From: "Roy C. Lackey" 
Subject: (urth) Typhon, Sev, Silk
Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2003 14:35:20 -0600

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. He becomes the
representative of Mankind on Urth, 'saving' it to death by water from death
by ice. He does this by mumbo-jumbo, somehow mystically becoming a New Sun
to revitalize the old sun, which has somehow been damaged, presumably in
consequence of Man's arrogance. It is believed by some that Typhon is the
person responsible for the damage to the sun.

Jesus and Satan are at antipodes, mythologically and theologically. If I am
stating the obvious, it is because I think it is being overlooked. Jesus is
in no part Satan. For the temptation correspondence to hold up, neither can
Sev be in any part Typhon. For Sev to be a clone of a bastard child of
Typhon (who was Ymar's mother, btw?), he would have to be, in some sense,
the son of Satan. Sev, like Jesus, resisted the temptation but went further;
he killed his would-be benefactor, something Jesus couldn't/wouldn't do. You
can't just kill the Devil, or the game is over.

Typhon was the baddest man in the whole damn galaxy, so bad that the
Increate apparently thought it worth the death of millions of innocents on
Urth to undo the great wrong he had done. Silk, we are told (ad nauseam), is
a veritable saint. He is so holy that the Outsider (aka, the Increate)
intervenes directly in his life, time and again. How can Silk be a clone of
Typhon? They are whorls apart, mythologically and theologically.

-Roy


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