The Pandorica and the Underworld - meta on The Pandorica Opens
I've just completed a re-watch of Series 5 as a part of a viewing marathon on the Gallifreybase forum looking at myth, imagery and symbolism in Moffat's Who. Thanks to janie_aire for coordinating this marathon and sharing ideas over on that forum, and also to the others who post there.
I thought i'd post some meta on The Pandorica Opens going roughly chronologically through the ep and looking at some of the key mythological concepts i've noticed playing out in Moffat's eps during series 5, and culminating in this first part of the finale. Some more meta on The Big Bang will follow (eventually)
Some previous meta I did on on Silence in the Library/Forest of The Dead and The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone cover some of the ideas here. River is a crucial player in this unfolding myth. So if you're interested in how those episodes lead to this one, you may find them worth reading, the Angels episode particularly covers the theme of journeying into the Underworld which i'm going to talk about a lot here.
* * *
There are a few key mythological concepts that come up thematically and in imagery again and again in Moffat's Who, and particularly in episodes that feature River (again, see previous meta for coverage of these concepts in those eps). The ones i'm most interested in are:
The World Tree - A cosmology found in several cultures which conceives of the Universe cosmologically as a huge tree. The Norse tradition is notable for this, with the Underworld located underneath the roots, the Middle and physical worlds on the lower branches, and the Upperworlds on the higher branches. More info here if you're interested.
The Three Worlds - this is a version of the above idea, where reality is seen as composed of an upperworld where the gods and celestial bodies are located, a middle world which is our world - the reality we see and experience, the world of physical forces - and an underworld usually seen as the world of the dead. It's often found in shamanistic beliefs, where shamans and spirits can pass to and from and journey within the different worlds.
The Underworld - The concept of a world which is the land of the dead, often seen as a subterranean world. In The Library, Byzantium and Pandorica/Big Bang there is a particular focus on the journey to and through the Underworld, and where this leads you.
Polarity and Union - Moffat's Who deals so much in the idea of polarities and the fuzzy middle ground between them, which is a threshold space. Whether it's god/goddess, dark/light, order/chaos, up/down, reality/dream, it's always there, and Moff is interested in exploring how polarities exchange, cross, become confused and then swing back again.
* * *
The Beginning
Our nods to the World Tree begin with the Tardis materialising in front of a tree. And it's worth mentioning that this is the third episode running were we see the Tardis materialising amongst trees - it also happens in Vincent and the Doctor and The Lodger, see images below. (one day, when i have time, i'm gonna do the world tree and the 3 worlds all through series 5, but i need more time!!!)
Vincent and the Doctor The Lodger
The Pandorica Opens
The Tardis is itself a world tree, allowing journeying between different worlds. Visually it's nodded to as such through series is 5 with the area beneath the control room floor, where we often see the Doctor (as Hades, god of the Underworld) located, and where the central column of the time rotor forms the central trunk of the tree branching up through the floor to the above.
So, early on in this episode we have our first sign that this finale is going to be focusing on mirroring the Tardis to the Pandorica, and on them as the two poles or as upper/underworlds. The way in is through a painting, which shows us the Tardis exploding/opening outwards, but dialogue tells us it is named The Pandorica Opens.
This mirroring of the Pandorica/Tardis becomes really important by the end of the episode, and for the way that things are ultimately resolved.
Our guide into the episode, the keeper of the painting is River. It's worth pointing out here that River, as Cleopatra, is depicted very much as a goddess, or as a high priestess. Someone on Gallifreybase (and i can't remember who to credit) pointed out a while ago the striking similarities between River here and the High Priestess cards from the Tarot.
The High Priestess card depicts a woman crowned with the sign of the sun, or moon for illumination, or the crown of divinity. She holds in her hands secret wisdom in the form of a scroll (the painting) or a blue book (the diary); behind her hangs a curtain representing the veil of mystery and the deep truths which lie beyond it. The High Priestess is a character of power, a holder of secrets, a guide.
Here River holds the scroll of secrets which will lead them into the Underworld, and she offers it up to the Doctor.
There are many many mirrors with the Byzantium episodes in these 2 eps and they start here. In the Byzantium, River was the guide into the Underworld, the keeper of secrets (diary) and the holder of knowledge in the form of the crucial book on Angels which guides them safely through the world of the dead.
Again here, she becomes their guide into the world of the dead via the painting, and is acting as Hecate, the ancient Greek goddess of liminal places, who was able to negotiate the Underworld (discussed in depth in previous meta on the Byzantium.)
* * *
Journey to the Underworld
The Pandorica is a symbol of the Underworld. They are led to it by River, as Hecate, guide into the Underworld. In the Byzantium eps, Amy and the Doctor acted as Hades and Persephone, and here they reprise those roles. This is nodded to early in the ep, where Persephone sits in the Tardis Underworld, contemplating the connection to the middle world that she has lost (Rory) in the form of the ring
We see the Doctor as Hades the one who leads Persephone to and keeps her in the Underworld, looking at her and he is upside down, inverted, a shifting of perspectives.
The Pandorica is located literally under the ground, underneath Stonehenge and one of the theories about Stonehenge (which I favour) was that it was used as a funeral ground and a place of ancestor worship. So the ground beneath Stonehenge represented the Underworld.
The entrance to the Pandorica chamber even resembles a grave, with a flat gravestone laid on top of it, sliding to the side as they watch it. We see a perspective of this entrance first from above, and then from below, in another perspective shift, and as we see the second image the Doctor says "The Underhenge"...and then we journey down there
Doctor: (in Cleopatra's tent) And it's a fairytale, a legend, it can't be real.
In fairytales, myth and shamanism the rules of the different worlds, of different levels of realities are often unique, shifting as the characters journey from one to another. Here they do just that as what was previously a myth, a story, a fairytale becomes reality once they are in the Underworld.
There's a lovely little moment here which again mirrors the Byzantium episodes for us, as River says
River: More than just a fairytale
The Doctor gives her a long look after she says this, obviously recalling his words to a future River on the beach of the Byzantium:
Doctor: The Pandorica. That's just a fairytale.
There's a nice feedback loop here with past River mirroring future Doctor's words to him.
* * *
The Mystery of the Underworld
Once the rules of the Underworld are established - that myth becomes reality - we're fully into the telling of stories and the recounting of myths, as the story starts telling its own story of the Doctor. The Doctor as Hades is the first to place his hand upon the Pandorica, as he begins recounting the tale
Doctor: There was a goblin, or a trickster, or a warrior. A nameless, terrible thing, soaked in the blood of a billion galaxies. The most feared being in all the cosmos. And nothing could stop it, or hold it, or reason with it. One day it would just drop out of the sky and tear down your world.
Amy: How did it end up in there?
Doctor: You know fairy tales. A good wizard tricked it.
River: I hate good wizards in fairy tales. They always turn out to be him.
And in the underworld the lines between what is reality and what isn't now become even more blurred (again a staple of myths and fairytales when journeying to other worlds). The Pandorca was just a fairytale, now it's real. The Doctor is a character in fairytales, a good wizard, as well as the Doctor in the real world. The Pandorica resembles Amy's favourite story from when she was a child, but that was just a story.
The Pandorica is presented as the essence of the mystery that lies at the heart of the Underworld, in this myth/fairytale. River's language is very interesting as she talks about the Pandorica unlocking, she is our guide to the heart of what is contained within.
River: It's already opening. There are layers and layers of security protocols in there, and they're being disabled, one by one. Like it's being unlocked from the inside…..
...Everything. Deadlocks, time-stops, matter-lines.
This keys us into the idea that there are layers and layers that must be stripped away in order for the heart of the mystery to be revealed. It reflects the journey the characters have made throughout the series and that we make in life when we journey into our own inner-Underworld where our darkness lies. River references death, time and matter in terms of the layers that are being unlocked, the gateways that must be passed through and negotiated. Again, this has strong resonance with the ideas of a spiritual or emotional journey, where ideas of linear time and matter - the physical world - have to be passed through in order to transcend death. This is also the journey of the series, as ultimately rebooting the Universe and bringing the Doctor back involved defeating time, matter and death.
And ultimately what lies at the heart of the Underworld inside the Pandorica is Life. The light of life within the darkness of death inside the Underworld. So the Pandorica in many ways represents the fundamental mystery of creation which is epxlored in many myths from around the world, that of life in death - and therefore rebirth. Which has always been a key theme of Who anyway.
* * *
The Mystery and Memory
The Underworld is the place of the dead. One of its key functions in many many mythologies is that it is where the dead reside, and that heroes can journey into it to meet their dead. This is what happens with Amy, the Doctor and Rory. Rory is their dead who they meet in the Underworld, and who is miraculously resurrected and able to live in the middle world.
Amy is pursued by a Cyberman and shuts herself in a chamber behind a door Little does she know Rory is on the other side of the door as she presses her head to it. This mirrors the moment in the Byzantium (again, more mirroring of the Byzantium eps) where the Doctor presses his head to the wall next to the crack in the wall. There, the wall lies between the Doctor and pure time energy, the crack which is swallowing things. Here, a doorway lies between Amy and Rory - Rory who has been impossibly returned from the crack. Seconds later he cracks the door by running his sword through it.
Amy can't remember Rory, while the Doctor can, though ultimately she does remember him. However, there's usually a price to be paid when passing through the Underworld, or a sacrifice to be made when experiencing some sort of mystery. This happens in The Byzantium, where after passing through the Underworld, Amy is forced to sacrifice her gift of Sight (discussed in my other meta on Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone.)
With this in mind, there's another moment which strongly mirrors the Byzantium, as Amy collapses and is laid upon a stone unconscious while the Doctor, Rory and a soldier stand around her. It mirrors the moment where Amy collapsed onto a stone in the Byzantium forest and then lost her gift of sight, there she is surrounded by soldiers with River taking care of her. It foreshadows her sacrifice/exchange of her losing her life when she finally exits the Underworld in this episode.
In the very moment that Amy remembers who Rory is, the price is extracted, and this time it's a like-for-like exchange. Amy remembers Rory, Rory becomes real/realised in the normal world, Rory shoots Amy and she dies becoming his dead and belonging to the Underworld in his place.
* * *
The Three Worlds
The ending of The Pandorica Opens plays out on the structure of the World Tree, with the Three Worlds represented by three unfolding dramas.
Essentially Stonehenge has fuctioned as our world tree in this episode. The underworld is underneath it, the chamber with the Pandorica in holding the mysteries of the Underword. The stones are the trunk of the tree, they are a conduit of energy from the underworld to the heavens and they link the two - the stones are literally transmitting a message from the underworld to the sky and the wider universe that the Pandorica is opening.For the Middle World we have the grassy ground level, where Rory and Amy's human drama plays out. Above it is the Upperworld, where all the different beings appear in the sky, like celestial bodies. So the majority of the action in this ep takes place in or upon or above the body of this world tree.
In the Underworld, or at one pole, we have the Doctor and his enemies enacting a tale of forced imprisonment, and of his metaphorical death to the Universe - inside something that was created from a memory of a story. But the irony of this is that the Pandorica doesn’t contain death, but life. But while that light is closed and held within the grip of death, it is a stasis chamber rather than something that gives life. So the Pandorica closes, contains, holds in, freezes, keeps still. The imagery is utterly Underworld, a cavern, ancient stones, plant/tree roots hanging above, a light going out.
In the Middle World we have Amy and Rory. They are our people from the real world, from this plane, human. They are playing out something at the heart of all good myths - a tragic love story, a tale of love, death, loss, forgetting, remembering and love - then death all over again. We have Amy who dies, Rory who lives- and lives pretty much forever in his Auton state. So we have 2 polarities there balancing and connecting the themes of upper and under worlds. They play this out on the grass in the middle of the henge, and full credit to janie_aire for spotting that this is upon/next to an uprooted tree. A symbol of the World Tree being uprooted and there is a broken connection between the Upperworld and the Underworld.
In the Upperworld we have River and the Tardis. Tardis, the being that represents the idea of Time Energy controlled, structured and brought into a physical form, explodes outwards in shards and then we have uncontrolled pure time energy seeping through. So at the other pole there and is change, action, movement, pushing outwards. In the Upperworld it's all brightness and explosions. River's fate here also has a visual mirror to her fate in the library, she is connecting wires shortly before the Tardis explodes.
By the end of the episode, above and below are a reversed mirror of each other, the explosion outwards of the Tardis, the release of energy mirrors the Doctor’s stasis inside a sealed box. It is the essence of life trapped in the box, while the release of energy from the Tardis, rather than being life giving brings death to the universe. Inbetween them we have the boy who lives but shouldn’t live because he dies. And the girl who remembers but shouldn’t, the girl who dies but doesn't die (ultimately).
The connection between above and below is broken because everything is reversed, wrong. There is a separation of things, the two poles need to be unified in order to mend the Universe, and this is what will happen in the Big Bang. Meta on that will hopefully follow in a few days.
Thanks for reading.
I thought i'd post some meta on The Pandorica Opens going roughly chronologically through the ep and looking at some of the key mythological concepts i've noticed playing out in Moffat's eps during series 5, and culminating in this first part of the finale. Some more meta on The Big Bang will follow (eventually)
Some previous meta I did on on Silence in the Library/Forest of The Dead and The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone cover some of the ideas here. River is a crucial player in this unfolding myth. So if you're interested in how those episodes lead to this one, you may find them worth reading, the Angels episode particularly covers the theme of journeying into the Underworld which i'm going to talk about a lot here.
* * *
There are a few key mythological concepts that come up thematically and in imagery again and again in Moffat's Who, and particularly in episodes that feature River (again, see previous meta for coverage of these concepts in those eps). The ones i'm most interested in are:
The World Tree - A cosmology found in several cultures which conceives of the Universe cosmologically as a huge tree. The Norse tradition is notable for this, with the Underworld located underneath the roots, the Middle and physical worlds on the lower branches, and the Upperworlds on the higher branches. More info here if you're interested.
The Three Worlds - this is a version of the above idea, where reality is seen as composed of an upperworld where the gods and celestial bodies are located, a middle world which is our world - the reality we see and experience, the world of physical forces - and an underworld usually seen as the world of the dead. It's often found in shamanistic beliefs, where shamans and spirits can pass to and from and journey within the different worlds.
The Underworld - The concept of a world which is the land of the dead, often seen as a subterranean world. In The Library, Byzantium and Pandorica/Big Bang there is a particular focus on the journey to and through the Underworld, and where this leads you.
Polarity and Union - Moffat's Who deals so much in the idea of polarities and the fuzzy middle ground between them, which is a threshold space. Whether it's god/goddess, dark/light, order/chaos, up/down, reality/dream, it's always there, and Moff is interested in exploring how polarities exchange, cross, become confused and then swing back again.
* * *
The Beginning
Our nods to the World Tree begin with the Tardis materialising in front of a tree. And it's worth mentioning that this is the third episode running were we see the Tardis materialising amongst trees - it also happens in Vincent and the Doctor and The Lodger, see images below. (one day, when i have time, i'm gonna do the world tree and the 3 worlds all through series 5, but i need more time!!!)
Vincent and the Doctor The Lodger
The Pandorica Opens
The Tardis is itself a world tree, allowing journeying between different worlds. Visually it's nodded to as such through series is 5 with the area beneath the control room floor, where we often see the Doctor (as Hades, god of the Underworld) located, and where the central column of the time rotor forms the central trunk of the tree branching up through the floor to the above.
So, early on in this episode we have our first sign that this finale is going to be focusing on mirroring the Tardis to the Pandorica, and on them as the two poles or as upper/underworlds. The way in is through a painting, which shows us the Tardis exploding/opening outwards, but dialogue tells us it is named The Pandorica Opens.
This mirroring of the Pandorica/Tardis becomes really important by the end of the episode, and for the way that things are ultimately resolved.
Our guide into the episode, the keeper of the painting is River. It's worth pointing out here that River, as Cleopatra, is depicted very much as a goddess, or as a high priestess. Someone on Gallifreybase (and i can't remember who to credit) pointed out a while ago the striking similarities between River here and the High Priestess cards from the Tarot.
The High Priestess card depicts a woman crowned with the sign of the sun, or moon for illumination, or the crown of divinity. She holds in her hands secret wisdom in the form of a scroll (the painting) or a blue book (the diary); behind her hangs a curtain representing the veil of mystery and the deep truths which lie beyond it. The High Priestess is a character of power, a holder of secrets, a guide.
Here River holds the scroll of secrets which will lead them into the Underworld, and she offers it up to the Doctor.
There are many many mirrors with the Byzantium episodes in these 2 eps and they start here. In the Byzantium, River was the guide into the Underworld, the keeper of secrets (diary) and the holder of knowledge in the form of the crucial book on Angels which guides them safely through the world of the dead.
Again here, she becomes their guide into the world of the dead via the painting, and is acting as Hecate, the ancient Greek goddess of liminal places, who was able to negotiate the Underworld (discussed in depth in previous meta on the Byzantium.)
* * *
Journey to the Underworld
The Pandorica is a symbol of the Underworld. They are led to it by River, as Hecate, guide into the Underworld. In the Byzantium eps, Amy and the Doctor acted as Hades and Persephone, and here they reprise those roles. This is nodded to early in the ep, where Persephone sits in the Tardis Underworld, contemplating the connection to the middle world that she has lost (Rory) in the form of the ring
We see the Doctor as Hades the one who leads Persephone to and keeps her in the Underworld, looking at her and he is upside down, inverted, a shifting of perspectives.
The Pandorica is located literally under the ground, underneath Stonehenge and one of the theories about Stonehenge (which I favour) was that it was used as a funeral ground and a place of ancestor worship. So the ground beneath Stonehenge represented the Underworld.
The entrance to the Pandorica chamber even resembles a grave, with a flat gravestone laid on top of it, sliding to the side as they watch it. We see a perspective of this entrance first from above, and then from below, in another perspective shift, and as we see the second image the Doctor says "The Underhenge"...and then we journey down there
Doctor: (in Cleopatra's tent) And it's a fairytale, a legend, it can't be real.
In fairytales, myth and shamanism the rules of the different worlds, of different levels of realities are often unique, shifting as the characters journey from one to another. Here they do just that as what was previously a myth, a story, a fairytale becomes reality once they are in the Underworld.
There's a lovely little moment here which again mirrors the Byzantium episodes for us, as River says
River: More than just a fairytale
The Doctor gives her a long look after she says this, obviously recalling his words to a future River on the beach of the Byzantium:
Doctor: The Pandorica. That's just a fairytale.
There's a nice feedback loop here with past River mirroring future Doctor's words to him.
* * *
The Mystery of the Underworld
Once the rules of the Underworld are established - that myth becomes reality - we're fully into the telling of stories and the recounting of myths, as the story starts telling its own story of the Doctor. The Doctor as Hades is the first to place his hand upon the Pandorica, as he begins recounting the tale
Doctor: There was a goblin, or a trickster, or a warrior. A nameless, terrible thing, soaked in the blood of a billion galaxies. The most feared being in all the cosmos. And nothing could stop it, or hold it, or reason with it. One day it would just drop out of the sky and tear down your world.
Amy: How did it end up in there?
Doctor: You know fairy tales. A good wizard tricked it.
River: I hate good wizards in fairy tales. They always turn out to be him.
And in the underworld the lines between what is reality and what isn't now become even more blurred (again a staple of myths and fairytales when journeying to other worlds). The Pandorca was just a fairytale, now it's real. The Doctor is a character in fairytales, a good wizard, as well as the Doctor in the real world. The Pandorica resembles Amy's favourite story from when she was a child, but that was just a story.
The Pandorica is presented as the essence of the mystery that lies at the heart of the Underworld, in this myth/fairytale. River's language is very interesting as she talks about the Pandorica unlocking, she is our guide to the heart of what is contained within.
River: It's already opening. There are layers and layers of security protocols in there, and they're being disabled, one by one. Like it's being unlocked from the inside…..
...Everything. Deadlocks, time-stops, matter-lines.
This keys us into the idea that there are layers and layers that must be stripped away in order for the heart of the mystery to be revealed. It reflects the journey the characters have made throughout the series and that we make in life when we journey into our own inner-Underworld where our darkness lies. River references death, time and matter in terms of the layers that are being unlocked, the gateways that must be passed through and negotiated. Again, this has strong resonance with the ideas of a spiritual or emotional journey, where ideas of linear time and matter - the physical world - have to be passed through in order to transcend death. This is also the journey of the series, as ultimately rebooting the Universe and bringing the Doctor back involved defeating time, matter and death.
And ultimately what lies at the heart of the Underworld inside the Pandorica is Life. The light of life within the darkness of death inside the Underworld. So the Pandorica in many ways represents the fundamental mystery of creation which is epxlored in many myths from around the world, that of life in death - and therefore rebirth. Which has always been a key theme of Who anyway.
* * *
The Mystery and Memory
The Underworld is the place of the dead. One of its key functions in many many mythologies is that it is where the dead reside, and that heroes can journey into it to meet their dead. This is what happens with Amy, the Doctor and Rory. Rory is their dead who they meet in the Underworld, and who is miraculously resurrected and able to live in the middle world.
Amy is pursued by a Cyberman and shuts herself in a chamber behind a door Little does she know Rory is on the other side of the door as she presses her head to it. This mirrors the moment in the Byzantium (again, more mirroring of the Byzantium eps) where the Doctor presses his head to the wall next to the crack in the wall. There, the wall lies between the Doctor and pure time energy, the crack which is swallowing things. Here, a doorway lies between Amy and Rory - Rory who has been impossibly returned from the crack. Seconds later he cracks the door by running his sword through it.
Amy can't remember Rory, while the Doctor can, though ultimately she does remember him. However, there's usually a price to be paid when passing through the Underworld, or a sacrifice to be made when experiencing some sort of mystery. This happens in The Byzantium, where after passing through the Underworld, Amy is forced to sacrifice her gift of Sight (discussed in my other meta on Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone.)
With this in mind, there's another moment which strongly mirrors the Byzantium, as Amy collapses and is laid upon a stone unconscious while the Doctor, Rory and a soldier stand around her. It mirrors the moment where Amy collapsed onto a stone in the Byzantium forest and then lost her gift of sight, there she is surrounded by soldiers with River taking care of her. It foreshadows her sacrifice/exchange of her losing her life when she finally exits the Underworld in this episode.
In the very moment that Amy remembers who Rory is, the price is extracted, and this time it's a like-for-like exchange. Amy remembers Rory, Rory becomes real/realised in the normal world, Rory shoots Amy and she dies becoming his dead and belonging to the Underworld in his place.
* * *
The Three Worlds
The ending of The Pandorica Opens plays out on the structure of the World Tree, with the Three Worlds represented by three unfolding dramas.
Essentially Stonehenge has fuctioned as our world tree in this episode. The underworld is underneath it, the chamber with the Pandorica in holding the mysteries of the Underword. The stones are the trunk of the tree, they are a conduit of energy from the underworld to the heavens and they link the two - the stones are literally transmitting a message from the underworld to the sky and the wider universe that the Pandorica is opening.For the Middle World we have the grassy ground level, where Rory and Amy's human drama plays out. Above it is the Upperworld, where all the different beings appear in the sky, like celestial bodies. So the majority of the action in this ep takes place in or upon or above the body of this world tree.
In the Underworld, or at one pole, we have the Doctor and his enemies enacting a tale of forced imprisonment, and of his metaphorical death to the Universe - inside something that was created from a memory of a story. But the irony of this is that the Pandorica doesn’t contain death, but life. But while that light is closed and held within the grip of death, it is a stasis chamber rather than something that gives life. So the Pandorica closes, contains, holds in, freezes, keeps still. The imagery is utterly Underworld, a cavern, ancient stones, plant/tree roots hanging above, a light going out.
In the Middle World we have Amy and Rory. They are our people from the real world, from this plane, human. They are playing out something at the heart of all good myths - a tragic love story, a tale of love, death, loss, forgetting, remembering and love - then death all over again. We have Amy who dies, Rory who lives- and lives pretty much forever in his Auton state. So we have 2 polarities there balancing and connecting the themes of upper and under worlds. They play this out on the grass in the middle of the henge, and full credit to janie_aire for spotting that this is upon/next to an uprooted tree. A symbol of the World Tree being uprooted and there is a broken connection between the Upperworld and the Underworld.
In the Upperworld we have River and the Tardis. Tardis, the being that represents the idea of Time Energy controlled, structured and brought into a physical form, explodes outwards in shards and then we have uncontrolled pure time energy seeping through. So at the other pole there and is change, action, movement, pushing outwards. In the Upperworld it's all brightness and explosions. River's fate here also has a visual mirror to her fate in the library, she is connecting wires shortly before the Tardis explodes.
By the end of the episode, above and below are a reversed mirror of each other, the explosion outwards of the Tardis, the release of energy mirrors the Doctor’s stasis inside a sealed box. It is the essence of life trapped in the box, while the release of energy from the Tardis, rather than being life giving brings death to the universe. Inbetween them we have the boy who lives but shouldn’t live because he dies. And the girl who remembers but shouldn’t, the girl who dies but doesn't die (ultimately).
The connection between above and below is broken because everything is reversed, wrong. There is a separation of things, the two poles need to be unified in order to mend the Universe, and this is what will happen in the Big Bang. Meta on that will hopefully follow in a few days.
Thanks for reading.