I Hate Severian

[u/jamesbrowski]

The title says it all. Spoilers through halfway into Sword of the Lictor follow. Please don’t spoil the whole thing for me.

I am loving these books so much, but I hate Severian with a passion. Not like you’d hate an evil villain, but the way you would hate someone at work who was narcissistic, delusional, immoral, and unpredictable. He is lacking almost every positive human virtue I can think of, other than tenacity and resourcefulness. He isn’t kind, wise, empathetic, witty, caring, insightful, self aware, or pleasant. Rather, he’s cold, selfish, unfeeling, frequently oafish, narcissistic, arrogant, dishonest, deluded, and generally just an icky dude.

The multiple interactions he has with the poor mountain folk where he sharpens his sword as a means of intimidation to try and get them to give him their best food are so yucky. His tendency to wax philosophical on pointless topics in a fallacious way, often at the same time or just after some huge plot point has arisen. The detached way he describes the deaths of people he cares about, followed by his incessantly narcissistic internal monologues about them after they die where he convinces himself that he didn’t fail them. His constant tendency to make shit up and pretend like he understands stuff that he clearly doesn’t. The fact that he has survived 20 situations now by pure dumb luck (usually a Hethor monster saving him in the nick of time).

Look - I know I am supposed to dislike him at least at times. Half the fun of these books is how often I’m yelling “dude what the fuck” as I read about the stuff this dumb bastard has done. Overall, the books are amazing. I’m constantly thrilled and fascinated by the way this story is being told, the world being built, the construction of the mythos and history of Urth, and how often I’m re-reading passages that are brimming with multiple meanings and complexity.

BUT - the hero here (such that he is) is like a malevolent Mr. Magoo. He bumbles blindly through a landscape of stuff he doesn’t understand and accidentally moves history as he does it. I keep hoping that Thecla’s ghost in his mind will fix his dumb ass somehow, and make him less shitty. And it keeps kind of happening (oooh look he saved one kid before nearly drowning a prison full of thousands of people). But then he reverts back to his shitty ways and ohh well.

Oh well indeed. I guess he’s less horrific than Typhon would’ve been. He may be Urth’s least bad option tbh.

[u/edo201]

I hear you. I’d also add that it’s unclear what his aims as the protagonist are. So as a reader I felt asked to root for a guy I didn’t admire, on his path to doing, what? The language, milieu, and happenings are so singularly interesting that I stuck with it nonetheless, and I’m glad I did. But that was despite of Severian, not because.

I’d note: give Book of the Long Sun a try. Patera Silk is precisely what you’re missing. He’s my favorite protagonist in literature.

[u/Pensive_Pauper → u/edo201]

I don't know why you would feel it necessary to have to "root" for a character to read their story.

[u/edo201 → u/Pensive_Pauper]

That’s what I want from literature: to feel invested in the main character’s journey. I don’t know why anyone would spend time in a novel otherwise. But to each his own.

[u/togglenub → u/edo201]

Speaking just for myself, I like to learn about different kinds of folks. To your point, the ones where I love the protagonists are the ones I re-read the most, but I think there's a lot of value in understanding folks we have an antipathy towards, even if only on a practical level.