Rory's Heroic Journey

Sep 14, 2011 11:37

spoilers through

The Girl Who Waited

plus meta

and Rory!

The Heroic Journey

"We have not to risk the adventure alone, for the heroes of all time have gone before us. 
The labyrinth is thoroughly known, and we have only to follow the thread of the hero-path.

Where we had thought to find an abomination,
we shall find a god.

Where we had thought to slay another,
we shall only slay ourselves.

Where we had thought to travel outward,
we shall come to the center of our own existence.

Where we had thought to be alone,
we shall be one with all the world."

-- Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces

You'd think this episode was about Amy and the Doctor, and you'd be right, but you'd also be wrong.  It puts a magnifying glass on Amy, certainly, and we see teased out in the water the two streams of her being.  Through her, we also gain a perspective on the Doctor, the kinds of choices he makes people take, but I really think this story is about Rory, and specifically how Rory is the one who's going on the Heroic Journey here.

For those unfamiliar with Campbell and the Heroic Journey, read up.  The basic premise of the Heroic Journey is a venture into the Special Place to find a Boon, and bring it back to the Ordinary World.  In the process, the Hero is transformed.  In this episode, Rory is the one following the thread of the Hero-Path.

Departure:  The Ordinary World and Call To Adventure

The shows starts in the TARDIS.  For these time-travelers, the TARDIS is the Ordinary World, it's home.  It's the safe place, but it's also the Threshold to other worlds.  She is our Herald, taking us where we need to go.

In many myths, the hero is Called To Adventure because the Ordinary World has gotten sick, or suffers, or because something or someone has been stolen.  In The Girl Who Waited, the obvious Call begins when Rory and the Doctor realize that they've lost Amy to the other side of Two Streams.  The entire adventure is about getting her back.  Painted against the Long Arc of the series, we also know that the TARDIS is destined to blow up -- this is the peril of the Ordinary World.  In context, this makes Amy the Boon to heal the the Ordinary World.  She is the Elixir of Life.

The Doctor can't come with, so it's up to Rory to be the Hero that ventures forth to retrieve the Boon.  The Doctor becomes his Mentor, supplying him with Magic Artifacts to help him on his quest:  a Magnifying Glass, which is a metaphorical mirror, and Magic Glasses, which give Rory direct access to the Mentor himself.  Rory heads out into the Liminal Space of the Art Gallery, and is immediately confronted by Threshold Guardians:  a HandBot, who would end his journey, and AmyCrone, a shape-shifted future version of his wife.  This new ally defeats the Guardian, and ushers Rory past the Gate, crossing the threshold to take him deep into the world of Two Streams.

The final stage of Departure into the Other World is often called The Belly of the Whale.  The Hero must die and be reborn, an indication of his willingness to be transformed.  This is depicted when Rory, flanked by statues of deities, realizes that the Special Place is holographic.  Rory is touched by a HandBot, and keels over.

"The devotee at the moment of entry into a temple undergoes a metamorphosis.
Once inside he may be said to have died to time
and returned to the World Womb, the World Navel, the Earthly Paradise.
Allegorically, then, the passage into a temple
and the hero-dive through the jaws of the whale
are identical adventures, both denoting in picture language,
the life-centering, life-renewing act."

-- Joseph Campbell

Initiation:  Trials, Temptation, Atonement and the Boon

AmyCrone announces that she doesn't want to help save the Boon.  She shapeshifts from an Ally to a Guardian, and presenting Rory with a Trial.  As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that that AmyCrone is like a Goddess -- she is the Mother of this place, intimately connected with the Interface that is the source of all knowledge and wisdom in Two Streams.  She is also a Temptress of Rory, suggesting that Rory take her rather than the Amy he originally came to save.  It's a temptation Rory resists, for he knows that it's wrong to keep his one true love waiting for thirty-six years.  He understands the pain of waiting.

Amy takes Rory to the edge of her Inner Sanctum, and it's here that Rory has his spat with the Doctor.  This is an important part of the Hero's Journey, a period of Atonement with the Father.  He must confront the father-figure in order to wield the father's power.  The Doctor's real power, of course, is perspective, the perspective of the time-traveler.  It's the Doctor who observes (hears) the Boon crying in the distant passage of time.  Rory applies Doctor-knowledge to enter the Inner Sanctum, holding up the Looking Glass to find his prize.

Through the Looking Glass, Apotheosis occurs.  The unification of opposites, the blending of past and future, the connection to above and below.  Rory sees the two aspects of Amy -- the Angel, who represents Love and self-sacrifice, and the Beast, who wields the power necessary to fight monsters.  These are also, importantly, the two aspects of Rory.  He has to come to terms with his own inner Angel, and his own inner Beast.  He has to save both.  With the Doctor's help (and again, Rory becomes "at-one" with the Doctor through mucking about with wires and levers) the two streams of Amy -- the two streams of the Hero -- come face to face.

There's even a Magic Word to make it so:  The Macarena.  For Amy, apotheosis and the state of divine knowledge is represented through a Song.  Naturally!  And it's not just a Song, but a Song with many versions to it, a translated song.  And not just a Song, but also a Dance.  Remember the Doctor in Tails, dancing for the Song back in LKH.

Through a Song, the Boon is grasped.

"Those who know not only that the Everlasting lies in them,
but that what they and all things really are is the Everlasting,
dwell in the groves of the wish fulfilling trees, drink the brew of immortality,
and listen everywhere to the unheard music of eternal concord."

-- Joseph Campbell

Return:  Magic Flight, another Crossing, and the Master of Two Worlds

The Boon has been seized, and now the Threshold Guardians arrive.  Their function is to keep the Hero from leaving the Special Place.  AmyCrone now takes on the Mentor role, guiding Rory and AmyBoon back through the Labyrinth, fighting monsters all the way to the TARDIS.  AmyCrone is the Rescuer, while Rory becomes like a bird, giving flight to an Amy who has been rendered unconscious (subconscious) along the way.  Notice also that Rory clobbers a monster with a painting, a blend of high art and low SF -- the Hero has learned to fight.

Rory and his Boon cross the Threshold into the TARDIS.  The avatar of the Special Place wants to come with, but this is not to be.  The Doctor shapeshifts from Mentor (Angel) to Threshold Guardian (Beast) and shuts the door.  And then... and then he takes Rory's hand and puts it on the lock.  And it's very important for him to do this, because it's a crucial lesson for Rory.

The hardest part of the Hero's Journey is learning to integrate or translate the lessons of the Special Place into the Ordinary World.  This part of the journey is called The Master of Two Worlds.  Rory's mastered the Angel part of himself, that was never a problem... it's mastering the Beast within that has a hard time accepting.  But accept it he must.  "You're turning me into you," Rory complains to the Doctor.  Yes, Rory, that's true.  Rory, Rory, Rory... you can't let the AmyCrone into the TARDIS.  She has to stay in the Special Place, this Beast, this aspect of yourself.  If she comes in, you won't be able to control her, and she'll become a destructive power.  She will destroy your world (the TARDIS shudders at the thought of such a paradox).

The Special Place is a metaphor, of course, for the Subconscious.  This is the proper place for the Beast Below.  The Beast can always be resurrected, this power can always be drawn on, but it can't be in charge.  Let the Beast take charge, and you become a Monster.

The Beast falls asleep; AmyCrone is anesthetized and put down, but in a way that doesn't paint her as evil (for the Heroic Journey is beyond good and evil) but rather as Divine, beholding the World while connected to the salvific light of the Interface.  Inside the TARDIS, the Boon wakes up, and this is a symbol for Rory waking up, for his enlightenment about what it really means and what it really takes to be a Hero.

"Freedom to pass back and forth across the world division,
from the perspective of the apparitions of time
to that of the causal deep and back - not contaminating
the principles of the One with those of the Other,
yet permitting the mind to know the one by virtue of the other -
is the talent of the Master."

-- Joseph Campbell

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