Severian did nothing wrong
>>24829269He raped Baldanders on the boat.
>>24829269>abdicates all personal responsibility to become an instrument of torture, death and revenge for the powerfulSounds a little ... questionable.
Makes me not want to pick up this catholic slop
>>24829269He raped his grandma, Dorcas.
>>24829269He raped Phoebe in the jakes
>>24829269I'm pretty sure Father Inire touched him as a kid, that would explain some stuff
>Overall, I found nothing unique in Wolfe. Perhaps it's because I've read quite a bit of odd fantasy; if all I read was mainstream stuff, then I'd surely find Wolfe unpredictable, since he is a step above them. But compared to Leiber, Howard, Dunsany, Eddison, Kipling, Haggard, Peake, Mieville, or Moorcock, Wolfe is nothing special.>Perhaps I just got my hopes up too high. I imagined something that might evoke Peake or Leiber (at his best), perhaps with a complexity and depth gesturing toward Milton or Ariosto. I could hardly imagine a better book than that, but even a book half that good would be a delight--or a book that was nothing like that, but was unpredictable and seductive in some other way.>I kept waiting for something to happen, but it never really did. It all plods along without much rise or fall, just the constant moving action to make us think something interesting is happening. I did find some promise, some moments that I would have loved to see the author explore, particularly those odd moments where Silver Age Sci Fi crept in, but each time he touched upon these, he would return immediately to the smallness of his plot and his annoying prick of a narrator. I never found the book to be difficult or complex, merely tiring. the unusual parts were evasive and vague, and the dull parts constant and repetitive.>The whole structure (or lack of it) does leave things up to interpretation, and perhaps that's what some readers find appealing: that they can superimpose their own thoughts and values onto the narrator, and onto the plot itself. But at that point, they don't like the book Wolfe wrote, they like the book they are writing between his lines.
>>24830940>Then there is the fact that every character you meet in the story turns up again, hundreds of miles away, to reveal that they are someone else and have been secretly controlling the action of the plot. It feels like the entire world is populated by about fifteen people who follow the narrator around wherever he goes. If the next two books continue along the same lines, then the big reveal will be that the world is entirely populated by no more than three superpowered shapeshifters.>Everyone in the book has secret identities, secret connections to grand conspiracies, and important plot elements that they conveniently hide until the last minute, only doling out clues here and there. There are no normal people in this world, only double agents and kings in disguise. Every analysis I've read of this book mentions that even the narrator is unreliable.>This can be an effective technique, but in combination with a world of infinite, unpredictable intrigue, Wolfe's story begins to evoke something between a soap opera and a convoluted mystery novel, relying on impossible and contradictory scenarios to mislead the audience. Apparently, this is the thing his fans most appreciate about him--I find it to be an insulting and artificial game.>I agree with this reviewer that there is simply not enough structure to the story to make the narrator's unreliability meaningful. In order for unreliable narration to be effective, there must be some clear and evident counter-story that undermines it. Without that, it is not possible to determine meaning, because there's nowhere to start: everything is equally shaky.>At that point, it's just a trick--adding complexity to the surface of the story without actually producing any new meaning. I know most sci fi and fantasy authors seem to love complexity for its own sake, but it's a cardinal sin of storytelling: don't add something into your story unless it needs to be there. Covering the story with a lot of vagaries and noise may impress some, but won't stand up to careful reading.
What causes this behaviour?
>>24830942I like them all.
>>24829269So is Severian the great schemer pulling all the strings, or is he a helpless cog in a machine?
>>24829269he didnt mating press dorcas day and night
>>24830942I'm catholic and I love that meme
>>24829269>Adopted child gets blasted by laser beams. I guess that wasn't his fault.Why did he have so much sex? Why can't I have so much sex? Is it good to have so much sex? Is it bad to wish to have so much sex? Should I have sex?
>>24830940>compared to Moorcock, Wolfe is nothing specialDid Michael Moorcock write this?
>>24831244>Why did he have so much sex?Because as the embodiment of the New Sun he can't help being appealing to the women of the decaying Urth. He literally represents/constitutes an infinite flow of vitality. As the rejuvenator of the planet he's supernaturally fecund.
>>24831264Oh and besides that he's also a chad with an absolute tangle of dark triad traits, which hoes love on any planet.
>>24831266>a chad with an absolute tangle of dark triad traitsCan't argue with that.
>>24831244>I guess that wasn't his fault.He tried to stop the kid. He just didn't get there in time.
>>24831501And he avenged him shortly afterwards.
>>24831501Typhon was such a jerk. The entire sequence of events that occurred from the moment little Severian was turned into a corndog until Typhon was killed was the best part of the book IMO. Shit was crazy..
>>24831524>>24831615Didn't Typhon just set up a security system for his big ass gold ring 40,000 years earlier? Are we really going to blame him for a cute kid getting hit?
>>24831708Yeah, you may be right. Typhon sort of implies that he did it himself, but the fact that there were heaps of bleached and brittle bones around the same spot little Sev died implies that it was pretty much just as you say. Security system or not, Typhon was still a jerk.
>>24831708I mean, one way or another he's to blame.But yes, I also read it the way you do, that it's an automated protective mechanism.
>check some random person's review of BotNS>|0/10 book" entirely because of Jolenta's rape>it's a woman's reviewJolenta made a faustian deal to turn herslef into less of a person and more of an object of desire, and she got treated as such.I think that all the women complaining about muh rape would have taken the exact same deal, and because of that they feel personally attacked by the "rape" of Thigh-lenta.
>>24832938She literally wasn't raped. Anyone propagating this meme should be eviscerated.
>>24831260Didn't Moorcock love BotNS, or at least Wolfe's works in general?
>>24831708Typhon was watching them for a while, iirc, and didn't lift a finger to stop the kid walking to his death.Even if he wasn't watching them, he certainly shows no remorse over it.
>>24833037So true. She was was obviously dtf.
wizard knight>>>>botns
>>24833168i'm not Able to move past "soon time will ripen, and we will come again" and what that means for the entire story.
>>24832938>rape Only thing that bugged me was that Severian didn’t expect it to hurt Dorcas’ feelings. I’d figured he had a bit more compassion than that towards the woman he loved. But then I thought about back when I was younger and opportunities for sex with women was in no short supply, and I guess I probably would’ve done the same thing. It isn’t until later on that he starts to consider the moral aspect of sexual restraint.
>>24833345You have to remember, he's been raised in a weird, cloistered way and his only contact with women has been hookers, and a captive noblewoman with sexual morals that are likely nonstandard (the nenuphar pool is part of the House Absolute, after all). He literally has no way of knowing that sexual infidelity is upsetting to normal people.
anyone have the pic of what i expected vs what i got regarding new sun and the first 2 images being star wars and dune?
>>24833345>Severian didn’t expect it to hurt Dorcas’ feelingsI don't recall any indication that he considered them.
I've almost finished all 10 "sun" books for the past ~11 months so I can finally LOOK UP THE FUCKING ONLINE DISCUSSIONI know the books are more about experience than "spoilers", but I want the experience of the story as the author intended
>>24831053Both
>>24833037>She literally wasn't rapedSeverian pretty much admits he raped her in Urth of the New Sun
Thoughts on Long Sun and Short Sun?I think New Sun is the best of the bunch
>>24834809he actually completely disavows the whole thing. >I had been brutal enough with the khaibit Thecla of the House Azure, then as mild and clumsy as any untouched boy with the real Thecla in her cell; fevered at first with Dorcas, quick and clumsy with Jolenta (whom I might have been said to have raped, though I believed then and believe still that she wished it)when you go and reread claw, it makes more sense with her bragging about how desired she is and teasing severian.>She stopped and turned, smiling. “That’s just it. Don’t you see? I can make anyone desire me, and so he, the One Autarch, whose dreams are our reality, whose memories are our history, will desire me too, unmanned or not. You have wanted women other than me, haven’t you? Wanted them badly?”this is just a sample. rape accusations in the context of this story are absurd.
>>24834843You got me
>>24833345He mentions that Dorcas and Jolenta were messing around. It makes sense that Dorcas would see carpet munching and sex differently, but not that she should expect Severian to refrain from what she herself couldn't.
>>24834813In Green's Jungles is the single greatest book Wolfe ever wrote.
he slept in the same bed as another man, that's kinda gay
>>24835325It's pretty good yeah, a lot of dramatic events, those little stories-in-stories Wolfe loves What in particular makes it deserving of that
>>24830942Anyone who thinks Severian is an unreliable narrator didn't read the books. He might occasionally be wrong about things, but he's never dishonest.
>>24835333Horn is the most compelling MC in all of Wolfe's novels, he's a very complex character where Severian is a bit of a robot, Silk (or at least Horn's portrayal of him) is a boring milquetoast, Able is a caricature, Latro is mostly just a narrator with the rest of the characters being more interesting, etc. It's Horn's relationship with the inhumi that define his character arc, and IGJ is where most of that happens, with Krait and Fava and Jahlee. Also the embedded stories are sovl.
>>24834459This one?
>>24835351Unreliable narrator is independent of intent
>>24835391That's true, I think Horn is the most interesting character of his
