From: Michael Straight <straight@email.unc.edu>
Subject: Re: (urth) Messianic?  - AHA
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1999 09:11:04 

On Thu, 18 Nov 1999, Alex David Groce wrote:

> Severian's "Revelation" isn't a real eschatology, but if figures the real
> deal--it is a secular salvation for Urth.  In this sense, it is quite 
> Christic--the eschatological Christ, coming in glory and judging the quick and
> the dead.  As this isn't the final coming, the "salvation" offered is the
> influx of energy from the New Sun, extending the temporal duration of life on
> Urth (now Ushas, it is so transformed) into some indefinite future.  The mass
> destruction Severian brings is, in one sense, of course, truly terrible and
> regrettable, but in another sense it is necessary for the revitalization of
> Urth--without the floods and destruction of the New Sun, the future is that of
> Master Ash; surrender to the ice.  

Does Urth have rainbows?  Did the Increate forget his promise to Noah?  Or
might this be a clue that Urth is not our world, but perhaps another
(earlier?) iteration of the universe in which God did not promise there
would be no more universal floods?  Or maybe it's our universe, but the
story of God's promise to Noah is false.

(Did we already discuss this question?  It seems familiar, but I can't
find it in the archives.)

-Rostrum


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