. His older self works for years
to recreate his younger self, so that the younger self will not deviate from
the life he previously led, thereby recreating the older self that creates the
younger self.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Contrast this with the narrator of 5HoC,
who is trying to recreate himself in a cloned body, and has been working on
this project for generations with debatable success. Clearly Ignacio/Chris is
aware that his project is risky and easily knocked off course (for example, he
worries about the repercussions that might ensue if he visited himself when
Chris still lived in “Jersey”).<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>The perfectly choreographed life Chris
leads from the time he enters the monastery is not “pirate freedom,”
it is a prison he puts himself into and can only break out of if his plan
succeeds (or as Paul Witcover wrote, a machine in which Chris is just a cog).
So, “pirate freedom” isn’t freedom at all. Maybe that’s
why Ignacio is crying: after all that work, he thinks he is finally going to be
free. Of course, there may be another still older Chris/Ignacio tugging the
puppet strings…<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>-- Dave Lebling, aka vizcacha<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Tahoma;font-weight:bold'>From:</span></font></b><font size=2
face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'>
urth-bounces@lists.urth.net [mailto:urth-bounces@lists.urth.net] <b><span
style='font-weight:bold'>On Behalf Of </span></b>paul witcover<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Sent:</span></b> Tuesday, December 18, 2007
8:23 AM<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>To:</span></b> <st1:PersonName w:st="on">The
Urth Mailing List</st1:PersonName><br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Subject:</span></b> Re: (urth) free will and
piracy</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><br>
<b><i><span style='font-weight:bold;font-style:italic'>Marc Aramini <marcaramini@yahoo.com></span></i></b>
wrote: <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>On an unrelated note, I do think that any discussion<br>
of the moral ambiguity inherent in Father Chris must<br>
confront the older version breaking down in tears when<br>
the young novitiate leaves and falls into the past -<br>
an older version that never once tries to deter the<br>
younger man from the path that will lead to murder,<br>
debauchery, and other piratical pass times.<br>
<br>
<br>
###<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>The question is, why does Ignacio cry at this point? My reading
was that his tears were not provoked by any sense of empathy for what his
younger self is about to experience, but rather the overwhelming emotional
release of finally reaching the moment for which he has labored his entire
adult life. He's crying because he is finally going back to Novia.
Chris is nothing to Ignacio beyond a necessary cog in the mechanism that will
take him back and allow him to reunite with her.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
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