Theory of theme & Jung's Archetypes & Love

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 111616

Laurasia:
> I don't agree that JKR acts on a purely technical level. I think 
she acts on an intuitive level- the reason she inserted 
Dumbledore  wasn't because she was unoriginal and couldn't 
think of any ideas. I  think it was because he 'felt' right- as a 
subconscious level, right  where Jung's archetypes operate. So, I 
agree with what you've said  about universal themes. However, 
that to me only reinforces my  opinion that JKR is not "brilliant, 
skilled and clever" but merely responding to a human need 
which only operates on a subconscious  level.


Pippin:
Let me see if I understand what you're saying here. Since we, 
unlike, for example, the ancient Egyptians, value artists for their 
originality, JKR as an artist must consciously strive for
originality. Since fantasy draws on the collective unconscious, it 
cannot be original, therefore no author who is trying to produce 
an original work will choose the medium of fantasy. In so far as 
JKR has incorporated fantasy, she must therefore have done so 
because of the promptings of her own subconscious. Is that 
right?

It's true that JKR has said that she didn't set out deliberately to 
write fantasy, and didn't realize she was doing it until she found 
herself writing about unicorns. Nonetheless,  when she 
discovered she was writing fantasy, she kept on doing it, so at 
that point it became a conscious artistic choice. 

It is indeed hard to see how an author who is drawing on the 
collective unconscious and produces a work so in tune with the 
zeitgeist that it sells millions and millions of copies could 
possibly be clever or brilliant, since  we associate these 
attributes with originality. And if these works are indeed all alike, 
it is hard to understand why some achieve lasting success and 
are eventually recognized for their artistic merit,  while others are 
soon forgotten. 

It could be marketing, except that in Rowling's case, the books 
have found a market their publishers never intended. It could be 
that Rowling succeeded because she was  more in tune with the 
collective unconscious than other authors  who tried to tap it 
deliberately--is that what you're saying, Laurasia? Because I 
disagree. 

I think what distinguishes powerful fantasy from the other kind is 
Truth. The reason you can't sit down in a cafe and scribble out a 
best-seller according to the formula is that the formula tells a lie. 
It's the lie of the golden fountain, the lie of the emperor's new 
clothes. It makes everybody feel good. It's no accident that the 
proceeds from the MoM's fountain go to St. Mungo's. 

And yet, we know that the reality doesn't quite fit what we're being 
told. This produces what the sociologists call cognitive 
dissonance. Underneath it all, we're filled with anxiety and doubt. 
What if everybody else does see the emperor's clothes? What if 
they don't? Should we say something? 


IMO, the great fantasies, the ones that last, say something. They 
seem to follow the formula, the archetypal tale, but they take 
some aspect of it and reveal it as a lie.  Why is the story of King 
Arthur constantly retold, when a thousand of its contemporaries 
lie moldering in medieval studies departments? Because in 
King Arthur, the prince and princess  *don't* live happily ever 
after. 

What happens in Order of the Phoenix? It seems to follow the 
formula.  Unlikely heroes face the darkness  to save the world 
from a weapon of mass destruction.  But then  it turns out there 
never was a weapon in the first place!  There's no Ring to throw 
into Mount Doom, no Death Star to blast into a million pieces. 

  Was that some deliberate  political allegory? I doubt it.  But it's 
not entirely unconscious either. As an observer of human nature, 
Rowling knows the ways that people deceive  themselves, and 
she puts it into her books. 

Pippin