Arthur through the lens of Jung’s Caregiver archetype

[sibilantly]

NOTE: This is not the giant Arthur meta I’ve been talking about. That’s still in the works. But a tumblr anon requested that I discuss the caregiver aspect of Arthur’s characterisation a little more (for greater context, see this gif set), so I shall.
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Inception is an interesting fandom to be in. At its heart, it’s a fandom of possibility. The

Comments

Same anon here

[anonymous]

THANK YOU for this. There simply isn't enough discussion in fandom about caregiver Arthur. At least, there isn't to me. It is possible that there could never be enough for my taste so it's possible I am tad biased.

Also, thank you again for posting the salad picture. I will never, ever get tired of watching Arthur eat the fuck out of that salad. Not even sure how it is possible but, man oh man, does he do it.

I tried to comment on this once before but I threw in a few lines about why I think Arthur is an INTJ and included a link to description and I think the link made LJ decided that my comment was spam. I'll skip the details on that this time but I wanted to throw it out there.

I did want to add one comment to the woobie Arthur discussion. (Disclaimer: I am thinking 90% of Arthur here but if I'm being honest I'm also thinking a little bit of Tommy. If I'm being uncomfortably honest I'm thinking a tiny bit of myself too). Something I see in protective types is that they will often fight on behalf of others when they will not fight for themselves. I can see how that reads doormat to many people but I think there is actually a touch of arrogance in it to be honest. The thought process frequently goes something like this, I can take it or, frankly, I don't care enough about what you think to argue with you. The implication being that the people you are protecting can't take it. Whatever it is. In all fairness, sometimes this is true but sometimes it isn't and you have to be careful. There is a very real tendency to think of people as your people and while in smile doses I think that is fine too much isn't good for either party.

Of course, anyone who has ever stood up for anyone knows that most of the time you don't actually think about it. You just do it and half the time you don't even realize it until someone is bleeding on the floor. Part of the point I'm getting around to here is I think if Cobb had been yelling at Ariadne or, yes, Eames then Arthur would have responded very differently but since Cobb is yelling at him of course he will take it because he is going to continue to try and protect Cobb even as Cobb screams at him because I'm pretty sure Arthur has decided long ago that Cobb just can't take much of anything anymore.

So, yes, I absolutely agree that people do recognize Arthur's more protective/caregiver nature even if they haven't taken the time to really examine it. I think that people do want to see Arthur taken care of for a change and I think it is very true to the character that he probably doesn't take care of himself nearly as well as he takes care of others. However, i also think that in addition to the tremendous burn out Arthur is likely going through there is the part of him that has a core deep certainty that he is better equipped to handle any fallout than Cobb is because Cobb, at least at this moment in time, is too weak emotionally to deal.

I just read over that and I'm not sure I made any sense at all. This is why I shouldn't post at 2am. Feel free to pick apart and I will try to make more sense later.