Dragaera

Brust books you didn't like (was: Where did you begin?)

Fri Dec 20 12:33:54 PST 2002

rone at ennui.org (definitely what) writes
>Damien Sullivan writes:

*** TRiH Spoilers ***

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>>I'd think less valuable, if not offputting, at least if the Christian let 
>>it out of the "fiction" box.  Yahweh is not God, and Satan is not the 
>>Devil.
>
>Are you SURE about that?

Well, as far as Yahweh's status, I think that it's pretty clear that the 
story intends for us to understand that he's just one of the archangels, 
unless one definitionally defines the first entity as God (as Abdiel 
argues).  Certainly he's not the creator of the universe in the ordinary 
sense that we understand it, but rather a being that randomly formed from 
the flux and who managed to preserve himself from self-destruction, 
incidentally creating the proto-Heaven domain and the other archangels.  
Certainly he doesn't have any of the classic attributes of omnipotence 
(having no more personal power, albeit specific talents, than the other 
archangels), omniscience (in fact, he's depicted as being relatively 
unwise), or omnibenevolence (he tries to do good, but some of his choices 
have decidedly evil consequences, and his willing decision to proclaim 
himself ruler of Heaven, even after Abdiel's deceptions are laid bare, is 
downright dictatorial).

As for Satan, the book clearly depicts him as being flawed, in that he's too 
trusting of others and too unwilling to take up the fight when things start 
falling to pieces, but he is essentially a good person (in fact, the wedge 
that Abdiel drives between Satan and Yahweh is based on Satan's reluctance 
to compell the lesser angels to risk their lives in the Great Project to 
build a realm outside of the reach of the flux).

I think that the entire thesis of TRiH is the maxim that history is told by 
the victors with the losers often being (in this case, literally) demonized 
in the accounts.  In applying this maxim to the War in Heaven, he assumes 
the viewpoint that neither Yaweh is supremely good nor that Satan is 
supremely evil, but that both were on opposit sides more as a result of 
circumstance (and the manipulations of others) than for any other reason.

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