The Alien Next Door

The way I see it, there are basically two kinds of hero: 1) the likable, appealing traditional hero; and 2) the sharp and edgy anti-hero. John Crichton, the good scientist who gets shot through a wormhole into another galaxy, fits the description of the first kind: intelligent, kind and good, John — the ‘every man’— appeals to our sense of what a hero should be. He is born of the light, and displays a confidence and individuality that reflects a loving and nurturing family who labored to support him in all his endeavors. So much so that John initially withers beneath the imposing shadow of his celebrated heroic father (a famous astronaut) who nonetheless tells him: “everyone has the chance to be his own kind of hero.” The anti-hero aptly describes Aeryn Sun, the alien Peacekeeper Officer, who is an edgier, darker character (albeit this is paradoxical to her last name, which I’ll talk about later) with few, if any, obvious heroic or even likable qualities. Several of her faults are pointed out to us in Season One and Two of the show (Aeryn herself admits, while under duress in Season Four, that “I’m not a very nice person.”). Born as one of thousands of other anonymous Peacekeepers (galactic nazis) on a command carrier, Aeryn grew up not knowing the love of a parent or having learned the confidence of an individual within a nurturing family.

John is already somewhat enlightened; he’s a scientist on a fact-finding mission, out to prove a theory about how the universe works. John is a self-actualized individual, seeking further enlightenment, but who will be compelled into heroic service to his community. Aeryn, on the other hand, starts out as the “good soldier”— she is no stranger to selfless service. While pursuing service in ignorance, it is enlightenment she unconsciously yearns for and seeks through her small acts of insubordination then final act of compassion that frees her from the shackles of Orwellian Peacekeeper rhetoric. Aeryn served the “greater good” of her community without understanding its true consequences on individuals. It is largely through her relationship with John that she is personally enlightened toward truly heroic service. It is also through Aeryn that John learns to connect with his community and apply his enlightenment in heroic service as well. Each serves as a catalyst for the other by providing a reason for heroism; each provides the key to unlocking the heroic quality the other must call forth and use.

John and Aeryn can be seen as two halves of a whole. That these two characters represent two sides of a metaphorical hero’s coin, is no where more apparent than in their extremely connected yet turbulent relationship with one another. From the moment they meet John and Aeryn are inseperable. He is her muse and she is his guiding inspiration (the sun around which he orbits). What he suggests, she executes. What he thinks she does. John talks the fight while Aeryn delivers the punch. She, in turn, provides John with context and relationship; for what good is knowledge if it is not used in relationship to something of merit. These two are a team. Mirror images that complement one another. Together, they serve to complete the whole, our whole: the yin and yang that flows through all of us; the male and female energies that move us and inspire us to be and do; the light and dark sides we all possess that give us depth like the chiarascuro of an impressionistic artwork.

There is a wonderful scene, I think it is later in the second season, where the two of them are working together to fix a vehicle; without words each anticipates the needs of the other and they work seemlessly as if they are the limbs of one common entity. There are actually many scenes like this one, which demonstrate how they operate as one. In an episode near the end of the third season, I think, when presented with a problem the two of them shout out simultanously, “I have a plan!”

John is the hero we like to recognize in us, the one we see in ourselves. He embodies all that we strive to be: kind, sensitive, strong enough to be vulnerable, confident and honourable. John represents our public self, the person we’d like to project to the world: successful, attractive, a leader who is respected (he does finally get the respect of his colleagues, though he must earn it first). Aeryn is our dark side, the part we often hide from the world (including all the nasty little things we did when our ego and integrity faltered—and Aeryn certainly did a number of these faux pas, like ratting on her former lover to satisfy her ambition as a pilot). Hence, our initial reluctance to empathize or identify with her. We quickly choose John, our public self. But it is Aeryn who we are inevitably drawn to for the darker deeper journey we all crave. So, while we ostensibly cheer for John’s quest, we quietly root for Aeryn to prevail.

But Aeryn represents much more than this. What Aeryn shows us is where service through enlightenment can take us and she demonstrates this to John in so many ways. Every hero receives a gift during his or her perilous journey; a gift that he must share with his world. One of John’s gifts is the incredible knowledge he gains (not just of wormholes, either). Aeryn’s gift is something she has always had, but John must unlock and show to her: her heart (closed and protected from the world) and her faith. What Aeryn gives back to John (besides her heart) is her incredible faith in him…and ultimately in the world around her, through love. As I mentioned in my previous post (okay, I’m repeating myself, but I think it’s worth repeating), this relationship is not unlike that of the two Aeon twins, or syzygies, in Gnosticism, where the male Aeon, Caen (power and knowledge), and the female Aeon, Akhana (truth and love) emanate as beings of light to enlighten humanity so that they can ‘know’ God. John and Aeryn forge a new world based on the powerful joining of knowledge, faith and love. Aeryn, who embodies selfless faith and love, provides John—himself the repository of knowledge and enlightenment—with a vehicle to transmutate his Farscape and newly embraced community into a world of unimagined peace. Aeryn is like the light of Christian mysticism, which seeks as its goal the perfection of charity as opposed to many other mystics for which acquiring transcendental knowledge forms a major theme. For Aeryn, it was always a matter of faith and belief. It was the reason she could take action immediately, could act out her choices swiftly and directly, and could adapt with lightening fluidity from blind soldier to faithful guardian and loving mother.

As for the apparent oxymoron of Aeryn Sun’s name…I think it only appropriate that she, initially presented as the darker hero, embodies it; for it is only by first acknowledging one’s darker side and journeying through it that one can finally see the true light, the light that feeds our souls and brings us home.

So, is this a Different Hero’s Journey, as only Farscape can deliver and intentionally portrayed by its producer/director? Or is it a common trope of the western reader, as Modern Matriarch said? Or, yet again, just something I’ve personally invented as a writer of fiction and student of metaphor? Or perhaps it is all of these…

Today’s Christ-like hero suffers for the sins of the world and prepares himself (often struggling with this considerably) to deliver salvation, usually through fighting or violent confrontation and often with an incredible arsenal of weapons. I was swiftly brought to mind of the many action shoot-em up films whose tortured hero redeems him(her)self through some selfless, though violent action (e.g., Soylent Green, Matrix, V for Vendetta, Ultra Violet, Aeon Flux–all sci-fi movies, by the way, and ones I very much enjoyed watching. And what about all those superhero movies, like Spiderman or Superman 2?). These films represent a version of Joseph Campbell’s “Hero’s Journey”, where the original hero leaves his ‘ordinary world’ wherein he/she has some major flaw to overcome (like apathy, greed, distrust, anger, fear of strawberries…etc.) to answer ‘the call’ to be the hero he/she was destined to become. It is a very familiar trope and I’ll get to this in more detail in a later post. Erik Hare’s enthralling post on his blog at Author’s Den further expounded our discussion. Erik suggested that Western culture’s “concept of Redemption has invariably separated from the Grace that created it.” Jesus the Teacher had somehow fallen to the wayside to make room for Christ the Redeemer.

Here’s the difference according to Erik: “Jesus the Teacher said to ‘turn the other cheek’, but today’s Redeemers kick ass. Jesus the Teacher told us that what is done in love is blessed, but today’s Redeemers have more personal and interior motivations.” The two have simply become two different people, says Erik and “the latter is a superstar” compared to the former.” He ends his post with these compelling thoughts:

“The Beatitudes have become rather old fashioned, it seems, as has the idea of Grace…That is what seems to be the problem with today’s Redeemers – theirs is a personal battle with evil, and not a social one. ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself’ is an alien concept in a world that is perfectly self centered. All that’s left to do is kick ass on those who disagr – er, behave in an evil way, yeah, that’s it! If popular fiction really is a mirror being held up against us, the image we see is not a pretty one. The heritage of Western Culture has turned into a strange kind of cartoon – exaggerated, repetitious, vain, slapstick, and ultimately too silly watch. For some reason, very few people seem to understand this. They are too busy fixing their own hair in the mirror.”

If you still don’t get what Erik and I are talking about, go watch the poignant film “Pay It Forward” and then contrast its main character with the one in “Ultra Violet” or “The Matrix”.
The definition for Grace occupies almost half a page in the dictionary. When I think of Grace I think of selfless compassion, humility, gentleness, kindness, mercy and forgiveness and both inner and outer beauty. So, why does Grace languish in the shadows of redemption? Why do we watch—and more importantly, totally enjoy—these latter movies at the expense of the former? Why do we long for a strong but flawed hero with personal issues as our icon? One who is often tough, independent, and ‘kicks ass’ at the expense of gentleness, humility, cooperation and selflessness? If, as Erik suggests, we are seeking heroes who reflect our own self-image or at least the traits we strive to have, then what does popular fiction say about our choices in life? Is Erik right about this dichotomy? Well, I’d say definitely yes…but also no…

While I agree with Erik on the apparent separation of Christ figure in today’s popular fiction, perhaps there is another way to look at these tales that resolves this apparent dichotomy; if one were to view them more as allegories with traits and values represented in several characters woven together in a complete and whole tapestry. And that way is to include the secondary character as being equally important. Let’s take Matrix, for instance. In fact, Neo isn’t the only Jesus-figure. His two female opposites (Trinity/Oracle) demonstrate Christ-like traits that embody grace, mercy and love (the holy spirit). Okay, so Trinity kicks major ass too; but her character also provides the chief motivation for our main ‘kick-ass’ hero through her selfless love and humility.

I assert that these two aspects of Christ (merciful teacher and redeemer) are indeed both represented (albeit in separate individuals) in films today: two individuals, one Christ the redeemer and the other Jesus the savior/teacher, often joined through a bond of selfless love; two halves of a whole. The Gnostics have a word for this divine male/female pair: they call them syzygies, aeons (beings of light and emanations of God) that exist as complimentary pairs or twins. The aeon pair of Caen (which represents power, the redeemer) and Akhana (truth, love and grace) are complimentary and inseparable. The yin/yang of a whole. The paradoxical oxymoron of chaos in order (or order in chaos). In Gnostic belief, aeons are emanations of God. According to one version, an aeon named Sophia (wisdom) emanated without her partner aeon, creating a Demiurge (responsible for the creation of the physical universe; Ialdaboth in Gnostic texts) which was not part of the Pleroma (fullness and the region of light) and apart from the divine totality [a metaphor possibly for humanity]). God then emanated two savior aeons, Christ and the Holy Spirit to save man from the Demiurge. Christ then took the form of the man, Jesus, in order to teach man how to achieve Gnosis (and know God). So, for every Neo there is a Trinity/Oracle; for Violet there is Six; for Aeon Flux there is Trevor Goodchild; for Harry there is Dumbledore, Hermione and Ron; and so on. In this way, the two complimentary aspects of Christ are reconciled. And in cases where such complimentary pairing is achieved (e.g., Neo would not have succeeded without both Trinity or the Oracle) we are taught that selfless cooperation is the highest form of heroism.

Erik Hare’s book, Downriver, is available at www.amazon.com. Erik says his own use of Jesus in Downriver used the foundation of Grace within a strongly cultural context.