"...wasted no time finishing him." (p. 666)
Castelar cannot finish Varagan because Everard must apprehend the latter in "Ivory, and Apes, and Peacocks." However, by the same token, Varagan's wound is so bad that two of his men immediately whisk him off for medical attention elsewhen which means that they are not in Macchu Picchu to be apprehended by the Patrol agents who attack as soon as Castelar has escaped. Again, Varagan has to be around later so he cannot be apprehended now.
Not every loose end is tied up satisfactorily but these are.
Now I must eat some curry and return to reading Neil Gaiman and maybe also some of Mike Carey who inherited the retired Lucifer Morningstar from Gaiman.
In "The Year of the Ransom," an Exaltationist who had been hovering on a timecycle above Macchu Picchu:
"...fell as Lucifer fell." (p. 721)
Sometimes all fiction feels like a single series.
16 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
"I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven," quoting Christ from memory.
Ad astra! Sean
Luke 10:18.
Kaor, Paul!
Thanks! Lucifer, as Satan is sometimes called, was the greatest of all the angels before he rebelled against God and fell like lightning from heaven.
Ad astra! Sean
you'd have to be a complete imbecile to rebel against someone you knew was omnipotent.
Him the Almighty Power
Hurled headlong flaming from th' ethereal sky
With hideous ruin and combustion down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
In adamantine chains and penal fire,
Who durst defy th' Omnipotent to arms.
Lines 44-49 (Paradise Lost)
An omnipotent creator of all things other than Himself could have made some creatures imbecilic and given others characters and motivations such that it would never occur to them to rebel.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Mr. Stirling: But we both know of people, real and fictional, perfectly intelligent, who imbecilic things. So why not non-corporeal beings like the angels? Moreover, the common view among Catholic theologians is that Satan was given the choice to know and love God, including trusting in the wisdom of what God planned to do, but freely and knowingly chose to rebel against his Creator. Some have also speculated Satan resented God's plans for mankind (and perhaps other races?), such as the Second Person of the Trinity becoming Incarnate as man. And envied seeing beings as lowly as we are becoming adopted children of God.
Iow, Pride, Wrath, and Envy easily explains why Satan and the other fallen angels rebelled. And we know why Pride heads the list of the Seven Deadly
Sins.
Paul: I disagree, and my comments to Stirling explains why.
Ad astra! Sean
I'm proud, but I always calculate the odds before getting into a fight voluntarily.
Sean,
You are bound to disagree on doctrinal grounds.
We all know people who are fully compassionate towards all of humanity. It is unthinkable that such people would commit wanton or malicious acts of cruelty yet we do not say that they lack freedom of choice. If there is an omnipotent creator, then He made them that way and made other people with different motivations.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Except the Church teaches that, no matter how compassionate some are, we are all at risk of becoming evil. I think St. Augustine wrote that some of the greatest sinners only narrowly "escaped" sanctity. Motivations can change, for either the worse or the better.
Ad astra! Sean
Paul: no, we all know people who -pretend- to be fully compassionate towards all of humanity. They generally use it as a rhetorical club against political opponents closer to home. Loyalty and identification should go from the adjacent out.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
That expresses more clearly and briefly what I was trying to say.
Ad astra! Sean
I was thinking of good people in general rather than those with any particular political position!
Sean,
Although a saintly individual has the physical ability to torture a child, and in this sense is free to do so, he is morally incapable of doing it and even of considering doing it. Is he capable of making some trivial wrong choice that will start him on a downward moral path that could eventually wind up with him as a mass murderer? If so, then his creator has put into him the capability of making that initial wrong choice.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
We are all of us possibly capable of choosing to become monsters as long as we live. And some do become monsters, in or out of politics. That risk is one of the consequences of the Fall. I am saying nothing here that orthodox Catholic saints like Padre Pio would not fully agree with.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But, if anyone is motivated to choose to become a monster, then an omnipotent creator could have created that person with a psychology that did not include that motivation.
In fact, we have not been created and have not Fallen but have evolved.
If you express your religious beliefs, then of course your fellow believers agree with you!
Paul.
Post a Comment