Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2003 17:02:03 -0800
From: "Brett M. Grace" 
Subject: Re: (urth) Typhon, Sev, Silk

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>perhaps 'is being exerpeinced by' is a more
>accurate way to put it
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    This is very nice ^^^ but the reply is mostly directed to Roy.

    I think your point is that Satan and Jesus are categorically 
different (granted!), so it's incoherent to have actors who participate 
in both categories.  But... Severian was a torturer and Jesus was a 
carpenter.  I think that we can still say that Severian is messianic 
without going on to argue that, therefore, the Messiah is a torturer.  
So presumably you accept that Severian is already categorically 
different from Jesus--but that the categorical difference is not so 
great that Severian can't have messianic qualities.  Likewise, Typhon in 
the temptation scene is satanic, not Satan.  But that's just one of his 
faces (argh, sorry)--for example, Wolfe seems interested in political 
economy, the tension between benign monarchy, democracy, and fascism.  
It should be possible to talk about that without reference to the fact 
that Typhon reeks of brimstone.  I'm not normally a fan of literary 
wishy washiness but ruling out the Graves thesis on principle seems 
unnecessarily reductionist.

    Prior to the recent discussion on clones and the influence of 
Graves, I think most people had generally accepted the idea that the New 
Testament informed the New Sun and that the Old Testament informed the 
Long Sun.  Viron is Israel, Silk is Elijah (as my wife observed:  Google 
for elijah, raven), etc.

    If Silk is an answer to Grave's Jesus, well, that stuff doesn't go 
away.  Don's theory isn't the key that closes other doors.  (I don't 
claim he says it does but if I've read Roy correctly, he may think so.)

    Personally, I don't buy the everybody-is-clone thesis yet, because I 
don't quite see the point.  Somebody more passionately attached to the 
subject can argue how Typhon, Silk, and Severian being genetically 
identical advances the Lupine project.  I could propose a theory, but it 
would lack conviction...

BMG

Josh Geller wrote:

>On Wed, 12 Mar 2003, Roy C. Lackey wrote:
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>>It has been accepted by most here for a long time that the temptation of
>>Severian by Typhon on the mountain mimics that of Jesus by Satan. Although
>>Wolfe has maintained that Sev is not a stand-in for Jesus, the fact remains
>>that Sev goes on to become a redeemer, of sorts.
>>    
>>
>
>This is consonant with orthodox Chriatianity, as I understand it.
>
>Severian is experiencing (perhaps 'is being exerpeinced by' is a more
>accurate way to put it) the Mystical Body of Christ. He is thus reflects
>an echo or a shadow of Christ, while himself being a seperate person.
>
>In the same sense that (by orthodox Christian thought, as I understand it)
>Krishna or Osiris or Dionysus or any of those guys is a foreshadowing of
>Christ incarnate in the person of Jesus son of Mary, that is reflects an
>echo or shadow behind the point event of the incarnation, Severian
>reflects an echo or shadow in whatever time-like direction he is from the
>unique Incarnation.
>
>This whole foreshadowing idea is really elegant, I have to say. I don't
>know if I am about to incoporate it into my personal view of the World at
>all, but it is sort of nifty.
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