Gene Wolfe Fans discussion

Hi! I'm on my second reading of The Book of the New Sun and Urth of the New Sun. Trying to make more sense of the plot this time around. So. At first, Abaia seems to want Severian on his side, having Juturna save him and such. But on the ship at the beginning of Urth the servant of Abaia is trying to kill Sev. Are the earlier attempts to enlist Sev to Abaia's side just a ploy to manipulate him? Severian brings the New Sun, which brings a flood. This seems like just what a water dwelling monster would want. So why try to kill him? Maybe I'm just forgetting details that explain this. Thanks

SERIOUS SPOILER ALERT, and I mean serious, because this isn't made explicit in the book and figuring it out is part of the fun. Ready to read on? Here goes.

Severian doesn't 'almost drown'; he drowns and is resurrected – the first of several such deaths and resurrections in the course of the book (he dies a couple of times in The Urth of the New Sun too, as I recall).

Who resurrected him, and why? Let us know what you think when you have finished this go-round.

Ok I'm only half way through rereading Sword of the Lictor right now, been reading other things in between, but if I remember correctly the Hierodules explain that they resurrect Severian, and it is hinted that he actually died when he fell on the ship in UotNS.

So you're saying he also really drowned in the beginning of Shadow. Ok, so then Juturna didn't actually save him there, she was the cause of his death and the Hierodules flung him out of the water somehow, or else Juturna thought she was tossing up a dead body. And later near the House Absolute when she's telling him to come with her, she really would have just killed him. I may be way off. But then I still don't understand why the New Sun would be bad news for Abaia. Is it stated somewhere that the New Sun brings about Abaia's destruction?

As for why Severian is resurrected, I believe it's because, since the Hierodules travel through time backward, they have seen Severian pass the test to bring the New Sun already, so after that they continually protect him to make sure this continues to be the future for Urth. Confusing.

I suspect that one of the things Wolfe tries to do in TBotNS is show us what the the machinery of the Deus ex machina — the 'powers above the stage', as he craftily translates it somewhere in the book — would look like if we could watch it at work.

Severian is, of course, a Christ figure. He has lived and died and been resurrected many times; we are not discouraged from thinking that the mythohistorical figure we know as Jesus might be one of these incarnations. In this reading, the Hierodules are agents of the agents of God — the 'Increate', as Severian calls Him. Which is, IIRC, what they ultimately claim to be. Their job is to help Severian do his.

The BotNS universe has Gnostic elements, though it seems as if the Increate limits His power voluntarily, perhaps in order to protect His creation from the collateral damage it causes when deployed. Thus, the Hierodules and other agents of the Increate have been trying to establish the necessary (spiritual? moral?) connexion with Urth for a very long time, but it is only at last, with the last Severian, that they succeed. The coming of the New Sun is the beginning of the new Heaven and Earth promised in so many religious texts, including the Bible. But that beginning is frightfully destructive; indeed, it is a cataclysm. That, Wolfe seems to be saying, is the reason why God normally seems so remote, hidden from the world and from humanity: the mere sight of Him, as He pointed out to Moses, can be fatal. It is a form of theodicy, an attempt to wrestle, from a believer's point of view, with the Problem of Evil.

Little of this is made explicit in TBotNS, though all the evidence is present — at least, Wolfe believes it is there, and if you read the book a certain way, I suppose it is. But it's easy to miss; I had to read TUotNS, and spend more time than was good for me among the old urth.net archives, before the pennies started to drop.

Near the end of The Citadel of the Autarch, Severian throws away his boots because he realizes he is walking on holy ground. Why is it holy? Because he is walking on it.

Here is a quote from The Urth of the New Sun that may make things a little clearer:

'"There is no God but the Increate, all the rest being his creatures." I was tempted to add, "Even Tzadkiel," but I did not. "Yes," he said. And he turned his face away, not wishing, I think, to see my look if he offended me. "That is so for the gods, certainly. But for humble creatures like men, there are lesser gods, possibly. To poor, wretched men these lesser gods are very, very exalted. We strive to please them." I smiled to show I was not angry.'

I think this is about as explicit as it gets.

Fine until the last line of the post. "Why is it holy? Because he is walking on it." In many ways Severian is a failed savior, whose eidolon and memory attains existence in a forsaken world - it is not even Severian who undergoes the trial, but Tzadkiel. The ground is holy because all ground is holy, regardless of Severian, who only succeeds in saving himself, and perhaps not even that. The deluge that washes away the old fallen world is certainly a divine plan, but it is part of Wolfe's complexity that a savior can pretty much destroy humanity as we understand it in route to something "other" and be considered a hero. Ash was a kind man, but the fangs of the green man are more sinister than they should be for a being who lives off light (which the white fountain will become, thus symbolically the green man will feed off Severian's association with the New Sun).

I am not certain that Ushas is as renewed and cleansed as its savior wants the reader to believe. Especially in light of Short Sun.

Conversely, evil which imitates good can achieve good (Typhon as Pas)

I have no quarrel with your reasoning, but Severian, at the point in the story at which he takes off his boots, could not have followed it. He had not yet met Tzadkiel and did not know how far his journey would ultimately carry him. All he had was the realization — inspired, IIRC, by his discovery of a bush covered with Claws — that the power to cure the sick and return the dead to life was in him, not in the Claw.

Marc, you may also want to look at this post on the urth.net archives: http://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-...

You may have to go back and forth a bit in the thread to get the full picture, but this is the central argument. As the post author says, 'The Hierogrammates are archangels who have the ear of the Increate, and who do his bidding. If that last statement isn't true, then Severian was a colossal dupe in an epic crime and Wolfe's Urth Cycle is a farce.'

If I'm remembering this right, Sev believes he is walking on holy ground not because he realises the power of the claw came from him, but because everything God has touched is holy, including the ground. I think it's a rare moment you can just take Severian at his word. Anyway, it'd be a much less powerful scene if it was just an act of self-worship.

I know I'm responding to what is now an old thread, but I still would like to know if anyone has any thoughts on my initial question! Why wouldn't Abaia want a flooded world? Is it stated that the New Sun will kill off Abaia and similar baddies?

Citadel, XXXIV:

"No human being or nearhuman being can conceive of such minds as those of Abaia, Erebus, and the rest. Their power surpasses understanding, and I know now that they could crush us in a day if it were not that they count only enslavement, and not annihilation, as victory."