~~ collars. it's all about the collars.
Dec. 5th, 2004 02:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reenkaI've had an odd realization-- which is probably only interesting to me, seeing as it's a bit of quibbling on my internal terminology, but ah well. That's what I'm here for, right. Right.
I've thought that one of my archetypal interests was the journey & transformation of 'The Monster'-- whatever/whoever is feared and loathed and made into a symbol of the Dark within a particular story/legend. This kind of archetype could manifest as a vampire or a murderer or even someone 'alien' like the present day prejudice against the queer, for instance. And while it's true that's an interesting subject, I think what I'm really fascinated with is 'The Beast'-- or rather, everything beastly and dark and dangerous (for it is untamed) within any and all characters.
I don't know if I'm particularly happy with dwelling on characters that are already labelled 'dark' or frightening, which is probably one reason I've never been particularly attracted to villains in fiction. I'm much more drawn to ambiguity and the inner struggle with one's darkness than the outer struggle with others' perception of that darkness. So 'the Beast' seems a more apt metaphor-- because, indeed, we all have the shadow of the Beast within us, since it's basically the Id. It's a difference of direction.
Really, I'm obsessed with the workings of the Id in every which way, but it's especially delicious when that unknown Dark within has an outer manifestation-- as in Remus, for instance, because it's especially stark when one's 'other' self is subdued, closed-in, maybe even kind in a way. That's why, perhaps, I've always loved The Beast (in Beauty and the Beast) and it's been a favorite type of fairy-tale for as long as I remember, along with The Frog Prince (which has a similar theme, actually) and The Snow Queen (yet again, with the redemption of the beastly little boy by pure devotion, though none of these boys were truly monstrous).
When I was little, the idea of love making the impossible possible was what most fascinated me about the romances in in the stories I read. That transformation, perhaps, is the very definition of the sublime-- to convert, to render finer, to elevate. And in making the transformation literal, the story acquires a sort of mythic resonance-- in making the Beast into a Man, of course Beauty learns to love truly, where love isn't blindness unless blindness is forgetting to see and learning to see past.
I was thinking, particularly, of my recent frustration with how difficult it is to make Harry respect Draco post-OoTP-- and it occurs to me that maybe respect is really a form of seeing without prejudice, of acknowledging someone's worth without the constraints of Ego, which speaks with the voice of fear. The Id fears as well, of course, but its fears can be overcome with a process of waking up-- of seeing what is invisible to the eye-- what is essential. The threat of death is nothing when one loves with one's whole heart, for one's fear is no longer for oneself. I believe that.
I love the Beast who is not a monster-- who is only a manifestation of his own internal fears. And once the Beast learns to see himself with kindness (and to love as he is loved), well-- he transforms. It's not so much that I think the human form is purer (in the fairy-tale), as I think it's simply recombined. The darkness is still there beneath the pretty face, but as long as he is loved, the Beast can wear that face without true fear of himself. I think... I think that in loving the Beast, the Hero changes not so much the Beast's nature (because he was always himself) as his self-perception. And when we believe we are beautiful-- and loved-- we change how we act towards others. We change in the ways that matter.
I think... well, it's easy to make the parallel about just why it was so important for Remus to have friends that loved & accepted him. That's what someone who perceives himself as the Beast thrives on, after all-- that acceptance. It really would be interesting to write/read an AU trying to extrapolate Remus's development growing up if he'd never become part of the Marauders. I wonder if he would've been-- not different in a blatantly worse way, precisely... but-- completely untamed. Deeply distrustful-- not so much unkind as unwilling. I don't know.
It really does appear that Remus was tamed, doesn't it? Sort of. I'm thinking of it in the sense it's used in `The Little Prince', which, btw, teaches one everything one needs to know about life as far as I'm concerned (heh). The Fox tells the Little Prince that one becomes responsible for what one has tamed-- but without that taming, there can be no connection. He could not play with the Fox when it was a wild Beast, but likewise the Fox said he needed the boy to tame him.
And to tame is to belong.
"For me you're only a little boy like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you have no need of me, either. For you I'm only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, we'll need each other. You'll be the only boy in the world for me. I'll be the only fox in the world for you..."
"I'm beginning to understand," the little prince said. "There's a flower... I think she's tamed me..."
The fox became silent and gazed for a long time at the little prince.
"I beg of you…tame me!" he said.
"Willingly," the little prince replied, "but I haven’t got much time. I have friends to discover and a lot of things to understand."
"One can only understand the things one tames," said the fox, "Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy ready-made things in the shops. But since there are no shops where you can buy friends, men no longer have any friends. If you want a friend, tame me!"
--Antoine de Sainte-Exupéry
I've thought that one of my archetypal interests was the journey & transformation of 'The Monster'-- whatever/whoever is feared and loathed and made into a symbol of the Dark within a particular story/legend. This kind of archetype could manifest as a vampire or a murderer or even someone 'alien' like the present day prejudice against the queer, for instance. And while it's true that's an interesting subject, I think what I'm really fascinated with is 'The Beast'-- or rather, everything beastly and dark and dangerous (for it is untamed) within any and all characters.
I don't know if I'm particularly happy with dwelling on characters that are already labelled 'dark' or frightening, which is probably one reason I've never been particularly attracted to villains in fiction. I'm much more drawn to ambiguity and the inner struggle with one's darkness than the outer struggle with others' perception of that darkness. So 'the Beast' seems a more apt metaphor-- because, indeed, we all have the shadow of the Beast within us, since it's basically the Id. It's a difference of direction.
Really, I'm obsessed with the workings of the Id in every which way, but it's especially delicious when that unknown Dark within has an outer manifestation-- as in Remus, for instance, because it's especially stark when one's 'other' self is subdued, closed-in, maybe even kind in a way. That's why, perhaps, I've always loved The Beast (in Beauty and the Beast) and it's been a favorite type of fairy-tale for as long as I remember, along with The Frog Prince (which has a similar theme, actually) and The Snow Queen (yet again, with the redemption of the beastly little boy by pure devotion, though none of these boys were truly monstrous).
When I was little, the idea of love making the impossible possible was what most fascinated me about the romances in in the stories I read. That transformation, perhaps, is the very definition of the sublime-- to convert, to render finer, to elevate. And in making the transformation literal, the story acquires a sort of mythic resonance-- in making the Beast into a Man, of course Beauty learns to love truly, where love isn't blindness unless blindness is forgetting to see and learning to see past.
I was thinking, particularly, of my recent frustration with how difficult it is to make Harry respect Draco post-OoTP-- and it occurs to me that maybe respect is really a form of seeing without prejudice, of acknowledging someone's worth without the constraints of Ego, which speaks with the voice of fear. The Id fears as well, of course, but its fears can be overcome with a process of waking up-- of seeing what is invisible to the eye-- what is essential. The threat of death is nothing when one loves with one's whole heart, for one's fear is no longer for oneself. I believe that.
I love the Beast who is not a monster-- who is only a manifestation of his own internal fears. And once the Beast learns to see himself with kindness (and to love as he is loved), well-- he transforms. It's not so much that I think the human form is purer (in the fairy-tale), as I think it's simply recombined. The darkness is still there beneath the pretty face, but as long as he is loved, the Beast can wear that face without true fear of himself. I think... I think that in loving the Beast, the Hero changes not so much the Beast's nature (because he was always himself) as his self-perception. And when we believe we are beautiful-- and loved-- we change how we act towards others. We change in the ways that matter.
I think... well, it's easy to make the parallel about just why it was so important for Remus to have friends that loved & accepted him. That's what someone who perceives himself as the Beast thrives on, after all-- that acceptance. It really would be interesting to write/read an AU trying to extrapolate Remus's development growing up if he'd never become part of the Marauders. I wonder if he would've been-- not different in a blatantly worse way, precisely... but-- completely untamed. Deeply distrustful-- not so much unkind as unwilling. I don't know.
It really does appear that Remus was tamed, doesn't it? Sort of. I'm thinking of it in the sense it's used in `The Little Prince', which, btw, teaches one everything one needs to know about life as far as I'm concerned (heh). The Fox tells the Little Prince that one becomes responsible for what one has tamed-- but without that taming, there can be no connection. He could not play with the Fox when it was a wild Beast, but likewise the Fox said he needed the boy to tame him.
And to tame is to belong.
"For me you're only a little boy like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you have no need of me, either. For you I'm only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, we'll need each other. You'll be the only boy in the world for me. I'll be the only fox in the world for you..."
"I'm beginning to understand," the little prince said. "There's a flower... I think she's tamed me..."
The fox became silent and gazed for a long time at the little prince.
"I beg of you…tame me!" he said.
"Willingly," the little prince replied, "but I haven’t got much time. I have friends to discover and a lot of things to understand."
"One can only understand the things one tames," said the fox, "Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy ready-made things in the shops. But since there are no shops where you can buy friends, men no longer have any friends. If you want a friend, tame me!"
--Antoine de Sainte-Exupéry
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no subject
Date: 2004-12-05 01:07 am (UTC)It's the same with something like Rapunzel who is taken as a baby as payment for her father's trespassing to fulfill her pregnant mother's wishes.
The one time I can think of the transgressor actually paying for something themselves is in The Frog Prince, where the princess is punished by her father to keep the deal she made. And even after unwillingly living up to her own word, she gets pissed off and throws the poor nice frog against the wall. And, thus, after abusing him, ends up with a nice handsome prince.
I just see it as a common theme. Pain leads to redemption/freedom. But the thing with fairy tales, when this is the theme, is that it's rarely ever the pain of the transgressor.
Oh, lord, this is making me eager for Witching Hour next year. John Cech! XD
no subject
Date: 2004-12-05 03:16 pm (UTC)So it wouldn't make sense for the transgressor to go through this journey, because for them to go through it would be for them to become heroic, if that makes sense. Sometimes the transgressor does suffer too, but it tends to be quick and easy-- like in the Handless Maiden, the father who'd made the deal with the devil dies while the innocent child goes wandering through the world, handless. Only in the end does regrowth occur and she becomes a 'real woman'. So perhaps the way to see the Frog Prince is as a story about the Princess & her transformation rather than the frog's. That's also where I was going with Beauty & the Beast.
With Rapunzel-- while she is innocent & used by people unkindly and unfairly, the fairness comes in with the eventual 'payback' to the witch and the whole happy ending deal. It's just that there's a journey to that ending which involves Rapunzel getting more out of life than she ordinarily would have, and also learning more about herself and what she's capable of. I think the abuse angle just gets really shady for me 'cause it's a complex web of what one does after being asked, provoked, and as a way of setting up a subsequent reward. The reward/punishment duality is simplistic, but then these are fairy-tales :>
no subject
Date: 2004-12-05 05:25 pm (UTC)(Which in all makes me think that if fairy tales are supposed to be didactic, it's no wonder society is "collapsing.")
Anyway, to bring it back to the subject that you related it to, Remus, I don't think his "Beast" can be tamed. He'll never let it be. He's not tamed at all in the sense Draco is, domesticated to the point where Draco really can't cause any harm to anyone but with his mouth (even the detention he gets them into is from tattling). Draco adapts to his situation -- when he can -- and Remus, on the other hand, adapts his situation to him. It's in his self-interest to do so.
I have no idea if that makes any sense at all. My eyes are still blurry from sleep so I can't tell if I'm explaining enough. :D
no subject
Date: 2004-12-05 11:30 pm (UTC)I suspect that a lot of the twisted porny versions of these stories were made because they're... um, fun. Ahahahaha omg, early porn >:D You -know- that's what that was >:D Ahaha oh, that's cracking me up right now, but think of it-- doesn't it sound like some sort of fannish kinkfic...? These sorts of plot-lines (non-con, pregnancy, forcible seduction, etc) keep reappearing because people like them for... erm... different reasons :D Which is to say, to get off, haha.
So yeah... I realize it's not always like that, and also that I was specifically looking at certain versions/types of stories because those were most useful to my overall favored archetypal theme, rather than being representative, I guess...? I didn't mean to claim they were representative, if any fairy-tale -can- be. Just that those sorts of variants were what I focused on, y'know?
With Rumpelstiltskin-- I know she -avoids- payment, but at least she doesn't push it off onto an innocent. Sure, she pushes it off on the actual Dark Creature (...though I'm not so sure he's that dark), but it's till a different solution, though obviously there's a million and one kinds of solutions 'cause there are so many variants. I do share your issues with the Frog Prince-- heheh, though I like the story, the whole impossible ease of the payoff and unfairness of the princess' lack of kindness bothered me. *sigh* But I'm just a sucker for the overall storyline it fits into :>
I was using the 'taming' in a completely interpersonal two-person-dynamic sense, though-- I didn't mean to imply it was a wide-ranging phenomenon that made one's whole behavior change. I was only referring to `The Little Prince' with my use of the term-- where 'tamed' just meant 'loved', and thusly belonging to the people/person who loves. And Remus certainly made enough concessions to Sirius and the Marauders that you could say he 'belonged' to them :>
But I didn't mean to imply he's domesticated-- or can be. It's a question of shifts of self-perception, not actual being. So yes-- I agree, Draco adapts himself while Remus adapts the situation-- though I'd claim he also adapted to some degree (I love the contrast there, though). It's not his 'Beast' that was tamed-- it was only his heart, which made him remain the Beast in a literal sense once a month, but shaped his development as a person quite definitively in the socialized direction, I think.