The ‘guardian of the threshold’ must be overcome before Man can enter into the mastery of the higher realm. From the psychological point of view, guardians symbolize the forces gathered on the threshold of transition between different stages of evolution and spiritual progress or regression. Just as the powers of the Earth must be defended, so, by analogy, must all mystic, religious and spiritual wealth or power be protected against hostile forces or against possible intrusion by the unworthy…. The bear-man is thus in some sense a guardian of the threshold, even though as a common mutineer he is not tagged as such.įor a succinct definition of threshold guardians, I employ J. Severian triumphs against this bear-man and soon thereafter the starship passes from his home-universe of Briah into the higher-universe of Yesod. The combatant he faces is a modified human who has bear claws instead of fingers, in contrast to the metal hand weapons used by both the magicians (at the foot of Mount Typhon) and Agia (at the jungle court of Vodalus).

The claws of an arctother had been shaped from his fingers - ugly and innocent, incapable of holding any other weapon.

I paused for a moment to look at him, with some vague notion that the claws I had seen might be artificial, like the steel claws of the magicians or the lucivee with which Agia had torn my cheek, and if artificial, they might be of some use to me. It was in chapter 14, “The End of the Universe”, where, in the rigging of the starship, Severian has single combat with a mutineer who has claws: The symbols were there, I just could not understand them. I could see just enough to know that there was a great deal I could not see yet. The first time I read The Urth of the New Sun, one scene tantalized me more than any other.

Urth of the new sun