Return to Xanadu, Chapter 7 Notes
Oct. 31st, 2014 02:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stefanie_beanWhose is the face in the mask?
"The Monster in the Mirror" was heavily influenced by my fanfic writing experiences in the Phantom of the Opera fandom. I became very aware of the "undergrounds:" those places of the body, soul, and circumstances where there is no sun, and you have to encounter the monsters of the deep. Thus I interpret Claire's three years of imprisonment on the Island with the Man in Black as a kind of "underground," out of which Claire has to climb. Of course, no one comes back from the "undergrounds" unchanged.
Since Star Wars, Joseph Campbell's rendition of the "hero cycle" has become more well-known. The "hero cycle" is based on very old, perhaps tens of millennia-years old mythology about the sun hero (or heroine) who lights up the day, but every night descends into the dark. Down there, she fights some dragon in the blackness, and symbolically "dies," then is reborn the next morning.
The hero cycle is a genuine circle, but we like to focus only on the first half, the solar part, because that part's more fun. That's where the action is, the adventure, the fights, the triumphs. That's where the heroine has her day in the sun. She's publicly acknowledged as a hero.
For instance, Claire experiences this in the joyful welcome she gets when she returns to the beach with newborn Aaron.
(Anyone doubting Claire's heroism here is more than welcome to survive a kidnapping at the hands of a psychopath, then give birth in the bush with no doctors, anesthetics, antibiotics. Then be the sole supplier of baby nutrition for months on end, with the full knowledge that if you don't do it, the child will die.)
But the sun goes down every day, which brings us to the other half of the heroic cycle: the lunar one. We don't like to see heroes at their weakest; struggling, lost. And the nadir is the worst: the lowest point. For Claire, to me, that point comes when in jealousy and rage she holds a knife to Kate's throat, and ironically, all that saves Kate is Claire's captor, the Man in Black.
Now Claire's on the upward swing of her lunar cycle. One of the "signposts" along the way up is a milestone called "the gift of the goddess." Kate's caring for Claire at this point is her "gift of the goddess" contribution. The whole point of the lunar upswing, of course, is to expand out into the sun once more. Stay tuned.
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(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-31 08:57 pm (UTC)I will most definitely stay tuned.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-11-06 05:37 pm (UTC)Star Wars has an awesome lunar hero sequence when Luke is on Dagobeh, and Yoda sends him into the "underground." I wrote Phantoms of the Past as a lunar/solar cycle story (and didn't even know it at the time), with Christine as the heroine in her lunar journey in the flashbacks, with the solar part in the present-time parts.
There's a lot about Campbell that's kind of goofy (not surprising since he did a lot of his work in the late '40s and '50s.) He kind of ignores the heroine, and that not all heroines just exist to get swept away by the sun-god (LOL, 2004 Phantom movie.)
One more modern, and more female-focused is Women Who Run With the Wolves, which I also have found useful.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-11-06 05:40 pm (UTC)Don't apologize for not answering sooner - I know you're busy. Are you doing NaNo this year?
(no subject)
Date: 2014-11-06 06:06 pm (UTC)How 'bout you?
(no subject)
Date: 2014-11-06 06:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-11-06 06:17 pm (UTC)And yay, more lid-fic! I'd love to read it.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-11-06 06:43 pm (UTC)