The Dark Crystal

The Dark Crystal, a Jim Henson movie from 1982, is one of the shows I cited in an earlier post as evidence that the 1980s were really the glory days of growing up as a young kid.  I mean, these types of shows just don't get made anymore.

This morning I woke up with the Dark Crystal all on my mind.  I don't remember any dreams about it, but it felt like I had either been dreaming or thinking about it.

The connection became immediately clear as I became fully awake.  I had just written a post last night about the Anor Stone being smoked or made dark, and here we have a movie with that literally in the title:  The Dark Crystal.

So, I am going to capture some random thoughts.  

In my post Men in Black, I cited a character that showed up in that strange sequence where a number of female characters seemed to be speaking (following Asenath's victory over the Balrog).  I saw an image of a Being seeming to sneak into a refrigerator, which at the time I assumed was mine.  The Being was cloaked, but it was dark and hard to tell anything out.   One of the female voices, while laughing, said "Beware this one!".  Suddenly, the lights turned on and it was as if the Being was caught red-handed in the act of sneaking things from the fridge.  As the Being was exposed, the group of women started laughing louder.  I remarked that the Being reminded me of something like a Skeksis from Dark Crystal, but only approximately.

Later, as I was introduced to Xanadu, I noted that the muse who enters the story is named Kira.  For some reason, a bit later I remembered a scene from the Dark Crystal where the two Gelflings meet up with each other and they share their memories with each other - something they called a 'dreamfast'.  I was curious as to what the female Gelflings name was.  Yup, it was Kira.

The name Kira can mean a few things.  It can mean simply "Lady or Woman".  This popped out because, again, one of the characters in our story is Eowyn, who several times has gone by the simple title Woman.  It also, however, can mean Lord or Ruler - on the masculine version Cyrl, so something like Queen for Kira.  In Egyptian, the name can mean "Like Ra", or "Like the Sun God".

There are a few others, but you get the idea.  

For whatever reason that scene where Kira and the other Gelfling, whose name is Jen (we will get to that name in a second), has always stood out to me.  The two characters are able to essentially communicate telepathically in sharing their experiences, but in a way that they are not only told what the other person has experienced, but they see it and in some way experience it themselves as the other person shares it.

A small detail I had forgotten until I pulled up the clip, is that the Dreamfast was initiated by a handshake between Kira and Jen.  Handshakes have come up before on this blog, specifically in the setting of Beings interacting with each other and sharing knowledge, as well as the connection between Stones such as the Anor and Ithil Stone (and thus Faramir and Eowyn).

Here is the scene where Kira and Jen meet and initiate the Dreamfast as their hands touch:

The name Jen is an interesting one.  In English, the name Jen is usually given to a female and is short for Jennifer.   There is of course Jens, which is a form of John, which might be interesting here as well, but I kind of liked just sticking with the simplest example here with Jen (because it works pretty well).  He is called Jen and not Jens, after all.

Jen means simply "White" (the long form female name Jennifer would mean "White and fair").  This matches up fairly well with other White names associated with Faramir in this particular part of the overall story (as in, White can be used for all sorts of Beings, in terms of their Light, Radiance, and Shine, but the story on this blog never seems to stray too far from the root story of Eowyn and Faramir, and their respective White or Radiant Stones, though Faramir's is currently not so shiny, I guess).

Even Humpty Dumpty (Pharazon) mentions that he got his really nice belt (or cravat?) from the White King and Queen.  Said to be a present from them to him, but maybe we have reason to doubt the full truthfulness of that statement?   Maybe Humpty was rummaging around in the refrigerator, for example.

In any case, in the names of Kira and Jen from the Dark Crystal, we have a potential nod to Eowyn and Faramir, and thus also the Kira and Sonny of Xanadu.  As mentioned previously, Sonny can be a play on words for the Sun and also the Son.  Again, White means Bright, Radiant or to Shine, just like the Sun.

One other thing on the name Jen.  Recall that one of the names or titles I have guessed at for Faramir comes from Joseph Smith's Alphabet and Grammar of the Egyptian Language.  That title is Jah-ni hah.  When I saw that Jen is short for Jennifer, I noted that Jenny is also.  As I realized this, I heard the name Jah-ni in Jenny, just spoken with a really thick accent, and sounding almost like Johnny, I guess.  I don't know.

Anyway, I mentioned our friend Humpty-Pharazon above in relation to the refrigerator and thus tying him back to that Skeksis-like Being who was raiding "my" refrigerator.  It struck me as I thought about the Dark Crystal story that there is a specific tie-in between the Skeksis and Pharazon and the Numenoreans.

First, the Skeksis were known for their extremely long life, and were called "almost immortal".  This parallels quite closely with the Numenoreans whose lives were also many times longer than a normal Man living on Middle-earth (the line of Elros among the Numenoreans having the longest lifespans of anybody).   

Second, the possess technological superiority over other Beings, such as the Gelflings of which Jen and Kira are, just as the Numenoreans used their technological superiority to first subdue Middle-earth, and then assault Eressea and Aman (requiring the intervention of Eru to put a stop to it).

Third, and very importantly, the Skeksis feared death and wished to live forever.  They used the power of the Dark Crystal to unnaturally extend their lives.  They committed many atrocities in their quest to live forever and to support their own lives, even when they consciously knew they were harming other Beings in the process.  The plot culminates with the Skeksis desiring to use the Dark Crystals power when the Three Suns align in the sky (an interesting references to stars, suns, or Stones aligning) to gain complete immortality.  The similarity to the Numenoreans here is obvious, and Pharazon's own fear of death and desire to wrest eternal life from the Gods themselves proved that civilization's destruction.

In other words, I am not sure that my comparison of the Being who was stealing things from the refrigerator to a Skeksis was necessarily a throw-away statement.   There could be something there. Using that link to the Skeksis, it may be that Being was in fact a Numenorean, and potentially even Pharazon himself.  It is hard to know conclusively, but that is one of my thoughts currently.  I thought perhaps you could say the Being in question represented all Numenoreans, but the voices who exposed the Being in my dream specifically said 'that ONE', as in one specific Being.

The Dark Crystal plot might also, however, shine some light on my statement relative to Pharazon and the Numenoreans repentance.  The Skeksis were indeed 'sick', representing split souls in that story.  Whereas their counterparts, the Mystics, were kind, wise, gentle, and able to heal, the Skeksis were the opposite, cruel, devious, and taking from the land and others in an attempt to heal themselves.  But it is revealed that they are two sides of the same coin, and neither a Mystic nor a Skeksis is able to be fully healed or elevate to another plane of existence without the other.

[Spoiler Alert:]  

In the end, the Skeksis are healed when the Crystal is made whole (Jen returns the shard to the Crystal), and they combine with the Mystics to become the Angelic Beings they once were before the Crystal had been shattered.

There may be some symbolism there, and more than just an echo of Joseph Smith's teachings about us not being able to be perfected without our dead, nor they without us.  If Beings were Good before this whole thing took a hard left and we found ourselves in a Void, then it seems that Restoration involves healing these Beings and making them Good again.  It may be that Pharazon and the Numenoreans fit this description of sick and splintered souls that need healing.

Don't get me wrong - I believe there are Evil and Twisted Beings, and there won't be healing for them (by their own choice), at least in this story (Gods' work is eternal, though), but it seems an unjust thing to condemn Good Beings who are Sick to the same fate and same place as totally Evil Beings, if ways can be found to heal them.  

So that is why I think part of the story has to be finding the Sick and Restoring them beyond the Evil that has overcome them, so that they don't have to remain and live with Evil, which would the worst of all judgements (even worse than the condemnation of the Evil Beings) and, in my opinion, unjust.  So, yes, the Skeksis-Numenoreans have no redemption in that state and as they were and are, but I don't think it has to remain that way, and it may be that many of those Beings might find a better story for themselves in whatever lies ahead.  I don't know, but it seems that is why Salvation and Redemption have to be offered to everybody who is not beyond it, in the hope that they choose it.

Random thoughts relative to the Dark Crystal - I wasn't sure where I would go with that, as it was just this really clear thought of that movie and the title that I woke up with this morning, and its relation to what I wrote yesterday regarding the Anor Stone, which is now technically also a Dark Crystal.