#kylo ren as animus

[nightmarefuele]

@rensect *

Outside, the margins of a styx. Callous, curtailed, they await.

It does not flow. It is wound around a fingerboned steeple in the shape of the once-Supreme's dead flesh. That steeple is not hers. Zela, Zela . . . you cannot collect every affliction.

Inside, Ren—opened. He is the cathedral wherein Zela wades. He is the aboriginal tree, split, now, from the bole, arrested by his biles, the animus over which his shoulders hang. The consummate body so calls to him; it weeps and wails and calls. And it will crawl, when it can do no more, to his fleshless feet, and ring the basin stretch of his skull for bodies anew.

What is he, if not he who surpassed Kylo, the one with heart.

“Silence.”

A judder leafs through the paper rungs serving, winged, from Ren's sternum. This might be command, or commandment.

And again, as his emergent face temporizes from within—halved somewhere along its metal bones, either by his own grace or his burgeons'—Zela's—and the mechanized rumble expires, deflating, without ceremony, halfway,

. . . silence.

The menhir, mounted on the exalted plaque set forth by his burgeons.

[huntedbyacreature]

into the mirror cave

“The first thing I talked about with Rian was the mirror cave . . . What are Rey’s conflicts? This image reflects a little bit of the Kylo/Rey Force connections, as well as the duality of light and dark, good and evil. Some of these were being pulled from what I knew of The Force Awakens, but also little glints of information from Rian and mirroring the cave in Empire.” — James Clyne, VFX art director, The Art of Star Wars: The Last Jedi

“The idea is this island has incredible light and the first Jedi temple up top, and then it has an incredible darkness that’s balanced down underneath in the cave . . . In this search for identity, which is her whole thing, she finds all these various versions of ‘Who am I’ going off into infinity, all the possibilities of her. She comes to the end, looking for identity from somebody, looking for an answer, and it’s just her.” — Rian Johnson (x)

“The idea that if there’s a Jedi Temple up top, the light, it has to be balanced by a place of great darkness. We’re drawing a very obvious connection to Luke’s training and to Dagobah here, obviously. And so the idea was if the up top is the light, down underneath is the darkness. And she descends down into there and has to see, just like Luke did in the cave, her greatest fear. And her greatest fear is [that], in the search for identity, she has nobody but herself to rely on.” — Rian Johnson (x)

Some (long, rambling) thoughts on the mirror cave sequence below the cut.

Rian certainly took a page from the heroine’s journey and mined some Carl Jung here. In this post I’ll discuss the mirror cave and hut scenes and how they trace the “crossing the threshold” and “wedding the animus” steps. In a future post I’ll discuss Rey’s confrontation with Luke as the “confronting the powerless father [figure]” step.

crossing the threshold: descent to “a dark place” 

“There's something else beneath the island … A dark place.”

“You went straight to the dark.”

“That place was trying to show me something.”

For an excellent read on the heroine’s descent, see “The Descent: the Heroine’s Journey in The Force Awakens” and “Bride of the Monstrous: Meeting the Other in the Force Awakens” by @ashesforfoxes.

the heroine’s journey and the animus figure

A quick summary of some relevant Jungian concepts follows.

While the male hero goes on an active quest as a rite of passage (involving some physical feat like slaying the monster), the heroine goes on a more inward-focused quest (reconciling the monster within). The heroine’s journey involves an awakening within herself, by descending to a place where she can liberate her inner goddess.

In The Feminine in Fairy Tales, Jungian scholar Marie-Louise von Franz reminds us that this journey within is fundamental to the process of the heroine’s individuation, that it is “a time of initiation and incubation when a deep inner split is cured” by descending into the unconscious.

In The Heroine’s Journey, Maureen Murdock describes this descent as a “journey to our depths” that “invariably strengthens a woman and clarifies her sense of self” because it is a process of “looking for the lost pieces of myself” or seeking to complete oneself. As Murdock writes:

Persephone is pulled out of the innocence (unconsciousness) of everyday life into a deeper consciousness of self by Hades. She is initiated into the sexual mysteries … She becomes Queen of the Underworld.

Similarly, Rey is compelled to descend to that dark place underneath the island where she is pulled into a “deeper consciousness of self” mediated by her Force bond with Kylo. “That place was trying to show me something.” Note, “dark” here is not “evil” but it can show us something about ourselves (for instance, our greatest fears) as it represents the unconscious part of our psyche.  

Persephone’s descent into the underworld is when she faces the unknown and matures. She had to leave her family and the familiar, namely the world above ruled by her mother Demeter in which she was kept in an infantile state of girlhood. The world below with Hades is where she accesses what Jungians call the animus and actualizes her selfhood as a woman.

So what is this animus? The anima and animus are “soul-image” archetypes projected onto a person typically of the opposite sex. The animus represents the masculine aspects of the female psyche. As von Franz tells us in The Feminine in Fairy Tales, the animus “has to do with ideas and concepts” and in fiction is typically represented by a man. In her essay “The Process of Individuation” in the Jung anthology Man and his Symbols, von Franz notes:

A vast number of myths and fairy tales tell of a prince, turned by witchcraft into a wild animal or monster, who is redeemed by the love of a girl—a process symbolizing the manner in which the animus becomes conscious.  ... Very often the heroine is not allowed to ask questions about her mysterious, unknown lover and husband; or she meets him only in the dark and may never look at him. The implication is that, by blindly trusting and loving him, she will be able to redeem her bridegroom. But this never succeeds. She always breaks her promise and finally finds her lover again only after a long, difficult quest and much suffering.

The parallel in life is that the conscious attention a woman has to give to her animus problem takes much time and involves a lot of suffering. But if she realizes who and what her animus is and what he does to her, and if she faces these realities instead of allowing herself to be possessed, her animus can turn into an invaluable inner companion who endows her with the masculine qualities of initiative, courage, objectivity, and spiritual wisdom.

The animus, just like the anima, exhibits four stages of development. He first appears as a personification of mere physical power--for instance, as an athletic champion or “muscle man.” In the next stage he possesses initiative and the capacity for planned action. In the third phase, the animus becomes the “word,” often appearing as a professor or clergyman. Finally, in his fourth manifestation, the animus is the incarnation of meaning. On this highest level he becomes (like the anima) a mediator of the religious experience whereby life acquires new meaning. He gives the woman spiritual firmness, an invisible inner support that compensates for her outer softness. The animus in his most developed form sometimes connects the woman’s mind with the spiritual evolution of her age, and can thereby make her even more receptive than a man to new creative ideas. It is for this reason that in earlier times women were used by many nations as diviners and seers. The creative boldness of their positive animus at times expresses thoughts and ideas that stimulate men to new enterprises.

Fairy tales from the female individuation perspective are all about wedding the animus or reconciling with the monster, which is deeply identified with the heroine’s innermost self. This part of the journey is necessary to heal that inner psychic split, to become whole. Reconciling her animus in a positive way allows the heroine to access new ideas and concepts and achieve her creative potential. Rey must acknowledge and integrate her positive animus to “become what you were meant to be” (more on the positive vs negative animus below).

(Edit: See also this wonderful meta by @skysilencer elaborating on the anima and animus as parts of the psyche.)

rey’s mirror cave journey and kylo ren as her animus

Following the beats of the heroine’s journey and Jungian concepts, Rian has given us what many of us have predicted all along: Rey joining with Kylo Ren as her animus on her journey of self-discovery.

Rey descends through a black hole that pulls her into the ocean depths beneath the island. When she emerges at the mouth of the mirror cave, her hair is undone. This is the first step of her growth from girlhood to womanhood and the liberation of that inner goddess.

Rey kept her hair tightly coiled in those signature three buns all her life on Jakku because she clung to the infantile hope that her parents would return and recognize her. We now know that this hope was a fiction she fabricated to give herself a reason to live. We tell ourselves stories in order to live. Rey imposed her own rosy narrative on a harsh reality in order to survive. “Child . . . you already know the truth.” Indeed, as Maz correctly intuited, Rey already knew the truth: her parents were nobody and they were never going to come back for her.

Rey’s loosened hair represents letting go of that past and uncoiling that fictional narrative that was holding her back.

The new undone look also signifies a sexual awakening.

And who should be there, listening patiently, as a companion to Rey’s awakening? Rey narrates her mirror cave journey to none other than Kylo Ren, who is with her on that journey as her animus.

Recall, the animus first appears as “mere physical power” but in a higher form gives the woman “an invisible inner support” as mediator of a meaningful spiritual experience. At first, Kylo appeared to Rey as a creature in a mask, a manifestation of mere physical power. Through their Force bond, Kylo certainly manifests as a “muscle man” particularly when he refuses to throw on something to cover those gleaming pecs. Later, he becomes a source of spiritual support when he assures Rey “you’re not alone” after she confides to him she had never felt so alone as in that cave where she sought answers.

Also, recall, the animus has to do with ideas and concepts. Kylo represents the idea of “let the past die” on Rey’s path to self-actualization. Rey needs to hear this in order to move on from her disappointment at being so casually tossed aside by her parents. While Rey clings to the past (her parents, Luke the legend who she says the galaxy needs, the myth of the Jedi and the Jedi “page-turners” she takes on the Falcon), Kylo wants to throw it all away. Kylo wants to tear down the curtains, just as those red velvet curtains in Snoke’s throne room burned away to reveal the black void of space around them. Kylo wants to live in that black void of cold reality where Luke and the Jedi are demythologized and deconstructed, where he can see clearly Rey’s parents for who they were as opposed to the childish way Rey put a curtain over the truth with her own make-believe tale (“they’ll be back … one day”). Rey needs a cold splash of that demythologization to grow up.

As Rian Johnson tells us in The Art of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, there’s “a sin in venerating the past so much that you’re enslaved to it.” Yet the idea is not so simple, as Rian also acknowledges the need to reconnect with the past (and implicitly the need to re-construct myths by which to live):

If you think you are throwing away the past, you are fooling yourself. The only way to go forward is to embrace the past, figure out what is good and what is not good about it. But it’s never going to not be a part of who we all are.

We become “enslaved” if we go too far in either direction, whether venerating the past too much or wanting so badly to desecrate and “kill” the past. The extreme and destructive way in which Kylo seeks to “kill it” represents the negative animus. That side is, paradoxically, too emotionally tied to the past (and fixated on perceived past wrongs), unwilling to simply let go of the anger and resentment. To integrate her positive animus, Rey needs to acknowledge and learn from the past by looking at it in an objective way, which requires distancing herself instead of letting the past rule her emotions. Both Rey and Kylo need to embrace the past and the fact that it is part of who they are, in order to move forward.

Let’s distinguish the positive animus from the negative animus, which can be identified with the heroine’s shadow. The negative animus often appears as a sort of “death-demon” or murderer (“murderous snake” for instance) and “personifies all those semiconscious, cold, destructive reflections that invade a woman in the small hours” according to von Franz. Bluebeard would be an example of the negative animus: a seducer who is ultimately destructive and must be overcome. The negative animus can be that inner critic reinforcing feelings of worthlessness.

In what ways is Kylo a negative or positive animus?

Negative animus: Kylo who embraces the monster role (“Yes, I am”). Kylo who says “you have no place in this story . . . you’re nothing” and resents the past. Kylo who is filled with so much self-loathing he stabs in the heart the man whose heart he has too much of (“You have too much of your father's heart in you, young Solo”) and wants to blast out of the sky the “piece of junk” in which he was conceived. Kylo who rages against the galaxy, who wants to impose a new order on the galaxy.

Positive animus: Kylo who says, “But not to me. Join me. Please.” Kylo who responds to “Ben” and who Rey sees turning in the future (“If I go to him, Ben Solo will turn”). Kylo who desperately needs to make peace with the past. Kylo who tells Rey, “You’re not alone.” Kylo who fought side by side with Rey, perfectly in sync. Kylo who we are rooting for to ultimately make peace with the galaxy.

Kylo has the potential to be Rey’s positive animus, but at the end of the film she cannot reconcile with him yet because he has not yet transformed from the murderous negative animus to Rey’s positive animus.

rey’s search for identity

“Who are you? … What’s special about you?”

Here, I digress a bit to discuss why Rey “nobody” is the perfect reveal and try to address some of the criticisms about the jarring sequence in the cave.

First, the way this sequence is filmed and narrated is superbly meta. Just as Rey is pulled out of her “everyday life” into another realm of consciousness, so are we as the audience pulled out of the immersive experience of the breakneck-paced dramatic narrative into a more self-reflective space. Some have criticized this moment as violating that rule of immersion, breaking the fourth wall and taking us out of the film. Reminiscent of Yayoi Kusama’s popular Infinity Mirrors exhibit, Rey’s mirror cave scenes evoke the experience of being in a modern art installation. You are part of those infinite possibilities. It is you, the audience, who create those infinite selves. This is entirely intentional and I believe indicative of Rian Johnson’s brand of auteurism: entirely self-aware and humbly transparent about his intentions. We are meant to reflect on our own assumptions about Rey. We are meant to question, does it really matter who her parents are? Why do we think it matters? For the fans who wanted her to be blood-related to a legacy Star Wars character: what does that say about you and your view of a character’s worth? your view of what builds character?

In The Art of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Rian explains that he wanted to explore, “What do you keep from the past and what do you not? What is the value of the myths you grew up with? What is the value of throwing those away and doing something new and fresh?” In a very meta way, his treatment of Rey’s struggle with her past in The Last Jedi also led the fandom to question: What is the value of the mystery box?

So much criticism has been leveled about the “empty mystery box” and how anti-climactic it is to show us Rey’s own reflection at the end of the corridor of infinite selves after teasing us with those murky shadows behind the glass, as if mocking fans for their intense speculative interest in her parentage, which was arguably one of JJ’s deliberately constructed mystery boxes.

Did Rian totally deconstruct and wreck that box? Well, not exactly, because the point of the mystery box was never to yield a white rabbit like a simple magic track. From JJ’s TED talk:

The thing is that it represents infinite possibility. It represents hope. It represents potential. And what I love about this box, and what I realize I sort of do in whatever it is that I do, is I find myself drawn to infinite possibility, that sense of potential. And I realize that mystery is the catalyst for imagination. Now, it's not the most ground-breaking idea, but when I started to think that maybe there are times when mystery is more important than knowledge.

The mirror cave itself is a representation of the mystery box and Rey’s infinite potential. Rian, in a sense, preserves that mystery, that infinite possibility.

JJ goes on in his TED talk:

And then, finally, there's … the idea of the mystery box. Meaning, what you think you're getting, then what you're really getting. And it's true in so many movies and stories. Look at "E.T.," for example — “E.T." is this unbelievable movie about what? It's about an alien who meets a kid, right? Well, it's not. "E.T." is about divorce. "E.T." is about a heartbroken, divorce-crippled family, and ultimately, this kid who can't find his way … When you look at a movie like "Jaws," the scene that you expect … she's being eaten; there's a shark …The thing about "Jaws" is, it's really about a guy who is sort of dealing with his place in the world — with his masculinity, with his family, how he's going to, you know, make it work in this new town.

So many thought Rey was Luke 2.0 and that this story was about her going from nobody to somebody by virtue of discovering she belongs to an elite bloodline. So many thought The Last Jedi would be about passing the torch to the next Jedi. Well, it’s not really about the next Skywalker or the next Jedi. This story is about a girl finding her place in the world, who can’t find her way because she kept telling herself a lie about her past that trapped herself in her own mystery box, a box of her own making that allowed her to live with hope and at the same time limited her growth and kept her all alone. She told herself “they’ll be back … one day” when she knew her parents were never coming back. This story is about a girl who feels so alone. She meets a boy who feels this too: “You’re so lonely.” When Rey and Kylo are Force bonding together, their scenes are marked by silence, stripped bare of the noise and the sturm und drang of an epic-scale John Williams score, stripped down to the intimate-scale essence of their story: “You’re not alone.” “Neither are you.”

What Rian gives us is what we were really going to get all along: the revelation that the real substance is not in the box’s contents (the answer to the mystery of Rey’s parentage) but in that negative space around the mystery box, which is about two kids dealing with their loneliness.

So what do we make of Rey gazing at her own reflection, disappointed and alone?

Some have criticized the mirror cave sequence as an indulgent interlude emblematic of the vanity endemic to today’s narcissistic navel-gazing “me” generation—both the vanity of the auteur as well as the vanity of the film’s populist self-empowerment message. The mirror cave with its echo chamber and mirrors do bring to mind Echo and Narcissus. When Rey snaps her fingers, she hears nothing but her own sound, infinitely echoed. When Rey looks into the mirrors, she sees nothing but herself, infinitely reflected. (Edit: To be clear, I’m not agreeing with the “me” generation assessment. Also, it’s true that there are covert narcissists who feel vulnerable and neglected and that a deep-seated sense of insecurity or lack of self-esteem is at the root of narcissism. Rey and Kylo both exhibit some of this insecurity.)

Yet Rey is the opposite of a Narcissus. She doesn’t worship her own image or hold a grandiose view of herself (or lack empathy for others for that matter). Rather, she must learn to love herself instead of seeking love and validation from stand-in parental figures. As Kylo says, “Your parents threw you away like garbage. But you can’t stop needing them. It’s your greatest weakness. Looking for them everywhere, in Han Solo, now in Skywalker.” Here, unlike Narcissus who needed to detach himself from excessive love for his own image, Rey must come to embrace herself as worthy and self-sufficient. (Edit: Also, here, Rey is horrified rather than delighted to see her own reflections. See also Reyflections of Existential Horror from @and-then-bam-cassiopeia.)

As Rian tells us, her greatest fear is that she has nobody but herself to rely on. She must face that fear head on and realize she is enough, that all she needs is right in front of her nose (as Yoda might say).

She also comes to realize: “You’re not alone.”

wedding the animus: “when we touched hands”

“I thought I’d find answers here. I was wrong.” Yet the mirror cave does show Rey something vital to her search for identity: her own duality. At the end of that seemingly infinite hall of mirrors, Rey sees two shadowy figures walking forward behind the glass who then merge into one to form her own reflection. The shadows evoke a masculine figure and a feminine figure.

The “Kylo Kira Force Mash” concept art and its placement together with the mirror cave concept art on the same page in The Art of Star Wars: The Last Jedi suggest to me that the two shadows merging into one and emerging as Rey’s reflection is supposed to represent both (1) the duality of masculine and feminine within each of us, in particular Kylo and Rey wedding into one as Rey assimilates Kylo as her animus, and (2) the duality of light and dark within each of us.

Recall, the idea of wedding the animus is that we need to reconcile and integrate both sides (both masculine and feminine, both light and dark) to become whole.

The mirror cave scenes are followed by a “wedding the animus” scene. After Rey narrates her mirror cave journey to Kylo, sitting with him in the hut through their Force bond, she proceeds to engage in perhaps the most intimate act we have ever seen in Star Wars (or Disney for that matter). She extends her hand, and the camera zooms obscenely close to Rey and Kylo’s bare fingers making contact.

In this moment, as she gasps, she sees a future with Ben. She sees him turning against Snoke. (Yes, he does turn against Snoke, but her vision is incomplete as he doesn’t turn against the First Order yet.) Likewise, he sees a future with her: “When the moment comes, you’ll be the one to turn. You’ll stand with me.” (I do think that in Episode IX we will see Rey standing with Kylo and turning to help him in some way, but Kylo’s vision is also incomplete in that she rejects his plea to join him in the throne room and does not turn against the Resistance.)

Yes, this moment is more intimate than a simple kiss or other physical act of intimacy, because Rey and Kylo are envisioning future lives together, standing side by side. Wedded to each other by the Force. The Force theme begins to play at this moment, as if underscoring the divine inevitability of this union.

Why does Rey fail to see clearly that Kylo would not yet turn in the throne room? “Ben, when we touched hands, I saw your future. Just the shape of it, but solid and clear.” Here I’m reminded of those shadowy figures again, and these verses from Corinthians 13:11 and 13:12 much referenced in literature and film:

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

Rey is somewhat naive, like a child. In the mirror cave when she touches the glassy surface and in the hut when she touches Kylo’s hand, she sees through a glass, darkly. Rey’s knowledge of herself and her past is imperfect. Rey’s knowledge of Ben and the future is imperfect. Her vision is obscured by her naiveté and hope, by her optimistic insistence on clinging to rose-colored glasses and red curtains.

Chapter 13 in Corinthians is about love (sometimes translated to charity). What is a theme throughout Star Wars? Compassion. As Joseph Campbell points out, this means to suffer together, to feel someone else’s suffering as our own and wish to relieve that suffering.

Kylo began to feel compassion for Rey in the interrogation room when he discovered her loneliness. “You’re not alone.” Her suffering at Snoke’s hands likely contributed to his resolve to conceal his true thoughts from his master and slay Snoke at the right moment. When Rey is cut on the shoulder by a Praetorian Guard, Kylo glances towards her anxiously, further evidencing his compassion for her. However, he lacks compassion for her concern with her friends and the plight of the Resistance. He is still thinking in terms of “you’ll stand with me” instead of “we will stand together” working towards a shared goal.

Rey begins to feel compassion for Ben Solo through their Force bond, when she sees that fateful temple-burning night from Kylo’s point of view and learns that Luke lied about how he behaved. She also feels Ben’s loneliness. “Neither are you.” She extends her hand out of compassion. However, she didn’t ship herself to the Supremacy for Ben Solo, she went there to save her friends, and he understands that when she turns to the window port and demands, “Order them to stop firing!” Recall Rey’s reasons to Luke before flying off on the Falcon:

If he were turned from the dark side, that could shift the tide. This could be how we win.

Rey too is thinking about her own agenda, as opposed to what Kylo wants to accomplish: “We can rule together and bring a new order to the galaxy.” Kylo’s proposal to Rey, which involved a future together, is met with what he might have perceived to be an attempt on his life, though Rey’s grab for the lightsaber might simply have been her way of sending the message: you are not worthy of this yet. Neither of them are truly able to see from each other’s point of view; each has more to grow to reach that common ground and to truly love and suffer together. 

At the end of the film, Kylo remains a negative animus who has not yet fully processed and embraced the past as part of who he is, full of murderous rage (“blow that piece of junk out of the sky!” and “more! more!”). His rage masks his true misery and self-loathing, which is pitifully obvious from the way he looks at Rey through their Force bond at the very end of the film, then slowly closes his fingers around the projected gold dice as he realizes despite his ascension to Supreme Leader he truly holds on to nothing. He's not angry and resentful in that moment. He's heartbroken and sad.

But … Ben Solo will turn. The structure of the heroine’s journey mandates that Rey will somehow reconcile with her positive animus.

[dinagastuff]

“Join me. Please”

[aberrant-winter]

WHITELIST

Current Hyperfixation: The Collector (Owl House)

[Will be changed many times]

________________________________

Characters:

Bold: Absolute favorites

Kaijus(Godzilla): Shin Godzilla,Heisei Burning Godzilla,Millenium Godzilla,Gigan, Kiryu, Mechagodzilla 2021, Destoroyah,Gorosaurus,Heisei King Ghidorah,Kaizer Ghidorah,Skull Crawler,Titanosaurus,Methuselah,

Mecha Ghidorah.

Kaijus(Gamera): Gamera,Zedus.

Jurassic World/Park: Spinosaurus, Indominus Rex, Indoraptor, Giganotosaurus, Echo.

Kirby: King Dedede,Kirby,Meta Knight,Galacta Knight,Morpho Knight,Magolor,Shadow Dedede,Landia,Grand Doomer,Sphere Doomer,Galboros,Kibble Blade,Dark Matter Swordsman.

Super Mario/Paper Mario: Bowser,Dry Bowser,Dark Bowser,Midbus,Dry Bones,King Bob-Omb,Chill Bully, King Boo(Luigi's Mansion),Meowser,Black Paint Bowser,Doppliss,Sir Grodus,Mimi,Count Bleck,Rookie & Popple,Bonechill,Boshi,Dino Piranha,Gobblegut,Megaleg,Ruined Dragon,Chain Chomp,Bouldergeist,Prince Bully,Hisstocrat,Polluted Piranha,Petey Piranha.

Metroid:Ridley, Mecha Ridley

Star Fox: Wolf O'Donnell,Falco Lombardi.

Fnaf: Withered Bonnie,Golden Freddy, Montgomery Gator,Nightmare Foxy, Nightmare Chica,Jack-o Chica,Jack-o Bonnie, Twisted Wolf,Ignited Bonnie,Ignited Foxy,Creation,Lefty,Ennard,Molten Freddy,Springtrap,Phantom Freddy,Phantom Foxy,Moondrop/Sundrop,Shadow Freddy.

Undertale/Deltarune:Sans, Frisk,Kris,Chara,Berdly,Burgerpants,Greater dog,Lesser dog,Doggo,Snowdrake,Endogeny,Undyne,Asgore Dreemurr,Grillby,Omega Flowey,Asriel Dreemurr,Chaos King,Jevil,Ralsei,Susie,W.D.Gaster.

Madness Combact: Hank.J.Wimbleton,Tricky,The Auditor,ATP Engineer,Mag Agent V2.

Undertale AUs:Error!Sans,Ganz!Sans,Fatal Error!Sans,Abyss!Sans,Underswap Sans,Underswap Papyrus,Underfell Sans, Underfell Papyrus,Nightmare!Sans,Dream!Sans,Outertale Sans,GenocideSwap!Sans,Aftertale!Sans,X Sans(Cross),X Gaster,X Chara,Quantumtale!Sans,Underfell Asgore,Hardtale Asgore,Hardtale Sans,Color!Sans, X Alphys,Storyshift Chara,Storyshift Asriel,Core!Frisk,Altertale Sans,Altertale Flowey,Storyshift Sans,Bird!Sans.

Tf2:Pyro,Merasmus,Soldier,Medic.

Tekken:Alex,Ancient Ogre,King, Armor King,Gigas, Yoshimitsu,Kuma.

Demon Slayer:Inosuke Hashibira,Tanjiro Kamado,Rengoku Kyojuro,,Obanai Iguro,Shinobu Kocho,Nezuko Kamado,Sabito.

Minecraft:Creeper,Enderman,Ender Dragon,Warden,Iron Golem,Ravager,Wither,Skeleton,Wither Skeleton,Stray.

Fnf:Hex,Whitty,Agoti,Tabi (i only like these, the game itself has a lot of explicit shit.. the fandom is even worse bruh)

Fairy tail:Natsu Dragneel,Lucy Heartfilia,Erza Scarlet,Happy,Gajeel Redfox,Panther Lily,Juvia Lockser,Mystogan,Lector,Erik,Capricorn,Guttman Kubrick,Simon,Kama,Irene Belserion,Igneel,Acnologia,Skiadrum ,Atlas Flame,Animus,Selene,Ignia,Deliora, Salberay,Bloodman,Skullion Raider,Tauros,Pyxis,

Black Clover:Asta,Mereoleona Vermillion,Salamander,Yami Sukehiro,Zora Ideale,Luck Voltia,Vetto,Liebe,

Ninjago:Pythor.P.Chumsworth,Zane,

Skales,Skalidor,Fangtom,Acidicus,

Clancee,Lord Garmadonn,Mr.E,The Crystal king, The Overlord,Vengestone Warriors,Boreal,The Great Devourer.

Lego Chima:Cragger,Crug,Eris,Foltrax, Rawzom,Scorn,Sir Fangar,Sykor,Vardy,VoomVoom.

Steven Universe:Steven,Lion,Garnet,Amethyst Alexandrite,Obsidian,The Cluster,Biggs[Corrupted],Cookie Cat,Peridot,Dogcopter,Jasper,Lapis Lazuli,Malachite,Centipeetle,Steven[Corrupted],Spinel.

Star Wars:Darth Vader,Stormtrooper, Captain Phasma,Death Trooper, Range Trooper,Kylo Ren,Boba Fett, General Grievous.

Mlp:Spike,Ember,Thorax,Gallus,

Smolder,Changeling(Original),Queen Chrysalis,King Sombra,Lord Tirek,Grogar,Discord,Iron Will, Shadow Pony,Timberwolves,

Miracolous:Dragonbug,Fang,Kagami Tsurugi/Ryuko,Longg,Mei Shi, Chat Noir,Chat Blanc,Viperion,Caprikid,Plagg,

Multimouse,Sass,Hawkmoth (his other costumes look like absolute crap),Mayura,Frightningale,Queen Wasp,Weredad,Silencer,Princess Justice,YanLuoShi,Truth,Qilin, Strike Back.

Marvel/DC: Venom,Carnage,Ghost Rider, Killer Croc, Lizard, Cat Woman, Dex-Starr, Krypto, Streaky, Ace, Larfleeze,Raven,Killer Moth, Slade Wilson, Trigon.

TMNT 2012:The Shredder, Splinter, Donatello,Donbot, Triceratons, Bebop & Rocksteady, Rahzar,Fishface, Leatherhead,Tokka, Slash, Mondo Gecko, April O'Neil,Kraang.

Pokémon:Feraligatr,Rayquaza,Aggron,

Mega Charizard X,Kyrem,Zekrom,Zygarde(100 and 60%),

Yveltal,Chandelure,Krookodile,

Haunter,Garchomp,Guzzlorr,Fuecoco,

Zamazenta,(Shiny)Tyrantrum,Magnezone,Houndoom,Arbok,Venonat,Articuno,Ho-oh,Onix, Chatot,Salamence,Regice,Druddigon, Silvally,Type: Null.

Noragami: Bishamonten, Yato, Yukine, Iki Hyori

Fire Force:Benimaru Shinmon, Joker, Maki Oze, Shinra Kusakabe,Takehisa Hinawa,Tamaki Kotatsu.

Edens Zero:Shiki Granbell, Elsie Crimson,Happy, Hermit Mio,Rebecca Bluegarden, Seth Anderson, Sister Ivry, Ziggy, Witch Regret.

Assassination Classroom: korosensei, Nagisa Shiota, Karma Akabane, Kayano Kaede, Itona

Mha: Principal Nezu,Thirteen,Hound dog, Ectoplasm,Power Loader, Tsuyu Asui, Mina Ashido,Ochaco Uraraka, Eijirou Kirishima,Koji Koda, Kyoka Jiro, Fumikage Tokoyami, Shoto Todoroki, Katsuki Bakugo, Izuku Midoriya,Itsuka Kendo, Jurota Shishida, Manga Fukidashi, Juzo Honenuki, Kojiro Bondo, Tamaki Amajiki, Nagamasa Mora, Tamashiro, Wash, Ryukyu, Gang Orca, Shishido, Fat Gum, Centipeder, Backdraft, Gunhead, Selkie, Elecplant, Godzillo,Takahiro, Death Arms, Gyges, Daigoro, Chimera, Leviathan, Kurogiri, U.s.j Nomu, Chomper, Twice, Spinner, Geten, Shin Nemoto, Kendo Rappa, Rikiya Katsukame

Hunter x Hunter: Kanzai,Kurapika, Leorio, Gon Freecss, Killua Zoldyck, Biscuit Krueger, Tsezguerra, Kite, Kiriko, Monta Yuras, Alluka Zoldyck, Gotoh, Mike, Gido, Shalnak, Nobunaga Hazama, Phinks Magcub, Blobster, Meruem, Neferpitou, Menthuthuyoupi, Welfin, Peggy, Leol, Ikalgo,

Dorohedoro: Kaiman, Shin, Aikawa, 13, Chidaruma, Jonson, Tanba

TOH: The Collector, Hunter, King Clawthorne, Eda Clawthorne, Luz Noceda, Belos/Philip, Papa Titan, Willow, Kikimora,

Adventure Time: Finn, Jake, The lich king, Gunter, Me-mow, Fern, Golb, Ice King, Cosmic Owl, Death, New Death,

(I might add more characters in the future)

Favorite Dinosaurs: Suchomimus Tenerensis,Spinosaurus Aegyptiacus, yutyrannus,Torvosaurus,Allosaurus Fragilis,Siats Meekerorum,Ichthyovenator Laosensis, Irritator Challengeri,Pyroraptor, Sinosauropteryx,Carnotaurus Sastrei, Baryonyx Walkeri,Dilophosaurus Wetherilli.

Non-Dinosaurus:Kaprosuchus, Sarcosuchus.

[onewomancitadel]

The persona and other Jung stuff in RWBY

I was thinking about Jung today (obviously, made lots of annoying posts about it) and who and what the personae are in RWBY. I tend to pay attention to Shadows and anima/animus because that's where my interest more often is, since the persona is:

“[…] a kind of mask, designed on the one hand to make a definite impression upon others, and on the other to conceal the true nature of the individual.” - C.G. Jung, Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, 1953

and the path to the Self and individuation is effectively slaying this false self, or identifying where you really begin and where it really ends.

I would also like to note that this quote is a good one to use on the persona, and Nightbloomwitch also used it in her essay on the Darkling, which I recommend for reading if you're interested in an analysis of his character, 'tracing his literary ancestry'. I also asked her permission a while ago to borrow her Jungian mindmapping, because I hadn't seen it done before. It really is a great essay - I hope she's doing well wherever she is - and incredibly fascinating, not to sound like I'm sucking up. (;

Here's an abbreviated description of the persona on the Carl Jung website, with its academic citation in the link (want to save space lol):

One could say, with a little exaggeration, that the persona is that which in reality one is not, but which oneself as well as others think one is.

A character such as Ben Solo has a persona of Kylo Ren, The Darkling is a persona etc. and that's why he reveals his true name to Alina when he dies (though TGT isn't a stellar example of Jungian storytelling). It's why what happens in Dark happens the way it does. Darth Vader - one of the best examples from the story that basically began the conscious repurposing of the monomyth - is the persona of Anakin Skywalker, that's why he is finally able to pass peacefully with the mask off.

But Cinder is an interesting case because her persona - like Raistlin from Dragonlance - is represented by another character that she imitates and wishes she were more like, who is Salem. Salem is also her master and whom she is literally enslaved to (slave to a mask/persona). This is why I've always talked about Cinder and masks.

Or, Salem and Madame are one conflated persona since she essentially tries to imitate both. When she killed Madame, she never truly killed the false self, and she was vulnerable to Salem. That's not her happy ending (or bad ending) or the end of her individuation. That's why Cinder needs to be meaningfully freed. ("Without you I am nothing," - without the mask/enslavement, she can't see who she truly is. See: the Fall Maiden's lesson she needs to learn. Look at everything already in front of you).

Salem's ending will be a reconciled peaceful death, I suspect. I was also thinking about Ruby. I think Ruby's persona is Summer Rose. I am currently wondering how many personae of the characters have to die. Qrow's persona was Clover, for instance.

That's why he teams up with his Shadow to kill the mask. (Qrow literally calls it a 'deal with the darkness'. I can't make this shit up, it's so obvious it hurts).

In summary, I love revealing things and the truth and narrative patterns. Let me supplement a Jungian mental psyche map, with Cinder's mapped out to complement it:

So you can see what I'm getting at visually lol.

[violethowler]

Symbolic Foreshadowing: Analyzing the KH1 Opening in the Context of the Heroine’s Journey

“But was it a dream, or a prophecy?” --Puck (Gargoyles; S2E43: Future Tense)

It’s generally widely acknowledged in fan spaces that the opening sequence of the original game, despite the fantastical visuals, foreshadows key elements of the game’s story, as well as the roles that Sora, Riku, and Kairi each play in the narrative and how their connections relate to one another. Riku standing in or under a giant wave with his hand reaching out for Sora is a clear visual connection to their separation as Destiny Islands falls that foreshadows his fall to darkness in the game itself. Meanwhile, Sora is separated from Kairi at the end of the opening just like how they are separated at the end of the game. 

But looking closely at the symbolism reveals even more layers of meaning hidden within the first Kingdom Hearts game’s opening, especially when the series’ adherence to the Heroine’s Journey is taken into account. 

We open with Sora having to shield his eyes from the blinding light of the sun before he looks to see Riku standing out in the water. The connection between Riku and the sun is reinforced in Chain of Memories, when his redemption is referred to as “The Road to Dawn,” referring to the sun rising at the end of the night to mark the beginning of a new day. This is made explicit when the original montage is recreated shot-for-shot in the opening tutorial of KH3, with a bright light in Riku’s place. 

Kairi, meanwhile is the opposite. Her appearance in the KH1 opening music video is accompanied by a sunset, a trend which repeats itself across the series. She and Sora talk on the dock at sunset the day before the trio plans to depart with their raft. She welcomes Sora home at sunset during the ending of Kingdom Hearts II. She and Sora share the paopu fruit in KH3 at sunset and the game ends with them saying goodbye before the sun sets. But it isn’t the sunset itself that Kairi is associated with. Rather, it’s the disappearance or absence of the sun. 

Her proper introduction in the original game is framed in shadows as she blocks Sora’s view of the sun on the beach. The illusion of her that Sora sees at Merlin’s House later in the game expresses a love of dark, musty places, comparing the Mystical House to the Secret Place on the island. Both are places with little or no sunlight, with the cave on Destiny Islands only having a small hole in the roof, while Traverse Town is always shown in endless night. And after her awakening in Hollow Bastion, she spends her time in Traverse Town at the Secret Waterway, even deeper underground than Merlin’s House. 

Kingdom Hearts III ends with the visual of Sora fading from his reality as the sun sets while the secret ending depicts him and Riku waking up in Quadratum, a place outside reality, at night. As a place outside of reality, Quadratum checks all the boxes for the Descent stage of the Heroine’s Journey. This phase of the narrative pattern marks the point at which the protagonist undergoes a period of self reflection in order to confront the parts of their psyche that they have thus far refused to consciously acknowledge. 

Riku’s presence and visual association with the sun is critical, because if Sora is about to undergo a “dark night of the soul,” then it makes perfect sense for the end of his Descent to be heralded by sunrise imagery. In Light Youth/Dark Youth stories and romantic Heroine’s Journeys, the protagonist and their Animus are typically separated from each other emotionally at the beginning of the story. The rift between the two keeps the main character from achieving inner balance and metaphorically keeps them both trapped in childhood by holding them back from maturing into their best, fullest selves. 

Falling into water or darkness in the Kingdom Hearts series is associated with physical and emotional separation, as well as the severing of bonds. So it makes sense then that the opening music video uses that imagery to illustrate that initial rift between them, as well as how that separation is quickly followed by the visual of Sora falling into the dark void surrounding the Dive to the Heart. 

On one level, this can be read as a metaphor for Sora’s Descent, where he is isolated from the people he cares about. But some recent developments over the last few years have given it another potential meaning that was probably not planned intentionally. 

One of Disney’s most recent properties to attempt the Heroine’s Journey was the Star Wars sequel trilogy, depicting Rey following the path of the Heroine’s Journey with Ben “Kylo Ren” Solo as her Animus. The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi followed the first two acts of the framework to the letter.

However the finale of the trilogy, Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker, completely abandons the Heroine's Journey formula, removing any sense of growth from Rey’s narrative and ultimately killing off her Animus. The film ends with her travelling alone to Tatooine, the literal starting point of the franchise, where she buries Luke and Leia’s lightsabers in the sand and takes the last name Skywalker for herself. Regardless of what fans who enjoyed the film may think about what the ending was meant to convey about how long she was going to stay on Tatooine, the last image that audiences have is the girl who grew up on a desert planet but wanted something more going back to a desert planet with no clear goal for the future. 

Coming of age narratives that break away from the structure of what the story is setting up leave the main character metaphorically trapped in childhood. These endings strip their personal arc of its momentum and leave the audience feeling as if the character has learned nothing and that their growth has stagnated or even regressed. At the end of the Rise of Skywalker, Rey slides down the sand dunes of the Lars homestead the same way she slid down the sand dunes on Jakku in The Force Awakens, dressed in light colors the way she was in the beginning when she was ignorant of what was going on out in the wider galaxy. The KH1 opening ends with Sora standing on a stained glass pillar depicting Snow White, the first Disney princess. 

While Disney movies are generally acknowledged as something that adults can enjoy, there is still a general attitude in western (or at least American) culture that Disney (and animation as a whole) is solely for children. Many Kingdom Hearts fans who want to see the series “grow up” are most often the ones who call for the series to drop the Disney elements entirely and become more like Final Fantasy. So even if the narrative of the story itself doesn’t say anything, the visuals of Disney are still associated with childhood by many. And that visual of Sora standing on a stained-glass depiction of the first Disney movie serves to connect Sora to that Disney aspect of the series.  

So the symbolism of the KH1 opening can be read as both subtle visual foreshadowing of the narrative pattern and a silent warning of how deviating from that pattern will fundamentally break the narrative. If the rift between the protagonist and the Animus is not properly healed, then it will ultimately leave Sora isolated from the people he cares about and trapped in childhood while everyone around him grows up. 

[corseque]

I swear I’m not asking this as a fanboy who calls Rey a Mary Sue, I’m just genuinely curious about her character in a mythological perspective... was Rey ever wrong? Has she ever messed up? Will she ever do something that isn’t motivated by the best of intentions? Because if not... how she’s the protagonist of this story if it solves around Ben Solo’s life and conflicts?

Ok I’ll take this question like you’re genuinely asking. But I think we need to clear up some things if you genuinely want to understand. This question of “did she do anything wrong” makes me think you’re coming from a video like “Rey is the worst Mary sue” and you might have internalized that. Please try to leave that at the door bc it’s not the point of these movies. Also a lot of times, people who disliked these movies watched them only once and then talked about them for years, remembering them in a skewed way. But especially TLJ is incredibly rich with mythic imagery and deserves multiple viewings. Watch all of her scenes in a row carefully, openly, and really look at what her story in particular is. It’s something different, something we’re not used to watching, something exciting and gratifying to women, and it’s place on screen is very important to both women and men. If you don’t understand her story, it’s because half of humanity’s experience has been sequestered away from you for your whole life. You deserve to know about the internal lives of women, and if you are open to it, it will help you in your own life. Don’t let YouTube bros keep you from understanding a story meant for half of humanity.

Rey’s story is that of the Heroine’s Journey, which is a deeper and more internal dive than the Hero’s Journey. It isn’t about overcoming outward dangers like slaying a dragon, it’s about accepting who you are internally as a woman. To find the True Self in the Heroine’s Journey is Balance, which is why they keep talking about balance. The reward of the Heroine is internal and spiritual, not great outward riches or accolades. That’s why TLJ is so internal and contemplative.

Her “failures” are that of the failures of the Heroine’s Journey. Her spiritual aridity at the beginning of TFA, treading water because she is “separated from the feminine” aka has no mother, is alone and living a ‘masculine’ life in a barren world. That’s an image that women resonate with.

Feelings of abandonment, feelings of alienation, looking outside herself to be told what to do, feelings of being denied a male role, her “searching everywhere for a father,” searching for outward validation and training, getting things wrong, even looking inside her own deep unconscious (the cave) and bravely traveling to the underworld in a coffin in search of answers outside herself... before ultimately realizing that the power and answers lie within herself and not outside? All of these images and struggles resound in women’s experience. These are the next few steps in the Heroine’s Journey, mapped out perfectly. This will continue in the next movie.

So those are the 3 things to clear up:

1) her story is for women (but will deeply help men as well if they are open to it, just as women have been inspired by male protagonists for hundreds of years)

2) She is on the Heroine’s Journey, which is a story specifically about helping girls grow into women. If it seems alien to you, it’s because you’ve been taught (to your own harm) that this is a lesser story. It is not. If you read the last steps of the Heroine’s Journey, it spoils the plot of IX.

3) Rey and Kylo are “two halves of one protagonist” — this is not just some side love story in an Indiana Jones movie, this is the plot. This relationship is a mythic, psychological metaphor for a woman accepting and integrating the Wounded Masculine within herself, and a man integrating the Feminine within himself, to become stable people. This is a very internal and psychological story, partly about growing into adulthood and accepting devalued parts of our own selves to become whole. It will be more obvious after the last movie.

It is a mistake to think that Rey is undermined by Ben Solo’s plot importance. The story is her POV, this is from her gaze. Like in the Hero’s Journey, as he gains strength, she only gets stronger. They are tied to each other as characters, and can only succeed together. (metaphorically, she cannot succeed until she finds her place in the world, accepts and forgives the feminine part of herself and heals the masculine part (embodied in her animus Kylo Ren)). So she does need him, but it’s metaphorical and a guide for our own lives.

Also, if you (as a man) are looking for the Hero’s Journey as a guide for young boys growing up in the ST? That’s what Finn and Kylo are for. Young boys have many examples to identity with as they overcome their fathers and kill dragons and win love. They are writing very lovingly for young boys in this ST as well, and especially after IX and the full story of the Healed Masculine is unveiled, Kylo will be a very helpful cathartic character for young boys to identify with.

Hope that helped. Listen to the episode on the Heroine’s Journey by What the Force podcast to understand more of these Feminine Mysteries. Read Maureen Murdocks’s book The Heroine’s Journey, or read some articles about it. It’s good stuff, and it’s important for Star Wars to become a universal cultural touchstone for everyone.

[starwarsnonsense]

Scavenger’s Hoard - Podcast Series Using Mythic Archetypes to Analyse the Sequel Trilogy

Listen on iTunes/Listen on SoundCloud/Listen on Stitcher 

For the last few weeks, @bastila-bae​ and I have been working on an ongoing series of podcast spotlights on the use of mythic archetypes in the sequel trilogy (using a largely Jungian lens), and what these might tell us about The Rise of Skywalker. These evolved as they went along, but they’re all interlinked and are worth listening to in sequence. To make the series more accessible, I thought it would be helpful to do a post bringing the episodes together and briefly explaining what you can expect to get out of each one.

We hope you enjoy these episodes, and find our discussions interesting! If you have any thoughts or ideas you would like to contribute, please email us at scavengershoard@gmail.com

Episode #107 - Masculinity in the Sequel Trilogy (start at 19 minutes)

In this spotlight, we go through the key male characters in the sequel trilogy character by character (running through Luke, Han Solo, Poe, Finn and Kylo Ren). For this discussion, we draw upon a range of theorists, most significantly Robert Johnson (He: Understanding Masculine Psychology) and Robert Bly (Iron John). 

This episode is a bit lighter on the theory/mythic references than the subsequent ones (being the only one without reference to the Cupid and Psyche myth, which becomes central to our thinking in the later episodes), but is still worth a listen as a set up for the following podcast.

Episode #108 - The Feminine in the Sequel Trilogy  (start at 21 minutes)

This spotlight is more specifically focused on Rey’s journey in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, considering how the stages of her journey across the two films mirror some of the key structures and archetypes encountered in classic myths and fairy-tales. This episode draws heavily on the Robert Johnson book She: Understanding Feminine Psychology, while also referencing other writers such as Elizabeth Imlay and Marie-Louise von Franz. The ancient myth of Cupid and Psyche forms the crux of this episode, though we also touch upon how the same basic structure is treated in updated versions of the story (e.g. Beauty and the Beast and Jane Eyre). 

This episode focuses on Rey because we found it most instructive to concentrate on her journey (given her centrality to the story).

Episode #109 - Predicting the General Structure of ‘The Rise of Skywalker’ with Reference to the ‘Cupid and Psyche’ Myth (start at 44 minutes)

Building directly on the discussion in episode #108, we extrapolate from our observations about Rey’s journey in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi and use the structure of the Cupid and Psyche myth to form some general predictions for how The Rise of Skywalker might play out. 

While we avoid getting too specific with our predictions, we hopefully have something to add to the discussion in terms of the thought processes and emotions the characters of Rey and Kylo will have to struggle with and process over the course of the film.

Episode #110 - Summarising Our Predictions & Some Spoiler-y Thoughts (start at 54 minutes)

This episode is something of an epilogue and includes a more direct and concise summary of the Rise of Skywalker predictions we arrived at in episode #109. 

Following the summation of our main predictions, we sound the spoiler siren and have a quick discussion of some ideas that arose from a specific Robert Johnson quote on the Cupid and Psyche myth.

Further reading

If you enjoyed this series and are interested in ‘further reading’, we strongly recommend the following books:

Iron John by Robert Bly

He: Understanding Masculine Psychology by Robert Johnson

She: Understanding Feminine Psychology by Robert Johnson

The Feminine in Fairytales by Marie-Louise von Franz

Charlotte Bronte and the Mysteries of Love: Myth and Allegory in Jane Eyre by Elizabeth Imlay

Animus and Anima in Fairytales by Marie-Louise von Franz

From Beast to Blonde by Marina Warner

Beauty and the Beast: Classic Tales About Animal Brides and Grooms from Around the World by Maria Tatar

[ao3feed--reylo]

Legacy

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2UKsOA1

by Zoa

"He doesn’t know how long he’s been there. Maybe a couple of months. It feels like a hundred years. Or maybe that was how many lives he’s lived, forced as he’s been to lay down in their cursed machine and experience a millennia of his ancestors until the First Order found the one they’d wanted.

Kylo Ren. The Creed’s greatest Assassin. The First Order’s greatest enemy. A thousand years before Ben Solo was born, before he even knew the First Order existed, before he realized he was the last of the guardians of the world’s greatest secrets, Kylo Ren had hidden one of those secrets, smuggled it away from the First Order before they could use it to destroy the world as they knew it. For a thousand years the Apple had remained hidden, protected by the Creed. Lost to the memory of the world."

Words: 2159, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Series: Part 7 of The Reylo Tales: My Collection of Reylo One-Shots

Fandoms: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Categories: F/M

Characters: Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey (Star Wars)

Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Kylo Ren/Rey

Additional Tags: the assassin's creed au no one asked for, Blood, Violence, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, flashbacks to kylo ren, Author Is Sleep Deprived, The Animus (Assassin's Creed), Alternate Universe - Assassin's Creed Fusion

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2UKsOA1

[solitarylurker]

a critical reflection on the failings of star wars: the rise of skywalker

(Rey's failure on a mythological level)

the surprising twist of Rey's story after The Force Awakens was that she was on a legitimate heroine's journey, which is a journey mostly into the inner world; this was an aspect that Rian Johnson's The Last Jedi nailed perfectly, and it's the main reason that film still works despite its flaws on other analytical levels

the heroine's journey, a tragic rarity now in modern storytelling, requires Rey to confront her animus, to grapple with it, and eventually to incorporate it (or marry it in a more literal sense), all the while overcoming these challenges with wit and love

in TFA, we see her meet her animus--represented by the hulking, shadowy figure of Kylo Ren; in TLJ, she grapples with her animus--her conversations with Kylo Ren transform him from monster to man, and she is forced to wrestle with the humanity within him and the shadows within herself

The Rise of Skywalker should have completed Rey's heroine's journey, allowing her to incorporate her shadow into herself, to triumph over it by using its strength and quelling its weakness, and to marry herself to her animus, a reformed/redeemed Kylo Ren

in a properly formed heroine's journey, the heroine does not reject her animus in the end--she embraces him and accepts that he is part of her as she is part of him; her love, in essence, transforms him from a shadowy monster to a functioning part of both herself and society at large

the heroine's ultimate goal is to mend the bridges between the spiritual realm (the inner world) and the physical realm (the outer world); much like the hero's journey, the heroine must bring something of value back to her community, but the specific thing of value is different from the hero--she's not meant to slay a monster, but to integrate one, defeating it via her own set of skills

the wisdom she gains from the experience informs her as she transforms herself from maiden into matron, completing the first phase of a woman's life cycle

unfortunately, JJ Abrams didn't seem to get the memo on the core element that makes Rey's journey work, and he tries to stuff her into the hero's mold instead

the beats of the traditional hero's journey fall flat in a story like Star Wars, which has always held an element of the inner journey at its heart

even Luke's hero's journey does not end with him vanquishing his foe--Darth Vader; instead, it ends with him offering compassion to his foe, and through his compassion he reforms Vader enough for Vader to complete his own heroic arc and slay Palpatine

Abrams is so focused on making Rey into a super woman type of high priestess character, a woman so pure and moral that despite showing obvious signs of fragmentation and subliminal rage still manages to always make the "correct" decision 

Rey in TROS is a Queen of Swords, a harsh woman of sharp judgment and little compassion for anything that doesn't do exactly what she wants when she wants it; these aspects would be fine if we were still in the second film, for this would symbolize her obstacles she'd have to overcome to reach her full potential, but unfortunately TROS is the third film and these are presented as admirable qualities (or, if not admirable per se, then not detrimental)

Rey repeatedly has several run-ins with Kylo Ren, her animus, who continues to open the door to conversation and understanding with her, but unlike in TLJ when Rey allowed herself to soften toward him, she remains hard and implacable in TROS

she draws a hard, sharp line between her fictional image of "Ben Solo" and the shadow of Kylo Ren who stands before her

this comes out most prominently in the scene where she and Kylo Ren fight for the final time--she is snarling with rage and absolutely incapable of conversing with him, despite having cared for him in the previous film

she goes so far as to fatally stab him with his own saber and then has the nerve, after half-heartedly healing him (while she's crying more for Leia than for him), to tell him she wanted to take Ben's hand, the subtext being that she would never take Kylo Ren's hand

lucky for Rey, Kylo Ren magically transforms himself for her because he's so desperate for any human contact that even a woman who avidly loathes him so obviously is better than nothing

however, this is no win for Rey on any genuine level--this is merely her being a creator's pet and receiving narrative benefits she hasn't properly earned

Rey shows no legitimate remorse for how far she's fallen, or for her own lack of compassion for Kylo; she never once in the film attempts to understand Kylo or reach out to him or offer him an alternative, instead continuing to make demands of him without offering anything in return

when she speaks with Luke, she's more worried about her own purity as a jedi than she is the darkness that's caused her to harm someone she supposedly cares for or her own temptation (which is never shown) of joining him as his Empress

in the end, Rey gets her wish and Ben appears before her, rescues her, and dies sacrificing himself for her; while the scene is pretty, it's ultimately hollow because Rey did nothing to earn Ben's love and sacrifice--these are entirely testaments to Ben's character and his own heart than to Rey's, as she is merely the passive beneficiary of a love she neither pursued nor sacrificed for

the enormous gaping hole in Rey's journey falls in her own inability to properly face her own shadow and incorporate it, thus healing her interior wounds and enabling her to reach Kylo Ren; to do this properly, in TROS she should have learned how to accept her own call to the dark side, as well as Kylo's, and accepted them both as having these sides to themselves while offering Kylo a way to move forward without giving in entirely to the dark

her inability to accept her own inner animus and transform it into something of worth to the community is why her journey fails, despite the success of her shoehorned hero's journey--her journey had never been a traditional hero's journey, and killing is never the proper ending for a legitimate heroine's journey; love is always the correct end to a heroine's journey

worse than failing to accept the darkness within herself and Kylo, she fails to understand that the man she loves is the culmination of Kylo Ren and Ben Solo; she is not in love with Ben Solo

Rey does not even know Ben Solo; there is no guarantee Ben Solo would have loved Rey had he met her ten years before

the man who extends his hand to Rey, the man who pushes her, the man who offers her companionship and understanding, is Kylo Ren, the very same one who offered her a galaxy because he didn't understand she only wanted him

it was not Ben Solo's light that drew Rey to him, it was his darkness that compelled her; her desire for his light comes from her inability to accept her own inner darkness, which is merely her ego wanting to remain a "good girl" for her parents rather than properly face the totality of the woman she is becoming

Kylo's darkness calls Rey toward growth and autonomy, but it also represents the danger of temptation and wrath, fatal flaws Kylo himself has fallen prey to

if in TROS Rey had properly found herself, she would be able to help Kylo see he was more than just the darkness, and help him reincorporate his light as she had incorporated the darkness he'd helped her tap into; these could have turned into deep wells of strength for both characters, allowing their bond to become a force (pun intended ;D) capable of taking down whatever villain stood at the end of their journey

but because Rey refuses to accept that the man who has been the one by her side the entire journey is the "evil" Kylo Ren, she can't complete her journey into womanhood and instead retreats into childish fantasy; ultimately she can't have a happily ever after with whatever the Kylo Ren/Ben culmination turned out to be because she never grows up enough to accept such a man (this is further emphasized when she's sliding down the dunes like a child again at the end of her journey, a subtle sign that nothing of relevance has changed)

Rey never comes to the understanding that Kylo Ren is not split from Ben Solo, nor that her own darkness is not split from her light; she never reaches the understanding that Kylo and Ben are one and that her light and her darkness are one

this inability to incorporate the two aspects within herself leads to her failure to accomplish her narrative objectives while her inability to show any form of compassion to either Kylo Ren or Palpatine clinches the deal and renders her character ultimately a sad example of a creator's pet who never achieved her full potential

as far as i'm concerned, the reason this film fails goes beyond poor plotting, poor pacing, and poor characters--it can't even get the basic mythological steps of the final leg of the heroine's journey correct, thus rendering Rey completely ineffective in the only two missions her character had: find belonging with someone and come to terms with herself and her past

it's truly a shame Abrams couldn't stick the landing on this one, because Rey deserved to grow up, learn how to express true love and compassion, marry the man she loved, bring him back into the community as an asset rather than a liability, and bring forth the next generation with him at her side

[7/9]

[ashesforfoxes]

Divine Union 0: Reckoning

This is an introduction to my Divine Union meta series, split into parts to best relay the multiple sources and themes I have been exploring over the past month. In these essays, we are going to move past Jung’s analytical justification for the symbolic into the world of aesthetic and alchemical psychology. By tracing a thread of universal symbolism from Eastern and Western origins into a current understanding of mythopoetics, I am going to try to understand the Star Wars series as a whole, and I will need your help to do it. Yes, you.

You’re Not Alone … Neither Are You

As always, I will preface this with a personal anecdote. I never expected to take on this journey when I first began writing Star Wars sequel trilogy meta in early 2016. My obsession with the content became deeply personal, and part of my identity. I’ll cop to feeling a personal sense of shame about this obsessiveness. It was with a knowledge that my expectations may have exceeded possibility for The Last Jedi that I was prepared to mitigate my involvement/interest once the movie had been released. But if I had thought that the first film had changed me, this film was a fundamental, psychological and deeply personal source of transformation.

In the ancient art of alchemy, practitioners understood that their work was much more of a spiritual journey than a physical one. The work was the journey of the human soul and mind towards enlightenment. Weirdly enough, writing all of this has brought about changes in my life I never would have anticipated weeks ago, sitting in a darkened theater, spellbound by something that spoke to me on a level that I’m sure will take me years to unravel.

There is already a significant amount of work that has been produced by this fandom in response to the film, with exceptional writing on the narrative function and progress in storytelling. Because it has been done better, greater, that is not what I’m going to focus on.

Instead, I am going to lay this into how the story reflects a symbolic transformation of the universe itself. Where we will go next in the series if this vision is maintained is up to the creators.

Out of the Darkness and Into the Light

As most of us who participated in early sequel trilogy fandom, I have been parsing through my earlier writing in an attempt to see if I was able to get a grasp on some of it before we even knew half of what we were going to get. This is not meant to be self-congratulatory in any way but rather a process wherein I could sort out the wheat from the chaff, and then move on to the next stages of analyzing the text. I also want to make it clear where I failed to grasp the concepts that were clear in The Last Jedi.

So here is a very brief commentary on my meta, the best and the worst. Let’s take a look at some of the most significant motifs.

The Descent: Rey’s Heroine’s Journey

Here’s what we know most distinctly: the sequel trilogy has been created for the feminine gaze. If there was any doubt with the first film it has been erased by the second. The Heroine’s Journey exists as a narrative arc defining the story in its mythic sense with regards to Rey— the spiritual successor of the Jedi. This journey is shared by her deuteragonist and animus, Ben Solo/Kylo Ren. He is the catalyst by which she is transformed and vice versa. These interactions do not diminish her character or her agency, but rather elevate them. Rey maintains control and power in all her efforts, even her surrender into Snoke’s grasp. This is thanks to her implicit understanding of her former enemy turned ally, but also her much-needed heroine’s innocence. The entire scene calls to mind Luke’s surrender to the Emperor and Vader’s betrayal, but with a very different subtext and understanding between apprentice and her dark ally.

The main take away from this journey is that The Descent continues into the second film, in multiple forms. This makes absolute sense if we consider that half the narrative structure of any work in this vein lies beneath, “in the dark” as per the picture above. Sidekicks, Trials, Adversaries, Wedding the Animus, Confronting the Powerless Father (as explored by @huntedbyacreature  in this meta and more recently in this gorgeous breakdown of the mirror cave, supported by @bastila-bae and @starwarsnonsense in the introductory episode of Scavenger’s Hoard) and Defeating the Shadow/Nadir of the World were the main takeaways of The Last Jedi, with a continuation of the story towards the Ascent. This means that we will see the third film breaking out of the Underworld and back into the world as we know it, with the many gifts the Heroine has found there and a healing of the wounds created by the major conflicts. I believe this is where they are going towards.

Anyone assuming that the next film will be a fundamentally dark or tragic tale is in for a pleasant surprise. This is not Revenge of the Sith, where the trilogy must end sadly, with only a dash of hope, to set-up a father-son conflict and reunion. As the conclusion of a 9-movie arc, it is rather the antithesis of it, bringing the story full circle (tinfoil-hat time again!) and righting the wrongs of the Prequel Trilogy. As we suspected, Anakin’s failure to Padme, and by proxy, his children, were the true curse of the Skywalkers. 

All of the Jedi and Empire/Rebellion drama is but a reflection of the much simpler family drama–what George called a “soap opera.” (all credit to @ugnaught77  for this hilarious video):

What George is saying here is actually important, and it’s also why I am still fully invested in the series. As much as people want to argue that his influence is waning I believe wholeheartedly that he is the reason the sequel trilogy exists. We’ll explore this further, later, but let’s assume our mentors are still speaking to us through the past.

This is even more significant with the passing of Carrie Fisher as Episode IX was to be her movie where the first two were Han and Luke’s, respectively. The Atonement with the Mother that was supposed to take place in the third film will have to be dealt with in a narratively satisfying way whether or not she is physically present. Ultimately how this may happen is that a character like Rey does not so much as replace this figure, but instead honors it through her acceptance of the matriarchal role of the Skywalker clan. Even though we do not have Ben’s mother to help catalyze his redemption as she was meant to beyond their fleeting moments in The Last Jedi we know that satisfying storytelling demands it. And perhaps with Leia’s passing, as dealt within the story, divine aid can further come from the brother who was responsible for this latest tragedy.

The reason why the mother in this sense has to be Leia is for several reasons. TFA established her as Demeter searching for her lost child and The Last Jedi reinforces it symbolically:

Beyond obvious imagery, the Atonement is also with the true wounded mother of this series, the original Mater Dolorosa: Padme Amidala. Symbolically Padme has always been associated with the Divine–she is the fated bride of our original Sun King Anakin Skywalker and the mother of our cosmic twins, Luke and Leia. She is the Madonna, holding on to the cherished past lost by Anakin’s fall. From a planet with two moons that has a symbiosis with the water spirits deep below the surface, she has always been the avatar of life and nature disrupted. Her death is not just tragic in how it comes to be, but that she loves her children beyond the grave. She protects and guides them even when she has passed through the actions of the people she came to love: Obi Wan, Bail Organa, and Owen/Beru. 

Padme’s wounding was not just from Anakin’s refusal to join her as the Father to her Holy Mother, or his choice to fall to the Dark Side, but from the war initiated by the Jedi and their Faustian arch-nemesis Palpatine. This war had its roots in her own star system, and the tragedy was on her from the beginning even though she did no wrong. In saving her people she accidentally created the power at the heart of the Senate, and in the late stages of this conflict actively fought against it. 

Padme’s shadow was the government that grew with war, and if she would have been given the chance to live and fight she would have torn it down. The important thing to remember is that this wound has scarred the galaxy, and it is the healing of this wound that will become the significant function of the sequel trilogy. Padme’s true nature lives through both Luke and Leia, as does her will to save the galaxy from destruction when creation is so necessary to its survival. 

“This is the motherlove which is one of the most moving and unforgettable memories of our lives, the mysterious root of all growth and change; the love that means homecoming, shelter, and the long silence from which everything begins and in which everything ends. Intimately known and yet strange like Nature, lovingly tender and yet cruel like fate, ‘oyous and untiring giver of life-mater dolorosa and mute implacable portal that closes upon the dead … A sensitive person cannot in all fairness load that enormous burden of meaning, responsibility, duty, heaven and hell, on to the shoulders of one frail and fallible human being-so deserving of love, indulgence, understanding, and forgiveness-who was our mother. He knows that the mother carries for us that inborn image of the mater nature and mater spiritualis, of the totality of life of which we are a small and helpless part.”

Carl Jung, “Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype” (1939) In CW 9, Part I: The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious P.172

The “sun forced into shadow” and the Powerless Father to the Wounded Mother/Goddess is Padme’s son and Leia’s twin brother Luke. He cuts himself off from his own family both physically and metaphorically to die, as a penance for his failure to keep his nephew from falling and his academy and students from ruin. Even though he is responsible for both tragedies, it has haunted him for years. He is as yet unable to accept failure as a necessary facet of growth. 

Like Han Solo, he waited too long to join the fight, believing it impossible to contribute any good. The beauty of Rey’s relationship with him (and to a lesser degree, Han) is that he finds that it is never too late to change. He returns a final time to give hope to the galaxy, and save his sister in her darkest hour. He doesn’t tell her that the Rebels will rise back up again from the ashes of their defeat like their Starbird sigil, but that she will be reunited with her son once more. By the rule of threes in fairy tale stories, the Skywalker curse has finally begun to be lifted.

Luke’s confrontation with his family and the admission of his wrongs leads to his final transcendence, establishing him as a powerful Father in the galaxy amidst the Force Ghosts who came before him. He is now free to impart that wisdom in times of great need. The real-world repository for the last of the Jedi teachings lies with Rey in the form of the sacred Jedi texts, but it is really Ben Solo (and perhaps even the Knights of Ren), who carry Luke’s real-life teachings with them.

Rey is the most important part of the story but her Reward: Winning the Family is the love of and place among the Skywalkers, including the Rebels remaining in the galaxy who still follow their symbolic leadership. This is established very clearly in The Last Jedi in the Mirror Cave, where she asks to see her parents and is instead shown herself (and if it’s to be believed, her shadow/animus) coalescing from their combined forms. Not only does Ben Solo see the truth of her parentage and force her to admit her parents are gone, he establishes the truth in Maz’s statement in TFA: “The belonging you seek is not behind you - it is ahead.“

Everyone and their father assumed this line meant that Rey was a Skywalker; the irony being that she is one, just not in name or blood. She belongs to the clan by the will of the Force, and whether or not she chooses her place as its true heir and progenitor is the biggest question of this trilogy.

Rey returns to the Underworld willingly, something I could never have anticipated because I lacked the imagination to see her relationship with Kylo/Ben manifest as quickly as it did with the aid of their Force connection. While in some ways she fulfills the role of Persephone, as anticipated, she is much more like Psyche descending, or Hermes/Mercury by will of Zeus. For now, it suffices to say Ben still embodies the stolen child, cursed to the Underworld by maternal influences. He is alone, without aid, until she comes for him—much like Orpheus rescuing Eurydice as @seankayos has pointed out (a tale closely connected with the Persephone mythos). While he becomes the king of the Underworld, in place of Snoke, he is still not respected and empowered by it. Perhaps he will become something darker and more authoritarian, but that does not seem to be the case–and something we will speculate on further.

Bride of the Monstrous: Meeting the Other

There is absolutely no question now that Kylo is Rey’s animus. They are bound by the Force itself, soulmates who meet in visions, forced into an antagonistic confrontation only to find reflections of themselves within each other. In each of their encounters, they find themselves intimately alone, the proximity closing between them by one or the other’s movements, their heads close together and their eyes always locked when not focusing on the other’s mouth. The blocking in their scenes suggests upwards/downwards movements but always meeting as equals. No scene is wasted on them.

While many saw the basis developing in the weirdness of their first encounters in a nightmare/daydream, fairytale forest, bridal carry across a battlefield and the music that played for them melding their themes and recalling Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet overture, the interrogation scene, the probability of a force bond ala Bastila/Revan from KOTOR formed by the invasion of each other’s minds and lampshaded in the final fight on Starkiller, et al. we did not dare to hope that what we saw was a true spiritual connection– even when the signs began to appear in the novelizations, film commentary, and official Disney marketing such as the StarWars.com databank updates confirming their “mysterious connection”. 

And so it continued to be there, under every overturned stone of production leak or creator commentary (or lack thereof). It still never could have prepared us for the film itself. That has changed everything, making their dynamic undeniable, and even I would say: beyond their attraction to one another, their burgeoning love for each other is real.

Twice now Kylo has asked Rey to join him and has been rejected each time. The second instance is all the more heartbreaking in that she is truly tempted to join him, but neither can leave where they stand. The dialogue and imagery invoke Anakin and Padme’s last encounter—one which scarred the galaxy forever.

But instead of assuming her compliance, or lashing out at her physically when she expresses doubt and sadness, Kylo/Ben wounds Rey with the knowledge of her parent’s abandonment of her due to their own moral failings and low status in a monologue worthy of Jane Austen’s Darcy. This, of course, means it’s a failure. At least it’s a poignant one–telling her she has worth when she has repeated so often that she has none. This hapless admission of love is to be expected in a story that has three acts. The rejection is the catalyst for the Byronic hero to self-analyze and take actions to undo the Gordian knot of angst and disappointment he’s created. It’s still sad.

We’ll go more into this literal marriage proposal later but suffice it to say the Force has arranged a union and it is now up to the destined couple to decide both the terms of that marriage or if it is an impossibility based on their differences in ideology–differences which the film has spent the whole time revealing as based in their values and pasts in ways that can only be rectified through further self-discovery/self-development. As they both saw, their future is together and it will take death to break it or love to heal the rift between them. There is no escaping destiny when the heart wants what it wants—and they both want each other.

The movie ends with the final step unfulfilled–the monster has killed his true enemy and oppressor in Snoke but the curse still weighs heavy on his head–mainly because Snoke is not the true curse at all, just a catalyst for that pain. Kylo can’t leave the Underworld without abandoning his mission towards what he thinks was his grandfather’s plan, or without facing that he has failed his divine family, and this act is only the first that he must accomplish in order to escape his self-imposed prison.

And so, as if looking back and remaining trapped like Eurydice, he stays where he is and Rey leaves him broken and raging at the world like an animal caught in a trap of his own making. The implication here is that he will have to find his own way out, even if that means gnawing a limb off. The process is expected to be just as painful, but the hope lies in just how close he is left at the end of the film to this re-emergence into the Light.

Sacrificial Boy: the Puer Complex

(via @all-about-the-balance)

Something that struck me profoundly on reread was that my absolute worst meta, on Kylo Ren’s characterization as a wounded divine child archetype, resonated with me the most in the context of this new film. The Hades and Persephone mythos telegraphed in The Force Awakens—best understood in the context of the Eleusinian mysteries—was deliberate to a degree even I had not anticipated.

Ben Solo, as the last of the Skywalkers, is descended from a vergence in the Force, a Chosen One destined to bring balance between the Dark Side and the Light. Anakin broke beneath this crystallizing pressure, unable to fulfill his fated role without the compassion and sacrifice of his son at the end of his life. Ultimately he succeeded, but long after creating a generational trauma that affects his family still. As the prototypical “Fatherless” Divine Child, Anakin was let down by the Jedi after losing his mother and sought guidance from the one who would be revealed to be Darth Sidious (another false father) in order to avoid losing Padme, who had come to replace her. But there is someone who wants to fulfill what grandfather started–someone who does not understand what that fully means:

Right about now, I would like to raise a glass to @ohtze  for being right about the Oedipal complex and everything else–everything–long before I ever linked it to my meta … and continuing this line of reasoning in true form to its significance in the sequel trilogy in her brilliant “Kill the King and Take the Crown” meta. (also thank you for continuing to shitpost with me in private on how Ben/Kylo wants to fuck/marry/???? grandma … I promise to support the mythological basis for this, but you already know that)

“I think it’s really sad, because ultimately what Rey and Kylo Ren are both going through is intense loneliness.” —Daisy Ridley (via @sleemo)

As a result of his “Fatherlessness”, Anakin was unable to fulfill his role as father to his own abandoned children, who were given to other families, and found places in the galaxy. Years later, they struggle differently with the newfound knowledge of their parent’s secret relationship and its tragic end, and both come to terms with it in a positive (Luke) and negative (Leia) function. Ironically, both are unable to see the rot at the roots of their story because of it.

Throughout the Sequel Trilogy and canon supplements, it is repeated that Ben Solo was aware of the weight of his legacy and lineage not just through his relation to the Skywalkers but his mother’s status as Princess/Senator/war hero and descendant of Alderaanian and Naberrie royal houses. The powers he was gifted by his grandfather led to his rejection by his non-Jedi parents at a pre-teen age and his initiation into his uncle’s teachings by necessity rather than compulsion. When you force the Divine Child upon the heroes’ path before they have successfully transitioned from childhood to adolescence, you have the makings of a monster. Or do you?

Young Ben was also preyed on by Snoke from a distance, from a young age (Aftermath: Empire’s End by Chuck Wendig implies the womb, cut scenes from The Force Awakens called out by editor Maryann Brandon and both adult and children’s novelizations support that he was at least a child when this influence began), until that darkness manifested itself fully with his uncle’s betrayal of him in his early 20s. Along with the galaxy’s newfound knowledge that Anakin Skywalker was Darth Vader as per Claudia Gray’s Bloodline, a 23-year-old Ben rejected his family who he felt had lied to him, seeking power in the “true” face of his grandfather and turning to Snoke. Ben Solo became Kylo Ren in order to find power in his own narrative and to harness the great potential he most certainly had, but he paid the price for it with his humanity.

Snoke is the Senex who demands fealty to history, but in this story, Luke also represents the blind adherence to the past. Moving on from it–something Yoda eloquently lampshades in his speech to Luke about masters being what their students surpass–is the true aim of the new characters. They can take what they have learned but they are not beholden to it. This is a new world, and they are its new rulers, literally and figuratively.

Without outside intervention, Ben Solo would have been dead and Kylo Ren in his place, a destructive manchild with an exploitative and uncaring mentor who gave little value to human life or inflicting suffering on others. He would have been unable to develop into adolescence past this stage, much as Rey was unable to, herself adrift in a desert and isolated from human contact. While Han’s sacrifice in The Force Awakens sends Kylo into a tailspin of emotional vulnerability and conflict it is his confrontations with Rey which grow these seeds of doubt, culminating in his eventual rejection of and the assassination of Snoke.

“Star Wars boils down to the transition from adolescence into adulthood. That’s the heart of these films and Rey is most obviously the one that hangs on. But it’s also Kylo. In the originals you project entirely onto Luke, while Vader is the scary other — he’s the minotaur. The fascinating thing about Kylo and Rey is that they’re two sides of something. We can all relate to Kylo: to that anger of being in the turmoil of adolescence and figuring out who he’s going to be as a man; dealing with anger and wanting to separate from his family. He’s not Vader — at least, he’s not Vader yet — and that’s something I really wanted to get into.”  - Rian Johnson

But these are only the first steps for this character (lest we forget The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi take place within mere days of each other) and he has a great deal of soul work to be done to rid himself of a lifetime of indoctrination and pain. What The Last Jedi revealed was that beneath the mask was a boy desperate to become a man, and unguided as of yet on how to achieve that. It is having someone see him for who he is, monstrosity and all, and yet still have hope in him, that sparks the fire of transformation and undermines his rejection of the Light.

How grateful was I to be wrong in that, like sacrificial gods of old Iacchus or Osiris, there is still something left of Ben Solo’s tattered soul that can be healed and resurrected. And as in these stories, the one to do it is not family or mentor, but consort. As always, curses are broken by love, but in moving past childhood and adolescence to adulthood it is presupposed that we seek this transformative element not in our friends or parents, but in the embrace of our beloved.

This mirroring of the Padme and Anakin dynamic that should have been–the decision by Anakin to love selflessly instead of selfishly–is the biggest takeaway. What would have the galaxy far, far away looked like if Padme had been a spiritual equal to Anakin in powers and influence, able to wield a lightsaber? This is something they’ve handily rectified in this new trilogy. And it says more about what George Lucas was trying to do with the prequel trilogy than I had ever given him credit for.

[taule]

“It’s all in the movie”: Jungian themes & Reylo in The Last Jedi  

Disclaimer: I was going to revise this meta and bring it up to date as my ideas matured through further reading, but it’s no longer the case. This text exists as is, and I’m not going to come back to it.

Abstract

In this post I will be mostly focusing on Jung’s principle of individuation (becoming the whole, true self) and how it aligns with the relationship between Rey and Ben in The Last Jedi. In the process I will also be discussing some of the symbolism, how I interpret it and how it ties in with the overall theme of individuation as a possible narrative arc for this film.

Also please note that I have tried my best to provide sources to all the quoted material which can be accessed online, free of charge (and is in English). I very much encourage you to dig deeper and come to your own (informed) conclusion.

Introduction

I think this particular thread of thought found its beginning after I had seen TLJ for the first or second time, and before I had seen any mention of Jung. For some reason the Praetorian Guards were drawing away my attention from Ben and Rey. Everything about them is highly ritualistic. From the way they manifest a specific kind of symmetry, to the red color that is a legacy of the Imperial Guard from which they originate. But their armor is something else entirely. My mind immediately drew a parallel with samurai armor, and I was thrilled to find out that it was actually something they used as a reference:

“The Praetorians, my brief to [costume designer] Michael Kaplan was that those guys have to be more like samurai. They have to be built to move, and you have to believe that they could step forward and engage if they have to. They have to seem dangerous.”

- Rian Johnson

But there is also something else. I kept seeing dragons. Yes, there is a lot of highly stylized stuff in Star Wars, but if you simply look at the lines, and the way the armor is constructed, it’s hard not to see the visual references. Particularly evident in the arm guards, cuirass and helmet. And this sort of stuff doesn’t just get thrown together. The design process for such things can take a long time, and always involves a number of people. It is considered from the aspect of storytelling and the significance of a scene or moment in the greater narrative. What something has to evoke or convey and the impression it has to make. Which is why I’m not at all hesitant to also look for the intended meaning of the scene in costume and setting as well.

In addition, Rian has said that this was definitely one of the most significant scenes in the film and one that he is very proud of for pulling off the way they did:

And look, there were a lot of people whose work went into it to design the space and the guards, the stunt work, but that was a moment that I had just always held dear to me, and it’s one of those very rare things where the realization of it on screen I just feel like, “Ah, we got it!” It makes me happy.

- Rian Johnson

The Subconscious

So now, coming back to the dragon. There are several ways to interpret dragon symbolism (which in some sources is not differentiated from the serpent in general), but a few particular and reoccurring interpretations align quite well with Rey and Ben’s arc(s).

Dragons often symbolize the subconscious and a certain fear that is felt towards it. Fighting one then stands for facing your own most base impulses, the unknown part of your psyche that you have to conquer in order to really be in control of your whole self, and not just led by half of your instincts.

Psychologically, however, the archetype as an image of instinct is a spiritual goal toward which the whole nature of man strives; it is the sea to which all rivers wend their way, the prize which the hero wrests from the fight with the dragon.

- Carl Jung, Collected Works, Vol.8: Structure & Dynamics of the Psyche

In the follwing (letter to pastor Jakob Amstutz) referring to the dragon as the subconscious:

It is as though consciousness were aware that the dragon is the lower half of man, which indeed and in truth is the case.

- Carl Jung, Letters Vol.I, pg.489

In Jungian theory a dragon just so happens to be a symbol for the process of individuation, which stands for the integration of soul and ego. And this is a fight Rey and Ben take on together, the two of them fighting against the dragon again alluding to them as two halves of a greater whole. Suggesting that they are also connected to each other in the process of becoming their true selves, beyond simply the extent to which the Force is concerned. The Force is a part of their connection, but I would consider it more of a mediator of their innermost selves. The reason for the depth of their bond lies in them, in who they are, and who they could become with the support of the other.

It does not mean that it is something the narrative is built around exclusively. Or that its presence could be explicit at all times. The Throne Room scene also can’t be reduced to just one set of symbols, so there is more that’s packed in there (including blatant sexual symbolism). But the fight against the dragon is what represents an inner struggle to achieve control over the subconscious. Like the tug of war between light and darkness. To me personally, that is the broader narrative, and something I feel that Rian’s comments have supported as well. Most explicitly perhaps when talking about the significance of what Rey experiences in the cave, something that is very much one of the most telling examples of what I’m talking about here. He said that it’s about becoming, in a very general sense, and also about exploring the infinite possibilities of the self, and finding the true self:

And so it was just an image that came into my head. Of this infinite line of, you know, possibilities of self. And these endless kind of possibilities of identity. And the notion of the playing with which one is the “real” her. Which one is going to be her. And where does it end.

- Rian Johnson

Individuation: Becoming the whole Self

Individuation, as Jung describes it, is a process of psychological development, during which the individual will assimilate the parts of the self into one complete and homogeneous whole and become their truest self. One of the things that individuation aims to do, is to rid the self from the fake layer of the assumed persona (Kylo Ren & the mask, to which I will return later) and on the other hand from the suggestive powers of the untamed subconscious.

Now let’s talk about Modern Man in Search of a Soul, a book Rian said he read as part of his prep for TLJ. So it is indeed “a good place to start”, for multiple reasons. First is of course the fact alone that Rian himself has been explicit about drawing inspiration from Jung. But what’s even better is that in it Jung discusses the necessity of individuation:

The way of successive assimilations reaches far beyond the curative results that specifically concern the doctor. It leads in the end to that distant goal (which may perhaps have been the first urge to life), the bringing into reality of the whole human being—that is, individuation.

- Carl Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul, pg.31

There is something else that I really want to point out, not specifically on the subject of individuation, and that is chapter VIII - “Psychology & Literature”. I just immensely enjoy the fact that this is something he said he is drawing inspiration from. So if I may:

In dealing with the psychological mode of artistic creation, we never need ask ourselves what the material consists of or what it means. But this question forces itself upon us as soon as we come to the visionary mode of creation. We are astonished, taken aback, confused, put on our guard or even disgusted - and we demand commentaries and explanations. We are reminded in nothing of everyday, human life, but rather of dreams, night-time fears and the dark recesses of the mind that we sometimes sense with misgiving. The reading public for the most part repudiates this kind of writing - unless, indeed, it is coarsely sensational - and even the literary critic feels embarrassed by it.

- Carl Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul, pg.182

Coming back to individuation again, I want to present two particular quotes which both emphasize the importance of communication and the conversational aspect of this process. Which is in my eyes especially relevant to how individuation as a whole aligns with the development of Rey and Ben’s relationship. The Force bond allows them to communicate themselves to each other, and the more they begin to understand the other, they also learn something about themselves.

I quite agree with you: without relatedness individuation is hardly possible. Relatedness begins with conversation mostly.

- Carl Jung, Letters, Vol.II, pg.609-610

Individuation is only possible with people, through people. You must realize that you are a link in a chain, that you are not an electron suspended somewhere in space or aimlessly drifting through the cosmos.

- Carl Jung, Nietzsche’s “Zarathustra”: Notes of the Seminar given in 1934-1939, pg.103

But, there is more here than just the relevance of a conversational aspect. There are 3 stages to individuation, which I think can also be seen in TLJ. Jung himself outlined them as the following:

The search into the unconscious involves confronting the shadow, man’s hidden nature; the anima/animus, a hidden opposite gender in each individual; and beyond, the archetype of meaning. These are archetypes susceptible to personification; the archetypes of transformation, which express the process of individuation itself, are manifested in situations.

- Carl Jung, Collected Works Vol.9i: The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, 451 p. (p. 3-41)

I will write about the steps below, but I feel the need to point out that we are simultaneously dealing with two kinds of self here. One is contained within them individually, the other is the greater consciousness or self they become together. That is why I think that the stages are less evident in the two when viewed separately, but become more obvious when they are observed as a whole made of two individuals. They are both part of the same process of individuation, together. They are fighting the dragon as equals, and so their struggles to face their own self are also connected. Not to mention because of the way they are connected by the Force. The balance they would create together is the result of this process in which they are both involved.

1. Assimilation of the Shadow.

This is the first step of individuation. The shadow is a representation of the “dark side” of the personality or human psyche. And all the more negative aspects of the lower half of the self (subconscious), like a compartment saturated with moral and ethical shortcomings, character flaws, shame, abuse and dependency. Assimilation of the shadow means facing the darkness you contain to become aware of all of the parts of your (sub)consciousness in order to integrate them into your whole self.

In the film Rey plunges underwater (water - a prominent symbol for the subconscious) to emerge in the “forbidden” cave beneath Ahch-To where she finds a mirror-like wall in which she sees two shadows approaching. One that is her own, and one that appears to be that of Ben’s. The shadows become one, at which point she sees her true reflection appear.

When it comes to the assimilation of Rey’s own shadow, to me it seems to be depicted rather straightforwardly. At first I was hoping to find a parallel moment in which Ben has a similar experience independently, but then I realized that for him it happens through Rey. And perhaps that is the only way. Because remember, communication is the key to individuation. And him having strayed much farther away from the light, he might not be able to achieve it alone. He needs Rey to help him. She is the other half of the whole, the greater self.

So there is a reason Rey saw two shadows meld into one and then herself. The scene in the cave is followed by that in the hut where Rey tells Ben everything that happened. The hopeless loneliness it made her feel. She is sharing her experience of individuation with him. And the very element of them talking about it over the Force bond is a reminder that their understanding of each other’s experiences goes beyond what they say in words, it is also felt.

In my interpretation of it, it’s through Rey’s experience that Ben becomes able to confront his own shadow (if I go by the mirror scene in the cave.) And so that is a part of why their shadows are shown to meld into one. Because they are parts of the same whole. His experiences affect her and vice versa. I think Ben is overwhelmed by his own shadow which manifests in the persona. This would most distinctly show the emotional stuntedness which suppression has caused. He has become emotionally fractured, so much so that he can hardly figure out the pieces by himself, so he needs the conversationality of the individuation. He needs Rey’s help to find himself again. And it’s an awakening that we see throughout TLJ.

The Eye

There is one more element about the cave scene, that I wanted to mention. Although I’ve seen Freudian readings of it, which interpret the cave through sexual symbolism, my own first association was actually different. To me, the entrance to the cave looked like an eye.

The mind which is in each of us is able to comprehend all other things, but has not the capability of understanding itself. For as the eye sees all other things, but cannot see itself, so also the mind perceives the nature of other things but cannot understand itself.

- Philo of Alexandria, Works Vol.I, pg.76

The hole in the center resembling the pupil, dark and full of the unknown. The growths emerging from it reminiscent of the pattern of an iris surrounding it. And I just thought it to be interesting how it seems to align with the aspect of the light above and darkness below, representing the conscious and subconscious mind:

So whatever comes from behind comes from the shadow, from the darkness of the unconscious, and because you have no eyes there, and because you wear no neck amulet to ward off evil influences, that thing gets at you, possesses and obsesses you.

- Carl Jung, Nietzsche’s “Zarathustra”: Notes of the Seminar given in 1934-1939, pg.1265

So in that way, Rey is entering someplace that her conscious can’t access, where the eye doesn’t see. Diving into the waters of subconscious to reach the mirror in which she finds their shadows. The eye thus representing a doorway into the lower half of the self. So what Rian said about the cave scene interestingly enough also connects back to Jung:

The idea was if the up top is the light, down underneath is the darkness And she descends down into there and has to see, just like Luke did in the cave, her greatest fear. And her greatest fear is [that], in the search for identity, she has nobody but herself to rely on. - Rian Johnson

2. Becoming One: confrontation of the anima & animus

The second step of individuation is concerned with the dynamic of anima and animus what in Jungian theory control and shape the relationship between a man and a woman, the male and female. Anima being the representation of the female element of a male’s psyche, and therefore animus the opposite in a woman’s. This is a similar relationship to that of yin and yang.

It is unavoidable, for the purpose of Individuation, that one will know how to differentiate the true self from the self that one allows themself and others to see. For the same reason it is necessary to become aware of the invisible ties one has to their subconscious, specifically to Anima. In order to be able to differentiate oneself from it.

- Carl Jung, my shitty translation of a translation of Die Beziehung zwischen dem Ich und dem Unbewussten before I realized it’s literally the same book as Two Essays In Analytical Psychology  *sigh* (Page 97 in my copy, but you will have to find it yourself in the linked text)

Persona & The Mask

In the case of Ben, there is another aspect which plays into the dynamic of self and anima, and that is the persona that is Kylo Ren, that I mentioned earlier. A constructed self created to camouflage the true self, to mask feelings and reactions in order to obtain some type of control over his self-projection. The element of the mask also being literal in this case. Kylo Ren is an attempt to dehumanize himself externally, in order to hide the pain and fear of Ben Solo. Jung also describes the relationship between anima and persona as compensatory. This is why both have to be taken into account.

And this persona is another part in Ben which needs Rey in order for him to let go of it. We also see that happen in TLJ quite explicitly I think. Snoke even calls Ben a “child in a mask”, which is what prompts him to discard it in anger. That moment is an initial reaction and not yet his full realization of the persona, but he is forced to face it. It is his connection with Rey which enables the emergence of himself from behind the mask, and to see something worth wanting that the mask would not allow him to have. Step by step he comes closer to consolidating the persona and the anima.

Awakening of Eros

One aspect of confronting the anima and animus is that it can also be the awakening of Eros. I did not plan on expanding much on that because it goes deep into sexual symbolism territory. But it was something I wanted to point out though.

So, too, man will be forced to develop his feminine side, to open his eyes to the psyche and to Eros, It is a task he can’ not avoid.

- Carl Jung, Collected Works, Vol.10 (Civilization in Transition), Page 125

If you want to understand the sexual imagery in TLJ better or see alternative interpretations to your own, there are well-known blogs that have written about the subject at length.

3. Wise Old Man / Woman Archetype

The third step of individuation involves meeting the archetype of the Wise Old Man or Wise Old Woman. Jung describes such archetypes as “mana-personalities” which are still tied to either anima or animus. In the collective unconsciousness they are interpreted like the inner representations of the same-sex parent and symbolize figures of authority.

The mana-personality is a dominant of the collective unconscious, the well-known archetype of the mighty man in the form of hero, chief, magician, medicine-man, saint, the ruler of men and spirits, the friend of God.

- Carl Jung, Collected Works, Vol.7 Pt.II: Two Essays on Analytical Psychology (Individuation)

In general this last step is the hardest for me to completely wrap my head around. Perhaps because how the archetype can appear in very different forms, and that perhaps also goes for its intention. The intended outcome is also more difficult to outline, outside of the fact that the experience of it has to complete the process or rather journey of individuation. I’m not going to attempt to translate the whole segment, because it makes my head hurt, but in a chapter dedicated to mana-personality in Two Essays on Analytical Psychology Jung basically describes meeting the mana-personality as something similar to the process of acceptance or admitting something to the self. Also, the manifestation of a mana-personality occurs only if the previous step has been successful, in the process of which the anima has lost its raw demonic power (ibid).

I think it’s possible that this is what we see at the end, the archetypes being represented by Luke & Leia. But that being said, I don’t see the process of individuation as being complete, so the third step may also be something that we didn’t actually see in this film.

Conclusion

To me, it really is all in the movie. I hope to have outlined how and why Jung’s concept of individuation aligns with the relationship between Rey and Ben, their growth individually and together. In that way forming a kind of a narrative arc which implies that together Ben and Rey will bring balance to the Force and to each other. It’s about the whole Self.

______ The Human Shadow and other stories  (I didn’t have time to read/listen to most of it yet, but RJ references it so it doesn’t hurt to link it anyway. )

[dinagastuff]

I needed to doodle something happy.... again.

[potterwhos]

What is Rey’s Failure?

In light of the recent discussions, some of them heated, within the fandom about the proposal scene in The Last Jedi, I wanted to ask this question: What is Rey’s failure?

I think the confusion or uncertainty around this key question is kind of the root of the discussion and why emotions can run high. Contrast with what I see as a widely-held assumption that this type of discussion is a reaction toward anti and general fandom Kylo-bashing. Though there is a bit of that as well, we are all of course human and biased.

I must add that this piece does not apply to those who were character-bashing Rey, such as in the post (probably made by an anti-Rey and/or anti-Reylo, who knows…) that sparked the latest round of this discussion. However, the differing interpretations of this scene, particularly in regards to Rey and/or Ben’s culpability, I kind of always knew would blow up in a way.

Before I answer this key question, I have to go back and ask: Does Rey even fail in The Last Jedi?

The answer many would expect is ���Yes” for multiple reasons, two big ones within the film that point to this answer being true are:

1.      Because TLJ’s main theme is Failure – “The greatest teacher, failure is” – and all the central heroes, Finn, Poe, and Luke, experience an arc about learning from failure. Of course, Rey must have experienced failure too???

This meta by @starwarsnonsense explains this theme beautifully: The Last Jedi: A Beautiful and Exquisitely Emotional Film About the Lows and Highs of Failure

2.      The Skywalker legacy saber, which so easily went to the “worthy” Rey instead of Kylo in The Force Awakens, is broken in two after an intense tug-of-war between these same two characters in an obvious call back to that scene in TFA. Is Rey no longer worthy???

This meta on the Star Wars site explains the Excalibur-like qualities of the legacy saber: STUDYING SKYWALKERS: EXCALIBUR AND THE LIGHTSABER

So, yes, I believe the film leads you to believe that Rey experiences failure. However, this becomes murky during the emotional climax of the movie, the Praetorian fight sequence and particularly the Proposal Scene.

Up until this point, it is clear who the lead central character of the film is – it’s Rey. Her active decisions have driven the narrative and her emotional and inner conflicts as she learns more about the Skywalker tragedy and confronts her own tragic childhood have been the focus. Kylo’s appearances through the Force Bond have served to help Rey on this journey of discovery and self-discovery; he plays his role as her Shadow and Animus to a tee.

However, once Kylo kills Snoke to save Rey, the title for TLJ’s lead central character becomes contested. In the third act of the film, Kylo’s active choices, both heroic and villainous, start to drive the narrative and it is his internal conflict that is brought to the forefront. The second character vying for the title during the third act is not Rey; it is Luke for reasons similar to the ones stated above.

During the third act, after she escapes the Throne Room, Rey practically disappears relative to how central she was during the rest in the movie. With the exception of the Rock Lifting scene, Rey becomes a more reactionary character, similar to how she was in TFA. The abruptness of this character relapse was like whip-lash for many.

@reylo-trash-lives-here wonderfully explains here how this relapse sees Rey reverting back to hiding behind her persona.

I must point out, that I’m not saying this makes Rey’s character or characterization weak. Star Wars is more of an ensemble story than most, and Kylo and Luke kind of overtaking Rey in the third act was bound to happen, since the film leads up to it – something I’ll get back to.

So, the primary focus on Kylo Ren/Ben Solo during the third act means that it is his failure that takes central stage and gets narrative priority. Kylo’s failure being his unwillingness to reject his destructive ways and his failing to see how the preservation/creation that Rey represents is the more morally right way. I won’t say that it is the definitive right way, since as Rian Johnson has hinted at in recent interviews, destruction isn’t always 100% wrong since it can lead to rebirth, though not without creation.

But still, Kylo is only offering destruction via an organization not averse to genocide that seeks galactic domination. Rey’s rejection of his offer is not only morally right it is narratively right.

Once again, the question remerges with more fervor: What exactly does Rey fail at?

And many people’s instinct is to go to the point where it all crumbled, where it all blew up in flames – the Proposal Scene. Since it is obvious what Kylo’s failure was in the scene, many of us, myself included, find ourselves putting a magnifying glass on Rey’s reactions and actions in this scene to try to see the cracks, to see the hints of failure.

We point out her impulsiveness, her inability to bargain with Kylo, how her reaching out for the saber could have potentially triggered Kylo due to the events of Luke’s betrayal, and how her emphasis on saving the Resistance might be perceived by Kylo as her only wanting him for his power akin to Snoke and arguably Luke.

But would Rey changing any of these aspects of herself and her behavior really have resulted in Kylo rejecting his destructiveness and joining Rey in the Light? Similarly, did Kylo’s gentleness, expressed longing, and acknowledgement of Rey’s choice, elements that were absent during his TFA proposal and major reasons why she violently rejected him then, result in Rey embracing his destructive dogma and accepting his offer?

No, I think nothing would have changed because they agree on wanting to be together but fundamentally disagree on what that union will mean. You can still point out the flaws of both Rey and Kylo in this scene since they do both break each other’s hearts. However, getting rid of those flaws, particularly in Rey’s case, would not have resulted in a different outcome.

Still, because Rey is not only morally right, but also narratively right it would have to be on Ben, not Rey, to yield in this instance to be one step closer to galactic peace and balance, but more importantly his own inner peace and balance.

@greyjedireylo concisely explains how Ben hiding behind his shadow is the ultimate flaw he must overcome here.

On the other hand, @reylohasmyheart explains beautifully why Kylo’s rejection of Rey’s offer was needed for both his redemption and romantic relationship with Rey going forward:

We must first ask, why do we think the separation of Rey and Kylo is a failure to begin with? And why do we think Rey is equally to blame for it?

This is where, understandably, there is confusion. Many of us assume this because, visually, the film seems to want to tell us this by having the legacy saber split in two. It seems, the Force has found some fault in Rey, has found her less worthy than she was on Starkiller Base. Kylo now seems to be equally worthy since the saber actually answers his pull unlike in TFA.

However, I would argue that this broken saber symbolizes that the Force’s endgame is for Rey and Kylo to work together, to be together. Not necessarily in that specific moment in Snoke’s throne room, but in general. In TFA, the saber identified Rey as Ben’s equal – “It is you”. In TLJ, the saber symbolizes their broken union (and their broken hearts). I don’t think its main symbolic purpose is to symbolize failure, on either Rey or Kylo’s parts. Rather, it just symbolizes the fact they are separated and something is inherently wrong with this separation.

So there it is again, that pervasive question, then what is Rey’s failure?

Indeed all the other central heroes and villain failed: Finn, Poe, Luke, and Kylo. Some people pointed out, and both celebrated and criticized (fairly and unfairly), that TLJ seems to be about women teaching boys to become men. Does that mean Rey escaped failure because she occupies a female teacher role like Lea, Holdo, and Rose?

No, I believe Rey does fail. Though I would argue compared to Kylo’s hard failure, Rey experiences a soft failure (I’ll explain what I mean below). And this failure does not blatantly happen during one climactic scene, unlike Kylo, it subtlety takes place throughout the film.

Okay, now this is the part where you must try to forgive me. I recently read The Heroine’s Journey by Maureen Murdock and From Girl to Goddess by Valerie Frankel, both delving into the mythic structure of the Heroine’s Journey. However, I don’t have those books in my possession right now and will have to rely on memory while crudely paraphrasing some the concepts they discussed. If anyone reading this has access to these books, correct me if you find any inaccuracies.

So part of the Heroine’s Journey is Animus Development and part of that development involves the heroine identifying with the masculine. I believe this is during the second stage of animus development which is man as a man of action or a romantic man. In TLJ, Rey has two animus figures, Luke (the father figure) and Kylo (the shadow animus/animal husband).

During this stage, the Heroine is confronted by the powerful dogma of her animus. In Rey’s case, both Luke and Kylo are negative animus figures because Luke’s dogma emphasizes self-destruction and inaction, while Kylo’s dogma emphasizes self-destruction and outward destruction. However, despite these constricting dogmas, the heroine finds herself depending on her animus; she identifies too much with the masculine and shuns the feminine.

She believes that her animus knows what’s best, it is her animus that has the power to change things, and that it will be her animus that ultimately saves the day.

The heroine must overcome this over-dependence; she must acknowledge the power and strength of the feminine within her as well. She must recognize that she can be the hero of the story.

In TLJ, Rey first goes to Ach-To to try and convince Luke to once again wear the hero’s mantle. When she fails at this, she instead focuses her efforts on Ben Solo who she has convinced herself will be the Resistance’s only hope due to her failure with Luke as well as her own (as of now unacknowledged) personal desires. After Kylo rejects joining her and the Resistance, Rey finally comes to the realization that she can use her own power to become the hero (and the symbolic mother) of the Resistance which is signified when she lifts the rocks and helps the Resistance escape the caves.

@clairen45 points out the use of symbolism during the Crait battle and it is a fascinating read: Crait and Symbolism: blood, wounds, salt, foxes, the mother and the nest.

This lovely discussion started by @reylohasmyheart talks about how Rey’s unacknowledged desires may have affected the Throne Room scene.

This positive change within the heroine positively affects her animus figures. Luke regains hope and springs back into action by sacrificing himself to save the Resistance. He restores hope in the galaxy and starts the healing process of his nephew. Kylo’s positive change is hinted at in their final force bond scene where he kneels to Rey and must confront the truth that power for the sake of destruction will not bring him peace or happiness. Because of the heroine’s effect on her animus figures, it becomes more understandable that Kylo and Luke, rather than Rey, are thrust into the forefront of the narrative during the third act.

So, this means that one aspect of Rey’s failure in The Last Jedi is that she did not believe herself to be a hero.

However, this brings up more questions.

1.      Does this mean Rey seeing the light in Ben and his potential for good was wrong?

2.      Does this mean Rey ever believing Ben could be redeemed and turn to the light was wrong?

3.      Does this mean Rey ever extending compassion, understanding, and belief to Ben was a weakness that she overcame by the end of The Last Jedi when she shut the door?

4.      Does this mean that Rey’s journey in The Last Jedi was about her learning more about Ben in order to, in the end, strictly identify herself as the hero and him as the irredeemable evil villain?

Many people, not us within the Reylo fandom of course, have suggested these as the lessons Rey learns from her failure in TLJ. These conclusions are troublesome because, first, they strongly go against the themes and values presented within the Star Wars franchise.

Second, due to the subtextual journey of sexual awakening/exploration Rey goes on within TLJ, these lessons present pretty problematic conclusions on female sexuality. That it is a weakness that detracts from logical and moral thought, that its desires should not be pursued freely, that in the end, young women should listen to old men like Luke and repress their sexual desires in order to succeed.

@corseque wrote a fun and eye-opening film analysis exploring the sexual imagery utilized within The Last Jedi: a long and specific The Last Jedi meta - (spoilers)

I think being confronted with these incredibly faulty interpretations, has made some of us (it has admittedly made me) look for reasons to explain why the separation was wrong (for the general story direction this is correct, but not within the context of this movie it isn’t) and to look for what Rey did wrong that partially caused this separation.

In the end, I must argue that (even if it pains me to say this because I really enjoy my heroes being wrong in key moments, heroes that make the audience truly question their morality, Rey is not that character, not yet or maybe never…) Rey is never wrong during The Last Jedi. Yes, she is flawed, but she is never wrong. This is why I categorize Rey’s failure as a soft failure.

Her over-dependence on her animus and inability to see herself as a hero are both aspects of her failure, but due to the positive changes her experiencing and overcoming this failure has on herself and her animus figures, there is no better or more right alternative presented by the narrative. Unlike with Kylo, the better alternative presented by the narrative is to go to the Light Side, choose redemption.

So now we can finally answer: What is Rey’s Failure?

Rey’s failure is not that she ever reached out to Ben, is not that she ever believed he could be redeemed, and is not that she ever believed there was still good left in him. Rey’s failure is also not that she didn’t try to see where Ben was coming from when he proposed his fundamentally destructive offer, is not that she lacked empathy for Ben in that one crucial moment in the throne room, and is not that she didn’t try to meet him in the middle during this emotionally volatile moment for the both of them.

Rey’s true failure is believing that she could make anyone other than herself choose to be a hero.

And the lesson she learns is twofold. First, it isn’t that Ben must redeem himself completely on his own. Rey can still offer him the choice of redemption; the very fact that she did not kill him in the throne room leaves her offer open. But it must be Ben who chooses to be the hero. Second, Rey can be her own hero and therefore a hero for others.

[onewomancitadel]

Shadow and anima/animus

I mentioned that the Shadow is often conflated with anima/animus in a lot of other stories - this often happens because the character who is anima or animus is also carrying sexual and moral tension in the story, so combining that with the Shadow makes sense economically and narrative-wise.

A more recent and popular example - when we know the writer explicitly consulted Jung - would probably be Kylo Ren. He's both a sexual awakening and moral challenge for Rey (the Shadow) as well as the animus offering her physical empowerment (Rey steals the way he fights, like any good scavenger), and emotional reflection, and challenging her own ideology. Meanwhile, Rey is Ben's anima, and she offers him a spiritual awakening (and is quite literally The Light), which reflects her own journey into self-knowledge. (The following screencap is to break up the text; it also represents bodhisattva).

Whereas, comparing this to R/WBY, the Shadow and the anima/animus are independent. Yang's Shadow is her mother (her moral challenge, and also - Yang is growing up and becoming her own woman, and is figuring out why her mother did the things she did, like abandon her child); Weiss' Shadow is her sister (all of Weiss' family patriarchal conflict goes here); Ruby's Shadow is Cinder, who carries all of the sexuality of the Red Riding Hood story.

They're characters that reflect and challenge them, but are not romantic interests. Yang is Blake's animus, and helps her on the path to physical empowerment against Adam (extremely literal!). Blake is Yang's anima, and it's fitting that when they're reunited emotionally and in a fight for the two of them together is when we see Yang's Semblance emerge again.

Obviously it's possible to do with a bigger cast, especially a cast that are doing a lot of character legwork by reflecting one another. It doesn't mean there aren't sexual elements in the anima/animus pairings, like with Cinder/Jaune - but that the Shadows are representing these ideas conceptually to the ego.

For instance, after Yang confronts her mother, it's possible for her to reconcile with Blake.

I think it's great fun, anyway.

[violethowler]

Dark Enchantress

Following on from last week’s essay, I would like to talk about one character who has often been overlooked both in-universe and out. Someone who was a major character in the first game, but whose presence has diminished in the years since, even as subsequent games have subtly laid the groundwork for her return to prominence. 

I’m talking of course, about Maleficent. 

Because of the fact that she hasn’t been a major threat since the first game, many fans tend to overlook Maleficent in later Kingdom Hearts games and dismiss her as an unimportant distraction, or even an outright joke. Outside of Re:coded, her schemes have had no immediate impact on the overarching plot of any games, and she’s constantly overshadowed by bigger antagonists like Xehanort. 

However within the framework of the Heroine’s Journey, Maleficent fills a crucial role that has not yet been completed. To explain, I must first elaborate a bit more on the narrative archetype into which Sora and Rikus’ relationship falls: 

The character dynamic between the protagonist and their Animus in a Heroine’s Journey often follows what I have heard others informally label as a Dark Youth/Light Youth narrative[1]. There is no official name for this archetype, so I will be referring to it by the terms it was labeled as when I first learned of it. While the archetype is not exclusively used for romances, many Heroine’s Journey romances fit into this dynamic, as romantic Dark Youth/Light Youth stories tend to follow Beauty and the Beast, rivals-to-lovers, and enemies-to-lovers archetypes.

The Light Youth is most commonly the protagonist of a story, while the Dark Youth typically serves as a Shadow figure to the main character. While there have been rare instances where a Dark Youth is the protagonist of their own story, in most examples, the Dark Youth will be a deuteragonist to the Light Youth. The Dark Youth represents what their counterpart could have become had their circumstances been worse, and in a coming of age narrative they symbolize the more turbulent aspects of growing up. 

They typically begin the story as an anti-villain or tragic villain before transitioning to an anti hero or outright hero by the end, with their interactions with their light youth counterpart gradually driving them to change for the better. For all that various groups in fandom spaces will debate about whether or not a character “deserves” redemption, a well-written Dark Youth archetype is meant to teach younger audiences that no matter how many mistakes you make, it’s never too late to turn things around and do better.

Some examples of Light Youth/Dark Youth pairs include:

Belle & the Beast (Beauty & the Beast)

Aang & Zuko (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

Rey & Kylo Ren (Star Wars: Episodes VII - IX) 

Lucy & Edmund Pevensie (The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe)

Allura & Lotor (Voltron: Legendary Defender)

Kagome & Inuyasha (Inuyasha)

In many examples of this dynamic, the Dark Youth often spends a significant portion of the narrative under the spell of an Evil Sorcerer figure. Someone whose actions and influence create or maintain a rift between the Dark Youth and their counterpart. In order for the story to reach its climax, the Evil Sorcerer’s control over the Dark Youth must be overcome. This hold can be literal in the sense that they are physically holding the Dark Youth captive, or it can be metaphorical in the sense that their words and actions influence the Dark Youth psychologically. 

While the character that fills this role in the narrative isn’t required to be magical at all, one of the most common forms this archetype takes is the Wicked Witch (hence why I refer to it as the Evil Sorcerer). In Dark Youth/Light Youth stories that deal with themes that are relevant to real world experiences, they can often take the form of an abusive parental figure, like Fire Lord Ozai in Avatar or High Priestess Haggar in Voltron.

Thus, we come to Maleficent. Despite the fact that she hasn’t been a serious threat since the first game, her influence still lingers. She spent much of her screen time in the original game convincing Riku that Sora had abandoned him, driving him down the path to villainy. Despite working in every game since to redeem himself, her influence still casts a shadow over his interactions with Sora. While they reconciled during their reunion in Kingdom Hearts II, Sora and Riku did not meaningfully address the latter’s behavior during the first game. 

Sora’s views about “Riku” in Chain of Memories prior to the Replica reveal indicate that he believes Riku was not in control of his actions and was therefore blameless for what happened. But we as the audience know that despite being manipulated by Maleficent, Riku was in control of his actions. In order for the rift between the two to fully heal, they need to have a conversation where they talk about why Riku behaved the way he did and, in doing so, they must get to the heart of why Riku was so jealous of Sora.

As mentioned in my previous essay, the depiction of Riku and his bond with Sora across the series is consistent with how love interests in the Heroine’s Journey are portrayed. In addition to this narrative pattern, multiple textual parallels with canon Disney couples point towards Riku and Sora having romantic feelings for each other: 

In the first Kingdom Hearts, we have two prominent moments of one character calling out for another as the party flees the location of the world’s boss while it quakes around them: Aladdin calling out for Jasmine as the party flees the Cave of Wonders, and Sora calling out for Riku as the party flees Monstro’s stomach.

Kingdom Hearts II uses plot details involving Disney Princess romances to foreshadow Sora and Riku’s reunion in The World That Never Was.

Aladdin is avoiding Jasmine at the start of the first visit to Agrabah just like how Riku is avoiding Sora throughout the game as a whole. 

After being freed from Xaldin’s influence in the first visit to Beast’s Castle, the Beast is afraid to talk to Belle after how he behaved, just like how Riku didn’t want Sora to find him after how he acted in the first game. (Notably, we don’t get to see the Beast’s curse broken until *after* we’ve seen Riku no longer trapped in Ansem’s form)

Ariel is afraid that since she’s a mermaid and Eric is a human that he’ll reject her, just like how Riku didn’t want Sora to see that he’d taken on Ansem’s form. 

When Sora, Donald, and Goofy are separated from Rapunzel and Flynn in the Kingdom of Corona during Kingdom Hearts III, Goofy says that Rapunzel and Eugene will be fine as long as they’re together. The last time this phrasing was used in the series, Goofy was saying that about Sora and Riku. 

Kingdom Hearts III connects Riku’s sacrifice for Sora in the Keyblade Graveyard with Hercules diving into the River Styx to save Megara’s soul. (This is more clear in the original Japanese, as the localization translated the term taisetsu na hito [literal meaning: precious person] as “person I love most” for Hercules and “what matters” for Riku.)

In Jungian psychology, which the Heroine’s Journey is heavily influenced by, the Evil Sorcerer working to keep the romantic leads apart is symbolic of romantic/sexual interference. They represent cultural forces attempting to dictate what kind of romantic relationship is socially acceptable for people who share some aspect of the protagonist or Dark Youth’s identity. 

Maleficent got her hooks into Riku at the beginning of the series by convincing him that Sora didn’t value him or their bond. Since then, he’s gone to the opposite extreme. Instead of lashing out over his jealousy of not being the center of Sora’s attention, he bottles his feelings up. While some fans perceived his distance from Sora in recent games as him stepping back, it ‘s more accurate to say that he has resigned himself to the belief his feelings for Sora will forever be unrequited. This is best demonstrated in the Limit Cut DLC, where even after a year of multiple characters attempting to trace their connection to Sora with no results, the idea that his own bond with Sora could be important never crossed his mind until the Fairy Godmother said there was a clue in his dreams. And until Riku learns to let down his walls and admit to Sora how he feels, Maleficent will still have a hold over him. 

Despite the narrative setup for a romance between the two of them, they will not be able to get together until Riku has fully broken free of Maleficent’s influence. This is the reason why the “Healing the Wounded Masculine” stage of Murdock’s formula where the protagonist and the Animus mend the rift between them is placed very close to the end of the sequence. Freeing the Dark Youth from the Sorcerer’s influence represents their relationship with their Light counterpart triumphing over the societal forces that the Sorcerer archetype represents. Until that has been achieved, neither lead is emotionally or psychologically ready to begin a relationship.

So while Maleficent may not have been as significant a threat as she was in the beginning, she still plays a major role within the framework of Sora’s Journey, and she will continue to have a presence in the series until that role has been completed in full.

Sources:

[1] Death of a Dark Youth, Desecration of the Animus; December 20, 2018. https://www.teampurplelion.com/death-of-a-dark-youth/