Yeah, craig, I hear ya. I find a lot of resonance in the Cock and Angel story. One of the things I keep coming back to is that while there may indeed be some 'horizontal level' manipulation going on with the Hierodules, there is a sense I get that it doesn't matter whether they know if they are doing the will of the Increate or not: The will of the Increate will be done. I don't know why, but two things stick out to me: One, that Sev turns water into wine. There is no reason for this to happen. It doesn't fit the other miracles, and it doesn't fit into the scheme of what the Hierodules need to accomplish, as far as I can tell. Yet, it is an echo of a miracle performed by a True agent of the Increate, Jesus. As if the resonance of the role of Logos is manifested through Severian. It could just be a 'literary' device on Wolfe's part, but I don't think that's true.<br>
<br>Also, when the Wonder Triples Ossipago, Fumulimus and Barbatus metion to Sev that even Tzadkiel doesn't posses the power that Sev used to reshape Declan, or physically raise of the dead as something other than an Aquestor or Ediolon. Sev has become, in a sense, more than the Hierogrammates. Something in this speaks to the will of the Increate coming through Sev in spite of/because of the intervention of the Hierogrammates. <br>
<br>Two people get together and fuck. A child is born. That child grows up to be the savior of mankind, in a fashion. Is the will of the increate involved in the meeting of those two people, or was it random chance? What if there were forces manipulating those two people so they would meet, would those doing the manipulation be doing the will of the increate? What if the people doing the manipulation were setting up, on a cosmic scale, the correlation of the two people fucking and making a child (i.e., the Hierogramatte manipulation is all about engenerding the next generation of Hiero's who will in turn create the next generation of Hierogrammates, etc...it is a Macrocosmic parallel to two people meeting and having a baby, just on a much much larger scale). Somewhere, the question of scale has to be forgotten, and one has to just wonder wether the increate is at all invovled in the universe of Severian (which the Long Sun books seem to answer to some degree), or whether he is not. If he is, then it's hard not to see that 'his will' be done through Severian and the Hierodules, and that it doesn't matter, in a sense, whether the Hierodules know they are doing the will of the Increate or not.<br>
<br>And I see the idea of Severian learing to give his obedience to the 'highest' power not one of giving into the manipulation of the Hierdoules, as some seem to think, but rather a discovery of the singular man's proper relationship to God (in a catholic or at least Christian sense), as opposed to Baldanders who wants to storm the gates of heaven. In the end, even Baldanders serves the will of the increate, as by destroying the claw, he sets up Severian to discover that its power is within him all along.<br>
<br>There is much more to this....<br><br><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 2:39 PM, Craig Brewer <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:cnbrewer@yahoo.com">cnbrewer@yahoo.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><div><div style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><div>The time travel question that you guys have been hashing out seems to me important to figure out when trying to interpret the books. And I think the question of Sev's "will" is actually important. Are we getting a story of a bad guy trying to become good? (Free will) Or are we getting a story of a guy learning that his personal will is better left to higher powers? (Omniscient, omnipotent God/gods/powers/etc.)<br>
<br>I'm personally with Jordon on this. The "time is like an ocean" idea allows you take both of the above ideas at once and have them overlap. You have the linearity of Sev's experience, but you also have the meta-temporal perspective in which the Hierodules can manipulate things (for the Increate?).<br>
<br>There's still the bigger question here for me of whether this is all a holy
process or just a sham of a holy process. I'm reminded of one of the story's in the Pelerines' tent (from the soldier whose name escapes me) about the proud cock. The angel comes down and says he's going to punish the cock for being too proud. But it turns out that he's wrong, and the story ends with the angel admitting that, although he's closer to the Increate than the cock, he's still infinitely distant and can only guess at His will.<br>
<br>If the Hierodules are like the angel, how "holy" are their designs in the end?<br></div><div style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br><div style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt;">
<font size="2" face="Tahoma"><hr size="1"><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">From:</span></b> Jordon Flato <<a href="mailto:jordonflato@gmail.com" target="_blank">jordonflato@gmail.com</a>><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> The Urth Mailing List <<a href="mailto:urth@lists.urth.net" target="_blank">urth@lists.urth.net</a>><br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Monday, December 22, 2008 1:16:44 PM<br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> Re: (urth) The argument for Intractability<br></font><div><div></div><div class="Wj3C7c">
<br>
Yeah, I think we will forever bang up against a wall if we are looking at this linearly, with certain players crawling up the string, and other players moving up and down the string to make it the string they want or need.<br>
<br>When Malrubius tells Severian Time is like an ocean, not like a river, there is a lot being said. Free will is not moot in a intractable scenario. The development of Sev's 'soul' for lack of a better word is absolutely needed, and is only possible because of the events of the book of the new sun, which, in part, he helped created based on his future as conciliator. The refinement of his torturers soul is not a by-product of the process, it's an intimate part of it. I dunno. I think it's a trap to think lineraly. And I can't see any textual evidence for some sort of time traveling Catherine sent back to give birth to Severian with an engineered embryo. Although the part in Urth with the woman is an interesting paradox.<br>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 10:50 AM, Son of Witz <span dir="ltr"><<a rel="nofollow" href="mailto:sonofwitz@butcherbaker.org" target="_blank">sonofwitz@butcherbaker.org</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
I don't think it completely eradicates free will.<br>
It's just that it's not linear. It's all happened already.<br>
inhabitants of the timeline just experience it moment by moment.<br>
I don't think "the exact genetic combination" is important. Severian's consciousness is what matters, not his body's cells. The book makes that point again and again.<br>
<br>
This is the territory where it becomes useful to realize that at a point it stops being a SCIENCE fiction book and is truly a Metaphysical Fictional Metaphor.<br>
This is why that Paradox is intractable. it's almost a metaphysical prequalifier to be a paradox.<br>
<br>
~witz<div><div></div><div><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
On Dec 22, 2008, at 10:43 AM, Dave Tallman wrote:<br>
<br>
</div></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><div><div></div><div>
I don't believe Wolfe does intractable time loops, whether in "Free Live Free" or in "The Book of the New Sun." (I don't think "Pirate Freedom" is intractable either, though I haven't worked that one out as well).<br>
<br>
Intractable time loops imply no free will -- everything happens as it does because that's the way it has always happened. Chains of events that are built up from multiple iterations, carrying back knowledge from future to past, can be done with free will intact. In "The Book of the New Sun" we have an agency that can keep things on track -- the Hierogrammates and Hierodules are time-traveling through history and fixing things. They can create place-holders like a Conciliator-like religion, the autarchy, and the Guild, if they deem them necessary as preconditions for the emergence of the New Sun. Once a good candidate appears, they can fix up his life as much as desired and splice him back into history to replace their earlier bootstraps.<br>
<br>
The trickiest thing is his birth. Even if the Hierodules ensured the meeting of Ouen and Catherine under similar conditions, the odds are millions to one that the exact genetic combination will be re-created. Thus it seems likely that Catherine was sent back in time already pregnant with a cloned embryo of Sev1. (I believe Catherine is the woman we see under guard in UotNS on the day of the deluge).<br>
<br>
<br></div></div>
_______________________________________________<br>
Urth Mailing List<br>
To post, write <a rel="nofollow" href="mailto:urth@urth.net" target="_blank">urth@urth.net</a><br>
Subscription/information: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.urth.net" target="_blank">http://www.urth.net</a><br>
</blockquote>
<br>
_______________________________________________<br>
Urth Mailing List<br>
To post, write <a rel="nofollow" href="mailto:urth@urth.net" target="_blank">urth@urth.net</a><br>
Subscription/information: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.urth.net" target="_blank">http://www.urth.net</a><br>
</blockquote></div><br>
</div></div></div></div></div><br>
</div><br>_______________________________________________<br>
Urth Mailing List<br>
To post, write <a href="mailto:urth@urth.net">urth@urth.net</a><br>
Subscription/information: <a href="http://www.urth.net" target="_blank">http://www.urth.net</a><br></blockquote></div><br>