I think Vain was perfection of
both their Weird and their form. In fact, the reason he was the perfection of the former was because he was the perfection of the latter. That's how they achieved it. By making Vain "structure incarnate," they served served the goal of supporting Law. And structure incarnate is something that is inherently more "beautiful" than corruption, chaos, deformity. The reason ur-viles lusted for perfection, and to create what they were not, was because they were not perfect.
At the very least, Vain's physical appearance was symbolic of this conceptual perfection, even if it wasn't literally the point. But in a book that mixes literal and symbolic, I'm not sure how significant that difference is. After all, the whole point of the "abhorring its physical form/incarnation" is probably because we're dealing with a story of a leper who has been taught to despise himself, and is cut off from his humanity, because of a disease. That's why Waynhim and ur-viles are in this story in the first place. It's all about abhorring your physical incarnation, because of corruption, mortality, deformity, etc. The aesthetic appearance of lepers can't be separated from what's happening to them on a cellular level, because of its affect on everyone else who perceives the leper, and how this leads them to treat Covenant. The visible symptoms themselves could be thought of as "symbolic" of sin or judgment or mortality, or just the underlying disease. But they're not
mere appearance. They're part of the suffering, part of the truth of how life can become unlivable.
The issue of beauty or aesthetics isn't merely skin deep or superficial. Beauty is a measure of health, of being natural, of everything that resists decay and corruption. Order.
Which leads us back to Vain.
wayfriend wrote:
If anything, the ur-viles spared Vain their own existential angst, because they did not make him alive. After his arm transformed, Linden said, "If he was actually alive — if he wasn't just a thing the ur-viles made — he'd be in terrible pain." Vain's not actually a living thing. So he certainly is not any kind of improved ur-vile.
If the chief issue for ur-viles is that they are
made, perhaps their self-loathing is connected to doubting whether or not they count as living beings, too. Perhaps we can think of it like A.I. Is it really alive? Is it really conscious? Perhaps all the Demondim spawn share in this kind of uncertainty (as manufactured beings--like Data), which contributes to their self-loathing. Maybe a created being who can't feel the pain of being a created being IS the ur-viles' idea of a "perfect ur-vile." Maybe that's another thing that made him perfect. Or maybe it illustrates the futility of ur-viles' longing for perfection: perfect isn't alive. It's not something achievable in living matter, in the physical world. It wasn't until he was "flawed" or injured by the One Tree that he was able to participate in a "living" Staff of Law.
At the very least, we have to acknowledge that Vain was made to look like a being, a creature, and not a tool or a Staff. The ambiguity is certainly implied.
Vraith wrote:
It's not that appearance is no part of it. They're obsessed with [and loath] their forms...but the PROBLEM, the CAUSE, is in the obsession not the body.
Again, I'd remind everyone that this is a book about a leper. The cause/problem is most certainly the body, or inescapable truths which it manifests. And one's reaction to one's body (or these truths) can go in either positive or negative directions. The point is that leprosy isn't a subjective impression. It's a fact. We're not talking about "society's ideal of beauty," which can change from culture to culture. We're talking about objective, outward signs of underlying facts ... facts that contradict, undermine, or make us question life's value. Whether that's mortality, suffering, or a sense of "unnatural," it's part of the same overall problematic. Even the existence of life itself is tied to it, the criteria for what counts as "person," because we use these outwards signs to dehumanize each other, to rob us of our humanity.
The phenomenon of life is a delicate dance between chaos and order. This means many things, but in this instance, its a balance between the imperfections that let you know its real and the corruption that undermines its value. I believe the ur-viles (and Covenant) found their middle ground by the end.
Joe Biden … putting the Dem in dementia since (at least) 2020.
], I don't see why being created [as in AI or by any other means], must necessarily come hand in hand with 'existential angst'. All beings are 'created', whether by random chance or desighn; whyfore the need to breast beat about it one way or the other? [One might just as easily make the observation about a 'planned' baby as an unplanned' one.]