<html><body bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); ">On Aug 16, 2010, at 9:18 AM, António Pedro Marques <<a href="mailto:entonio@gmail.com">entonio@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</span></div><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><span>David Stockhoff wrote (<a href="x-apple-data-detectors://0" x-apple-data-detectors="true">16-08-2010 12:49</a>):</span><br><blockquote type="cite"><span>This shift in focus to the universes might be a way out from a sticky</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>problem, but you seem to propose that each Jesus is identically</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>Jesus-like but not necessarily identically effective. Why are some</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>Jesuses less effective? Why do some fail utterly?</span><br></blockquote><span></span><br><span>It's not a problem with the Jesuses, it's the world that doesn't live up to them. The idea is that ultimately there is free will, and God's creatures may will themselves into damnation. It's not like we're not going down that route ourselves. At a certain point, the responsibility of salvation becomes the creatures'.</span></blockquote><br><div></div><div>What if, in the fiction of BotNS, Wolfe made his own history, mythology, etc. Where we have analogies to things like Christianity, but there never actually was a Jesus per se.</div><div><br></div><div>That way, Severian's can be the savior without any heretical concern, and instead of being sacrilege, Wolfe can have established a parable for his and our real world. Severian can be the Conciliator, Apu Punchau, the Autarch, and Bringer of the New Sun, as many Urth Cycles as Wolfe pleases.</div><div><br></div><div>Seems cleaner.</div><div><br></div><div>...ryan</div></body></html>