This is a post about Final Crisis. I apologize in advance for kind of liking it.
Actually, let's go ahead and stipulate that where Final Crisis is worst is as a pure super-hero story. As just a super-hero story, I'm not sure it's even as good as, say, Secret Wars. What makes Final Crisis good is not the capes-'n-cowls level of the story, but the other four levels, which I take to be, in ascending order of effectiveness, (1) the level of political satire; (2) the Jungian/psychological level, (3) the religious/mythic/mystic level, and (4) the Bloomian/metatextual level.
The first meaning (and each of these meanings is, to a degree, encoded in Kirby's original work) is the political. Nakedly, Darkseid is an embodiment of fascism and the Anti-Life Equation is fascism itself--a principle or ideology that strips away love, learning, and freedom in favor of hatred, ignorance, and slavery. Kirby modelled Darkseid on Richard Nixon, and Morrison models Darkseid's modern tyranny on his view of the Bush Administration and/or the modern-day religious right (depending on what degree the reader chooses to identify the two...I myself find the correlation to be weak). Thus the heavy-handed burning of The Origin of Species in Final Crisis: Submit, and thus the black Superman analogue who is also President of the United States in Final Crisis #7. And what do the anti-life thralls spout? "Judge others,'" "Anti-Life justifies my actions'," "Work! Consume! Die!" Brilliant? No. Just descent.
The good stuff starts on the next level. Darkseid is everyone's individual "dark side," the evil we all experience at the root of our nature which must be overcome to live a healthy life. Thus Orion rightly tells Dan Turpin, in Final Crisis #1, that "he," that is, Darkseid, "is in you all," and thus is Darkseid only ultimately defeated by Superman, who is more or less the cosmic embodiment of hope in the DC universe. This identity with the reader is why the Anti-Life Equation, which in Morrison's mind culminates with self = dark side works and why the villain is so primordially terrifying--he is us.
Ok, the religious/mythic stuff, or my baliwick. Here goes.
1) The story begins with Metron in a Prometheus role, delivering fire (in the shape of the symbol of Mars, no less) to Anthro, representing primordial man. Metron's first lines are "Man. I am Metron. Have no fear. Here is knowledge." Metron simultaneously lays claim to the godhood of the Old Testament ("'I am' Metron;" "'I AM' Metron;" "'YHWH' Metron") and to the lesser status of Biblical angels ("Have no fear" = "Fear not!," the common greeting of Biblical angels). Fire/science/knowledge is delivered to man, and Anthro uses it immediately to defeat Vandal Savage, the first super-villain. Thus is fire/science/knowledge the "weapon" given by the gods to be used against the gods of evil, who show up fairly swiftly in the story.
This theme is reflected in the symbols of the good gods and the bad gods. The good gods are represented by a sunburst, an outward radiance of light, knowledge, and love. The evil gods are an in-turned spiral--yes, the nihilism intrinsic in narcissism of the psychological/Jungian interpretation, but also the ultimate denial of knowledge and love in preference of the self.
2) Boss Dark Side's confrontation with Turpin, also in Final Crisis #1, is religiously loaded. Darkseid was "hurt in a fall," like Satan, but, like Nietzsche, what he endures makes him stronger. He "won" "a war in heaven," and the children who have been exposed to the Anti-Life Equation are "beyond salvation." So immediately we are told what Anti-Life is--it is the damnation of self-interest over care for the other.
3) Yes, yes, the Monitors are "space angels" named after science/learning/magic gods ("Uotan," "Ogama," "Tahoteh") or Shalla-Bal ("Weeja-Del").
4) In Final Crisis #2, Mister Miracle shows up. His first deed is the miraculous healing of Sonny Sumo, performed via Mother Box (recall, dear reader, that Mother Box is a mysterious link to the infinite.) More vague religious coding occurs throughout the issue: Superman "prays for a resurrection" at the funeral for the Martian Manhunter, Kraken, possessed by the loathsome Granny Goodness, crucifies John Stewart, Kamandi, inexplicably appearing, reminds Turpin that "Metron gave" him a "weapon," i.e., knowledge/love/science, and Jay Garrick worries over the "end of the world."
5) Final Crisis #3 is relatively light on the religious symbolism: the Super Young Team are the "answer to all your prayers" and we learn that Barry Allen can run faster than death.
6) Final Crisis #4: Barry Allen was resurrected byh an unknown power, which reverse engineered him from "a blizzard of faster-than-light particles." I don't know what that means, but it sounds cool. Somehow a kiss from Barry can snap Anti-Life's hold over Iris. And of course, the "death" of "freedom's spirit" coincides with Darkseid's triumph over Turpin.
7) The key religious/mythic scee in Final Crisis #5 is in the jail cell, where the depowered, amnesiac Nix Uotan is thrown with WheelChairMetron and someone else (Detective Chimp?). Uotan has lost faith. "There is no God except Darkseid. It says so on the billboards...We're all gonna die and the super-heroes can't save us." Metron then magically solves a maximally-scrambled rubix cube in 17 moves with the help of Mother Box, thus providing the miracle and seemingly activating Uotan's power. As this happens, Darkseid rises, blasphemous proclaiming his divinity: "Now is God Incarnate come among them. ALL IS ONE IN DARKSEID. I. AM. THE. NEW. GOD. All is one in Darkseid. This mighty body is my Church. When I command your surrender, I speak with three billion voices. When I make a fist to crush your resistance, it is with three billion hands. When I stare into your eyes and shatter your dreams. And break your heart. It is with six billion eyes! ...I will take you to a Hell without exit or end. And there I will murder your souls."
But meanwhile, Metron pronounces, as Uotan ascends to near-divinity: "Something new is born. The Fifth World dawns in flame and thunder. Battle is joined. The jude of all evil is here!"
Darkness and light have been set against each other for an apocalyptic struggle...with two whole issues left!
8) Final Crisis #6 begins with Superman being shown the Miracle Machine, a/k/a Geh-Jedollah-the-Absolute. The religious significance of a machine with the name of a god that can perform miracles is, well, transparent. Then a whole bunch of pages are spent on a slugfest, and then the pwnage of evil by good begins--a lengthy sequence stretching from this issue to the next wherein several major DC heroes get to serially save the universe. Let's count down the messiah moments.
a) Batman sacrifices his life to mortally wound Darkseid.
b) Barry Allen and Wally West, outrunning death itself, lead the Black Racer to Darkseid, resulting in his death. "I come to all! Even you!"
c) The Atoms put their lives on the line to make a tunnel from the collapsing universe to another.
d) The Ray makes a Metron/freedom symbol on the surface of the Earth so large it disrupts the power of Anti-Life.
e) The Hawkpeople die saving others from the collapsing tunnel.
f) Mister Miracle and Mother Box summon a boom tube to a new universe, saving all survivors.
g) Lex freaking Luthor and Doctor Sivana backstab Darkseid, turning his supposed "army" to the side of the heroes.
h) Wonder Woman, freed from Anti-Life, uses her lasso to bind the dying Darkseid and release all humans from Anti-Life.
i) Superman destroys Darkseid's soul by singing the music of the universe (although not put in these terms, he effectively sings the life equation, the counter-frequency to Darkseid).
j) Nix Uotan, Captain Marvel, the Green Lantern Corps, and Captain Carrot and the Zoo Crew arrive and kill Mandrakk
Friday, August 21, 2009
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Half Blood Prince and Religion
Four quick observations about the latest Potter film, all changes from the book, and all emphasizing the religious or mythic nature of the story. Spoilers abound.
1) In order to enter Lord Voldemort's cave, Dumbledore makes a blood offering, cutting his hand. Harry, of course, is upset--he would have been happy to give his blood instead. Now, in the book, Dumbledore tells Harry that his (Harry's) blood is "worth more" than Dumbledore's.
In the film, Dumbledore uses more familiar language--Harry's blood is "far more precious." Very slick, and a better hint to the conclusion of the series.
2) After Dumbledore's death, Bellatrix sets the Dark Mark (the skull/snake thing) over Hogwarts (in the book, the Mark is set as a lure for Dumbledore). She then proceeds to trash the Hogwarts Great Hall and even burns down Hagrid's cottage for fun. This called to mind a bit from Final Crisis about the death of the avatar of freedom (Mister Miracle, naturally) signalling the "Victory of Evil"--Dumbledore's death has to be reflected, not only with the Dark Mark, but with the destruction of the heart and soul of Hogwarts as well.
3) The Death Eaters leave Hogwarts through the front door. As they all wear black, the appearance is neatly that of a funeral procession.
4) Finally, the Dark Mark is dispelled by pinpoints of light from the wands of the Hogwarts community. McGonagall, as is appropriate, is the first to raise her wand. The second and third, however, are two fairly minor characters, shown in the next shot--Madam Pomfrey, who minds the Hogwarts infirmary, and Luna Lovegood. In other words, a healer and a believer. The final effect of all the Hogwartsians holding up glowing wands may call to mind a rock concert ("Dude, play One!")...or the Service of Light component of an Easter Vigil Mass, wherein the faithful each hold a candle in absolute darkness to signify the power of the Risen Christ over death itself.
1) In order to enter Lord Voldemort's cave, Dumbledore makes a blood offering, cutting his hand. Harry, of course, is upset--he would have been happy to give his blood instead. Now, in the book, Dumbledore tells Harry that his (Harry's) blood is "worth more" than Dumbledore's.
In the film, Dumbledore uses more familiar language--Harry's blood is "far more precious." Very slick, and a better hint to the conclusion of the series.
2) After Dumbledore's death, Bellatrix sets the Dark Mark (the skull/snake thing) over Hogwarts (in the book, the Mark is set as a lure for Dumbledore). She then proceeds to trash the Hogwarts Great Hall and even burns down Hagrid's cottage for fun. This called to mind a bit from Final Crisis about the death of the avatar of freedom (Mister Miracle, naturally) signalling the "Victory of Evil"--Dumbledore's death has to be reflected, not only with the Dark Mark, but with the destruction of the heart and soul of Hogwarts as well.
3) The Death Eaters leave Hogwarts through the front door. As they all wear black, the appearance is neatly that of a funeral procession.
4) Finally, the Dark Mark is dispelled by pinpoints of light from the wands of the Hogwarts community. McGonagall, as is appropriate, is the first to raise her wand. The second and third, however, are two fairly minor characters, shown in the next shot--Madam Pomfrey, who minds the Hogwarts infirmary, and Luna Lovegood. In other words, a healer and a believer. The final effect of all the Hogwartsians holding up glowing wands may call to mind a rock concert ("Dude, play One!")...or the Service of Light component of an Easter Vigil Mass, wherein the faithful each hold a candle in absolute darkness to signify the power of the Risen Christ over death itself.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Kirby's Jesus
A lot of bad things have been written about Grant Morrison, and maybe they're all true (I am just getting back into this game and haven't read Final Crisis or even 52). But I have read Seven Soldiers: Mister Miracle and I've read the Fourth World Omnibus, so something ought to be said: Morrison gets Kirby, and Morrison gets Mister Miracle, and that's not nothing.
According to The Hunger, this is the part of the blog where I tell all two of my readers that I read the X-Men when I was a kid and then stopped but got back into comics when a college professor introduced me to Watchmen. Well, um, guilty, except I didn't read X-Men, I read Spider-Man, which is why I became a philosophy major and not a cultural studies tool. Moving on.
Basically, what Morrison got about Mister Miracle is that beyond the costume, beyond the goofy premise, and beyond the romance with the completely awesome Big Barda, Mister Miracle is the son of the Highfather given over to the "dark side" in exchange for peace. That's inescapable Jesus-y. Mister Miracle subsequently escapes from Darkseid (and the vastly more disturbing Granny Goodness, who, whether Robert Jordan admits it or not, was the source for Semirhage and Mesaana alike--whoa, that's like three whole other blog spots right there).
The Jesus stuff is right there in Kirby. Mister Miracle, we are constantly told, produces genuine "miracles," "cheats death," and walks, with alarming frequency, into the hands of his enemies, seemingly like a lamb to the slaughter, although he always escapes all but unharmed. He is seldom violent beyond incapacitating his foe du jour. His death-defying escapes are accomplished with the aid of a Mother Box, which we know from elsewhere in Kirby is a direct line to the "infinite" or "the Source"--no less than God Himself. If there is a moment in any of Kirby's Mister Miracle stories in which Scott Free, post-escape from Granny's brainwashing, acts with less than perfect virtue, I'm unaware of it--even when, in the final issue of Mister Miracle, Scott is captured by Granny Goodness and his Mother Box is disabled, he begs for the release of his comrades, not himself. His assistant, Oberon, goes so far as to say to Scott that "By daring death, you taught me the value of life."
So when Morrison produced Seven Soldiers, with its repeated crucifixion and self-sacrifice imagery for the new Mister Miracle, Shilo Norman, he was not being especially groundbreaking, except insofar as honoring the root ideas of classic characters is "groundbreaking" in today's comic world (rimshot!). What Morrison did that was clever was realize that Kirby's Mister Miracle #12 (in the unlikely event anyone is reading this AND knows what I'm talking about, the one with Mystivac, the thought-controlling idol) is all wrong, and essentially rewrite it correctly.
What probably hasn't come across in this entry is that Jack Kirby's Fourth World stuff, now helpfully collected in four hardcover editions, is awesome. It's better than his work on Thor. As blasphemous as this sounds, it's better than his work on Fantastic Four. I could go on, and will later. I wanted to hit the Jesus elephant in the room first, and now I have, in a rambling, disorganized way.
According to The Hunger, this is the part of the blog where I tell all two of my readers that I read the X-Men when I was a kid and then stopped but got back into comics when a college professor introduced me to Watchmen. Well, um, guilty, except I didn't read X-Men, I read Spider-Man, which is why I became a philosophy major and not a cultural studies tool. Moving on.
Basically, what Morrison got about Mister Miracle is that beyond the costume, beyond the goofy premise, and beyond the romance with the completely awesome Big Barda, Mister Miracle is the son of the Highfather given over to the "dark side" in exchange for peace. That's inescapable Jesus-y. Mister Miracle subsequently escapes from Darkseid (and the vastly more disturbing Granny Goodness, who, whether Robert Jordan admits it or not, was the source for Semirhage and Mesaana alike--whoa, that's like three whole other blog spots right there).
The Jesus stuff is right there in Kirby. Mister Miracle, we are constantly told, produces genuine "miracles," "cheats death," and walks, with alarming frequency, into the hands of his enemies, seemingly like a lamb to the slaughter, although he always escapes all but unharmed. He is seldom violent beyond incapacitating his foe du jour. His death-defying escapes are accomplished with the aid of a Mother Box, which we know from elsewhere in Kirby is a direct line to the "infinite" or "the Source"--no less than God Himself. If there is a moment in any of Kirby's Mister Miracle stories in which Scott Free, post-escape from Granny's brainwashing, acts with less than perfect virtue, I'm unaware of it--even when, in the final issue of Mister Miracle, Scott is captured by Granny Goodness and his Mother Box is disabled, he begs for the release of his comrades, not himself. His assistant, Oberon, goes so far as to say to Scott that "By daring death, you taught me the value of life."
So when Morrison produced Seven Soldiers, with its repeated crucifixion and self-sacrifice imagery for the new Mister Miracle, Shilo Norman, he was not being especially groundbreaking, except insofar as honoring the root ideas of classic characters is "groundbreaking" in today's comic world (rimshot!). What Morrison did that was clever was realize that Kirby's Mister Miracle #12 (in the unlikely event anyone is reading this AND knows what I'm talking about, the one with Mystivac, the thought-controlling idol) is all wrong, and essentially rewrite it correctly.
What probably hasn't come across in this entry is that Jack Kirby's Fourth World stuff, now helpfully collected in four hardcover editions, is awesome. It's better than his work on Thor. As blasphemous as this sounds, it's better than his work on Fantastic Four. I could go on, and will later. I wanted to hit the Jesus elephant in the room first, and now I have, in a rambling, disorganized way.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
On Darth Vader
This arises from a discussion over at NDNation, wherein someone said that Darth Vader is not the villain of the Star Wars films, and that the Emperor is. This mistakes the entire point of the series, so I thought I'd address it at length.
Vader is the best part of the Star Wars series. This is due in part to his pop psyche significance--the sexuality of the dark father-figure, repressed and mechanized to the point of cold sadism. Layered over that, though, and more significant is the mythic arc of the story--the son's reconciliation with the dark father and the dark father's ultimate redemption, an arc that could be called Christian or pseudo-Christian if we like. The entire point of Star Wars is Vader's character arc--his redemption from evil is Luke's task in the original trilogy, and his corruption is the heart of the, ahem, misguided prequels.
For this corruption/redemption storyline to work, it is vital that Evil Vader actually be, you know, evil. He isn't duped, he isn't led around on a leash, he isn't the Emperor's puppet. He's so evil that his one-time best friend thinks of his good persona, Anakin, as "dead." He didn't become evil by flipping a switch, of course. He started out basically good, like most evil people, and sold his soul, one piece at a time, initially with good intentions but eventually because he couldn't admit he'd make a mistake and finally because he just couldn't stop. That's what evil is. That's why "the road to Hell is paved with good intentions" is a cliche--people do bad things for good reasons at first, then just because they're in the habit, and then because they don't really want to stop. Sin is addictive.
Let's take a look. In Episode II, Anakin goes out to save his mom from Sand People. Good intentions. She's dying anyway, which sucks for him and which is sad. So he kills all the Sand People, including the women and children, some of whom, one imagines, were begging for their lives as a blood-soaked Jedi carved them to pieces. A hideous action by any moral standards, including Anakin's own. In no way, mind, did Palpatine manipulate him into this--his own inability to control his emotions (a cardinal Jedi precept) led him to take this very serious step into the dark all on his own. Still, he had good intentions, he was pretty provoked, and he felt bad about it--he clearly wasn't beyond redemption here.
Early in Episode III, he has a chance to that his repentance is serious--he has disarmed Darth Dracula and has him at his mercy. He kills him anyway. Palpatine is involved here, cheering Anakin on, but in both real life and by the internal rules of the series, we know that that's no excuse--Luke, faced with a much tougher decision later, declines to kill Vader. (Tougher because Anakin knew Obi-Wan was on his way and didn't know that Palpatine was evil--as far as Anakin knew, he was out of danger. Luke, on the other hand, was in deadly peril and knew his friends were in similar jeopardy--killing a downed foe would have given him a chance to beat Palpatine and escape.) What began with an emotional outburst of rage has now become dispassionate murder, justified because the victim is a bad dude.
Well, it isn't too long after that that Anakin is killing unarmed children (likely also begging for their lives) because Palpatine tells him he'll save Padme's life. Is Anakin being manipulated? Yes. Does that make him any less a villain here? No. There's just no moral universe in which this deal is remotely acceptable. It's also not too different from the deal Luke rejects at the end of Empire (more on that in a bit).
Anakin has pretty clearly lost track of his noble intention of saving Padme's life when he force-chokes her a few minutes after his butchering little kids because he loves her so much, but whatever. Even if his intentions were still noble at the end of Episode III and he had just been cruelly used by big bad Palpatine, what excuse is there for him some twenty years later? None. He's not Palpatine's tool anymore--he has enough independent will to propose an anti-Palpatine alliance with Luke in Empire. Let's get that exactly clear:
"Join me, and together we will rule the Galaxy as father and son." This is the dark father seeking rapproachment with the son on his own terms. Vader is very happy with the notion of killing Palpatine, replacing him as Emperor and viscious tyrant. He also wants to take Luke on as his apprentice Sith. At the end of Empire, that's what Vader's moral vision is like--he knows he wants to reconcile with his kid, with whom he's obsessed, but that only takes the form of ambition, not of love or of understanding his son's own moral universe. In fact, Vader thinks it's a great deal for Luke, a real no brainer--become a moral monster, the kind of guy who kills kids who're begging for their lives, in order to save the lives of your friends? Why, that's the exact deal that Vader jumped at himself. Luke would literally rather die than take that deal.
Now, in Return of the Jedi, there are some stirrings in Vader. Possibly we're to think that Luke's rejection of his offer stung Vader and got him thinking. But Vader is pretty honest with Luke when they talk--he doesn't think there's any good left in him, he doesn't think he can stop being evil. The Dark Side has taken him. He's wrong, as we all know, there is a shred of good left and it just took Palpatine torturing his son in front of him to wake it up, etc. But this was a stunning development for Palpatine, who had had a long time to grow accustomed to the notion that Vader was just as much a monster as he was himself. On the level of plot, this is a much bigger change than just an unwilling lackey finally ginning up the courage to betray his master. This is a revolution in Vader's soul.
On a mythic level, it is even more than that--it's resurrection and rapproachment on the terms of the son. Luke has figuratively brought his father back from the dead. We know this because the script tells us so--first, Obi-Wan tells Luke that Darth Vader killed Anakin, a statement he later clarifies as "true in a manner of speaking." When Luke tells Vader that he has to "save" him, Vader replies "You already have"--a line the script gives, not to "Darth Vader," but to "Anakin." Even the darn title of the movie is "The Return of the Jedi"--the Jedi in question in Anakin, returning from his living death as a thrall, not to the Emperor, but to his own dark side. The redemption and the mythic resurrection are identical, a fact highlighted by Blue Hologram Sebastian Shaw showing up at the campfire scene.
The mythic significance of connecting moral redemption with resurrection, literalized in the form of life after death as a blue hologram (but, um, a powerful blue hologram, right?) is lost if we trivialize or minimize the significance of Darth Vader's villainy. Likewise, the moral value of the story is lost if we treat the Emperor as Vader's puppet-master--the significance then becomes, not, "don't give in to your own darkness," but "don't hang out with mind-controlling sci-fi sorcerers." Both are probably good bits of advice, but the former is a bit more practical.
Vader is the best part of the Star Wars series. This is due in part to his pop psyche significance--the sexuality of the dark father-figure, repressed and mechanized to the point of cold sadism. Layered over that, though, and more significant is the mythic arc of the story--the son's reconciliation with the dark father and the dark father's ultimate redemption, an arc that could be called Christian or pseudo-Christian if we like. The entire point of Star Wars is Vader's character arc--his redemption from evil is Luke's task in the original trilogy, and his corruption is the heart of the, ahem, misguided prequels.
For this corruption/redemption storyline to work, it is vital that Evil Vader actually be, you know, evil. He isn't duped, he isn't led around on a leash, he isn't the Emperor's puppet. He's so evil that his one-time best friend thinks of his good persona, Anakin, as "dead." He didn't become evil by flipping a switch, of course. He started out basically good, like most evil people, and sold his soul, one piece at a time, initially with good intentions but eventually because he couldn't admit he'd make a mistake and finally because he just couldn't stop. That's what evil is. That's why "the road to Hell is paved with good intentions" is a cliche--people do bad things for good reasons at first, then just because they're in the habit, and then because they don't really want to stop. Sin is addictive.
Let's take a look. In Episode II, Anakin goes out to save his mom from Sand People. Good intentions. She's dying anyway, which sucks for him and which is sad. So he kills all the Sand People, including the women and children, some of whom, one imagines, were begging for their lives as a blood-soaked Jedi carved them to pieces. A hideous action by any moral standards, including Anakin's own. In no way, mind, did Palpatine manipulate him into this--his own inability to control his emotions (a cardinal Jedi precept) led him to take this very serious step into the dark all on his own. Still, he had good intentions, he was pretty provoked, and he felt bad about it--he clearly wasn't beyond redemption here.
Early in Episode III, he has a chance to that his repentance is serious--he has disarmed Darth Dracula and has him at his mercy. He kills him anyway. Palpatine is involved here, cheering Anakin on, but in both real life and by the internal rules of the series, we know that that's no excuse--Luke, faced with a much tougher decision later, declines to kill Vader. (Tougher because Anakin knew Obi-Wan was on his way and didn't know that Palpatine was evil--as far as Anakin knew, he was out of danger. Luke, on the other hand, was in deadly peril and knew his friends were in similar jeopardy--killing a downed foe would have given him a chance to beat Palpatine and escape.) What began with an emotional outburst of rage has now become dispassionate murder, justified because the victim is a bad dude.
Well, it isn't too long after that that Anakin is killing unarmed children (likely also begging for their lives) because Palpatine tells him he'll save Padme's life. Is Anakin being manipulated? Yes. Does that make him any less a villain here? No. There's just no moral universe in which this deal is remotely acceptable. It's also not too different from the deal Luke rejects at the end of Empire (more on that in a bit).
Anakin has pretty clearly lost track of his noble intention of saving Padme's life when he force-chokes her a few minutes after his butchering little kids because he loves her so much, but whatever. Even if his intentions were still noble at the end of Episode III and he had just been cruelly used by big bad Palpatine, what excuse is there for him some twenty years later? None. He's not Palpatine's tool anymore--he has enough independent will to propose an anti-Palpatine alliance with Luke in Empire. Let's get that exactly clear:
"Join me, and together we will rule the Galaxy as father and son." This is the dark father seeking rapproachment with the son on his own terms. Vader is very happy with the notion of killing Palpatine, replacing him as Emperor and viscious tyrant. He also wants to take Luke on as his apprentice Sith. At the end of Empire, that's what Vader's moral vision is like--he knows he wants to reconcile with his kid, with whom he's obsessed, but that only takes the form of ambition, not of love or of understanding his son's own moral universe. In fact, Vader thinks it's a great deal for Luke, a real no brainer--become a moral monster, the kind of guy who kills kids who're begging for their lives, in order to save the lives of your friends? Why, that's the exact deal that Vader jumped at himself. Luke would literally rather die than take that deal.
Now, in Return of the Jedi, there are some stirrings in Vader. Possibly we're to think that Luke's rejection of his offer stung Vader and got him thinking. But Vader is pretty honest with Luke when they talk--he doesn't think there's any good left in him, he doesn't think he can stop being evil. The Dark Side has taken him. He's wrong, as we all know, there is a shred of good left and it just took Palpatine torturing his son in front of him to wake it up, etc. But this was a stunning development for Palpatine, who had had a long time to grow accustomed to the notion that Vader was just as much a monster as he was himself. On the level of plot, this is a much bigger change than just an unwilling lackey finally ginning up the courage to betray his master. This is a revolution in Vader's soul.
On a mythic level, it is even more than that--it's resurrection and rapproachment on the terms of the son. Luke has figuratively brought his father back from the dead. We know this because the script tells us so--first, Obi-Wan tells Luke that Darth Vader killed Anakin, a statement he later clarifies as "true in a manner of speaking." When Luke tells Vader that he has to "save" him, Vader replies "You already have"--a line the script gives, not to "Darth Vader," but to "Anakin." Even the darn title of the movie is "The Return of the Jedi"--the Jedi in question in Anakin, returning from his living death as a thrall, not to the Emperor, but to his own dark side. The redemption and the mythic resurrection are identical, a fact highlighted by Blue Hologram Sebastian Shaw showing up at the campfire scene.
The mythic significance of connecting moral redemption with resurrection, literalized in the form of life after death as a blue hologram (but, um, a powerful blue hologram, right?) is lost if we trivialize or minimize the significance of Darth Vader's villainy. Likewise, the moral value of the story is lost if we treat the Emperor as Vader's puppet-master--the significance then becomes, not, "don't give in to your own darkness," but "don't hang out with mind-controlling sci-fi sorcerers." Both are probably good bits of advice, but the former is a bit more practical.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Some Ideas Are Very Old
I was recently thinking of Akhenaton. Akhenaton, if you don't know, was the Egyptian Pharoah who probably invented (or, I suppose, discovered? Is there a non question-begging term for it? He "pioneered"?) monotheism. He lived in the 14th century BC, which is before the theoretical historical era of Abraham (usually regarded as a 12th century character, if he is indeed in any sense historical) and contemporaneous with the earliest mainstream dating for Zoroaster, who may well have come hundreds of years later.
Before Akhenaton, Egyptian religion was a mess. There was an Osiris/Horus cult in the north (which is important to this post) and a Sutekh or Seth cult in the south. Osiris and Horus were fertility gods and thus gods of life, death, and the afterlife. Sutekh was the god of the desert. The conflict between the northern and southern kingdoms of Egypt became dramatized as the conflict between Osiris/Horus and Sutekh, leading to the myth the Sutekh killed Osiris, but that Osiris' son, Horus, generated from his father's severed member, grew to adulthood to avenge his father's murder and take his place as Lord of the Gods, while Osiris took over things in the afterlife. Great stuff, but somewhat complicated by the existence of a sun-cult dedicated to Ra and the nominal supreme god, Amun. Syncretists, with their typical creativity, merged Ra and Horus into a single god, not foreseeing the potency of this idea.
The Pharoah Amenhotep IV adopted as his personal deity (a Pharoaic custom) Aten, an aspect of Ra--Ra as the Sun-Disc itself. He took the name Akhenaten, "Effective Spirit of Aten." For whatever reason--political or spiritual--Akhenaten became devoted to the idea of a singular God, a universal creator and sustainer, embodied in the Sun. He destroyed the idols of the other gods, wrote the Great Hym of Aten, and build a new capital, Akhentaten, "Horizon of the Sun-Disc."
This is already very long, and I apologize. This is the part that struck me. After his conversion to monotheism, Akhenaten engendered a son and heir who is, oddly, far more widely known than his father--Tutankhamun, or "King Tut." "Tutankhamun" means "living image of Amun," but it was not King Tut's original name--his father named him "Tutankhaten," "Living Image of the Aten," or "Living Image of the Sun-Disc," or, in his father's monotheism, "Living Image of God."
This is the old idea that inspired this post. The idea is alive today. In Cormac McCarthy's recent novel The Road, we learn early on the nature of the man's feelings toward his son, the boy: "If he was not the word of God God never spoke," a thought emphasized later when the man sees the boy "shining like a tabernacle." Even to this day we continue to connect the idea of a one true God with the idea of a father's love for his son, because we have inherited, apparently from as far back as Akhenaten himself, the idea that the existence of a personal God is bound up with the ratification and legitimization of the significance of personal human love.
That the idea is old does not, of course, make it true. But it is old indeed.
Before Akhenaton, Egyptian religion was a mess. There was an Osiris/Horus cult in the north (which is important to this post) and a Sutekh or Seth cult in the south. Osiris and Horus were fertility gods and thus gods of life, death, and the afterlife. Sutekh was the god of the desert. The conflict between the northern and southern kingdoms of Egypt became dramatized as the conflict between Osiris/Horus and Sutekh, leading to the myth the Sutekh killed Osiris, but that Osiris' son, Horus, generated from his father's severed member, grew to adulthood to avenge his father's murder and take his place as Lord of the Gods, while Osiris took over things in the afterlife. Great stuff, but somewhat complicated by the existence of a sun-cult dedicated to Ra and the nominal supreme god, Amun. Syncretists, with their typical creativity, merged Ra and Horus into a single god, not foreseeing the potency of this idea.
The Pharoah Amenhotep IV adopted as his personal deity (a Pharoaic custom) Aten, an aspect of Ra--Ra as the Sun-Disc itself. He took the name Akhenaten, "Effective Spirit of Aten." For whatever reason--political or spiritual--Akhenaten became devoted to the idea of a singular God, a universal creator and sustainer, embodied in the Sun. He destroyed the idols of the other gods, wrote the Great Hym of Aten, and build a new capital, Akhentaten, "Horizon of the Sun-Disc."
This is already very long, and I apologize. This is the part that struck me. After his conversion to monotheism, Akhenaten engendered a son and heir who is, oddly, far more widely known than his father--Tutankhamun, or "King Tut." "Tutankhamun" means "living image of Amun," but it was not King Tut's original name--his father named him "Tutankhaten," "Living Image of the Aten," or "Living Image of the Sun-Disc," or, in his father's monotheism, "Living Image of God."
This is the old idea that inspired this post. The idea is alive today. In Cormac McCarthy's recent novel The Road, we learn early on the nature of the man's feelings toward his son, the boy: "If he was not the word of God God never spoke," a thought emphasized later when the man sees the boy "shining like a tabernacle." Even to this day we continue to connect the idea of a one true God with the idea of a father's love for his son, because we have inherited, apparently from as far back as Akhenaten himself, the idea that the existence of a personal God is bound up with the ratification and legitimization of the significance of personal human love.
That the idea is old does not, of course, make it true. But it is old indeed.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
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