I had a few strange dream sequences that I can't make sense of last night, but when I woke up I was thinking of a scene from Star Trek, or that I thought I had seen in Star Trek. Specifically, Captain Kirk was becoming frustrated with Spock, who had lost his memory after dying at the end of "The Wrath of Khan" and being reborn in "Search for Spock". His statement was, as I was thinking of this in my head, "It's Jim, damnit! Jim! Don't you remember, Spock?".
Star Trek has come up several times here on this blog, with the first time being my post titled "The Wrath of Saruman-Khan and Free Willy!" (which interestingly has a number of other little references that later became things, as I looked back on it just now - like Zelda).
I would later link the character of Spock directly to Peter, and this came about in trying to make sense of the idea that was going through my mind as to Peter also being Pharazon. In my story, I began to view the actions of Pharazon (and again, we may not - and probably don't - have an accurate account of that tragedy) in light of a similar sacrifice that Spock made on behalf of the Enterprise at the end of Wrath of Khan.
In my post "The Smoothing of the 96 to go Home", I cited Spock's sacrifice as being analogous to Peter-Pharazon:
In my view, among these Fathers-turned-Enemies was Pharazon, who would have been also the Being known as Gim-Githil, or Ingwe. Literally, the Being who is still held to this day as the High King of the Elves was attacking his own people on Eressea. And again, I think the full story of this comes out at some point, but not focused on what happened on Eressea (what would be the point of reliving that?), but rather why and how these Elvish Fathers chose to be on Numenor in the first place.
My mind, interestingly, goes back to our Star Trek: Wrath of Khan analogy and the Choice of Spock, or his solution to the Kobayashi Maru
What do we think of the Fathers' solution? That is what Spock asked Kirk as he lay there alone in the chamber, sick and dying. Well, it is an impossible question to answer right now since we do not know the details of the catastrophe that these Father's hoped to avoid by taking such a terrible path. All we have are their deeds in that assault, and they were dreadful, and many Beings suffered.
I will say that since writing the above, I have even more doubts as to the veracity of the details of the Numenorean stories that we have, and specifically the details of what the Fathers did and did not do. Meaning, I am going to withhold any belief or assumption about what happened until I see a more credible story.
But back to Spock, he has already been directly tied to Peter-Gim Githil - very specifically so - in my mind for several months. Similarly, Kirk has been analogous to Faramir-Gim Guru in my mind, going back to that first Wrath of Khan post, where a number of symbolic elements emerged, and some more have since.
That is all to say, as I was laying there thinking of this scene of Jim becoming frustrated with Spock for his not being able to remember, I took this as as representing an interaction between Gim Guru and Gim Githil. Why can't you remember?
I looked to see if I could find the scene. I think what was running in my head was a combination of a few scenes. At the end of Search for Spock, which, by the way, I can't now think of without Space Balls going through my head ... "Space Balls 2: The Search for More Money!" - and actually, that deserves a video here:
Anyway, at the end of Search for Spock, we have a scene where Spock is surrounded by his crewmates and he is trying to remember things. This has some of the line I was thinking of, but doesn't involve a frustrated Kirk, but rather a very patient one who just wants his friend to get better. In the scene going through my mind, Kirk had been more frustrated and exasperated with Spock. But here is the Search for Spock scene:
I then did a search in the 4th movie, the sequel to "Search for Spock" called "A Voyage Home". The thought of looking into this movie was interesting because i) the title is exactly what I am writing an thinking about (a voyage home), and ii) it involves whales.
Whales came up in that same post where I first even mentioned Star Trek, with Wrath of Khan. In that same post, I wrote about "Free Willy" a movie where the plot focused on setting a Pied Killer Whale free.
Well, "A Voyage Home" also involves freeing whales. In fact, future Earth is going to be destroyed unless we can find some whales to return there. Whereas in "Free Willy" it is a Orca, in this movie we are dealing with Humpback Whales.
Wait a second. Did I just write Humpback Whales? Humpback? We have dealt with an animal that is known for its Humpback before - specifically a Camel. Well, technically a Camel Lion, which is actually a Giraffe, per my probably extremely clear and insightful post that includes Willy Wonka and a crazy Giraffe running through a Catholic Church destroying Secret Chocolate Combinations, but you get my point. Another wink to Peter here, I think. A pretty good one.
Back to the matter at hand, I found another clip with Kirk and Spock on a bus in mid-80s San Francisco in that movie (they had to travel back in time to go get the whales), and Kirk tells Spock to stop calling him Admiral, but rather Jim, and asks him again, "Don't you remember?"
Still, this wasn't really the frustrated Kirk at this point, just a bit more curt and not as patient, perhaps.
I think I found the clip that was most like the scene running through my head, and it actually occurs earlier at the beginning of the movie, as the Enterprise crew is about to set off for Earth aboard the Klingon Bird of Prey. This is more of a slightly frustrated Kirk who was asking Spock to just call him Jim, and asking him "Don't you remember?" It still wasn't as frustrated as the Kirk I was thinking through this morning, but I realized with the "damnit" I was mentally bringing in some of Dr. McCoy, probably. I could only find a longer clip, so here it is at about the 3:10 mark or so (sorry, the only clip I could find is also protected, so you just have to click on the YouTube link and it takes you there, instead of playing in the post):
I should note that the rest of Spock's comment about having 'misplaced' his uniform stood out to me as funny as I heard it. If uniforms are like our "Coats of Skins" or bodies (an analogy that both William Tychonievich and Debbie made recently), then yes, Peter-Spock's appearance would be different to someone rejoining his crew, as his old misplaced uniform allegedly lies below St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican (kind of sounds like Vulcan, actually).
Anyway, it was surprising to me to find these 3 different times with Kirk (Gim Guru in our analogy) asking Spock (Gim Githil) the same question: "Don't you remember?"
It was also remarkable to me to notice that a character that I had identified quite awhile ago as Peter has this attribute of memory issues, just like the character Dory I also called out yesterday from Finding Nemo. "Where is Peter's Mind?" is what William asked in his post of that same title just recently, however, and it is a theme I picked up and ran with a bit over here in a follow up post titled "Speaking and Stepping through a Veil, and Finding Peter's Mind". It is the same question that Kirk is asking Spock: "Where is your memory?"
And it is critical, it seems, the Peter remember at some point. It is from the leap from the Lion's Head - Peter's Head or Mind, per the iron-clad trusted scriptural source of Indiana Jones - that a path is commenced from that leads home. But, as I mentioned before, it isn't a matter simply of Peter suddenly digging it out or finding it on his own. It seems like as with the "Play for Patrick-Peter" symbolism, that his memory or Story returns, potentially, in conjunction with events at France, in the House of Tom Bombadil in the events surrounding the Rose Stone, and other records.
Interestingly, and along this same theme of Peter being a critical piece of the puzzle for any Being to go Home, it is also Spock who is responsible or getting the ship back to where they need to go in "A Voyage Home". In the movie, it is his from his mind that the answer or the calculations must be generated that take everyone to exactly where they need to be (it is a narrow path, remember). Here is an interesting clip I found between Dr. McCoy and Spock, where Spock talks about the problem he faces in getting the ship home to the exact right place and time, and McCoy introduces the concept of "Guessing". Guessing is something that I do on this blog pretty much on a daily basis, obviously. I am pretty cool with it, and recognize I might be (extremely) wrong on a great number of things. Spock, however, in this movie is quite uncomfortable with the concept, which McCoy attempts to help alleviate. Sometimes you just have to take everything you know or think, realize it isn't going to be for sure at this point, and make the best guess you can on how to proceed. That is about all we can do at this point. I thought the exchange was fascinating for a a few reasons when I stumbled across it:
Lastly, back to Kirk for a moment and tying two movie characters together in our analogies that make sense. There is a really interesting link between two characters I've identified as being metaphors for Gim Guru-Faramir, and that is Kirk and Maverick from Top Gun. At the end of "A Voyage Home", Admiral Kirk is reduced in rank to that of Captain. But that is exactly what he wanted to be, because he could then be back on board a ship and flying around. Here is the scene from the end of the movie (relevant part really starts at 1:15):
At the beginning of "Top Gun: Maverick", after his stunt with the Darkstar plane in which he also disobeyed orders, he is called into Ed Harris' office. The dialogue stood out like a sore thumb to me, with Ed Harris saying that Maverick should be an Admiral by now with everything he has done, but here he is - a Captain. He is asked why, and Maverick first makes a joke as to it being "One of life's great mysteries", but then gives the more serious answer that "I'm where I belong".
This was another remarkable and direct connection I just noticed between two movie characters who I had already identified as representing the same Being.
And actually, one more thing going back to "A Voyage Home". This one made me really laugh. In my search, I stumbled upon the scene where Kirk and Spock hop in the truck with Dr. Gillian Taylor after some events at the aquarium with the whales. Kirk, in an attempt to explain Spock's strange behavior, attempts to say that he is on drugs, specifically LSD. Rather than say LSD, he says LDS, and specifically "I think he did a little too much LDS".
LDS, of course, is the acronym for the Mormon or LDS church. My current guess as to the nature of many Beings, including Peter-Spock, is that we will find them and their experiences around the Mormon Church, and just as Kirk said, Peter may have done just a little too much of it and ought to stay off of it going forward. And, if you keep going in the clip just a few more second in after the LDS comment, Kirk will once again assert that Spock has memory problems:
Anyway, we have Kirk and Spock as pretty clear (to me) hits for Gim Guru-Faramir and Gim Githil-Peter in our story, who are also Alvin and Simon. We still have Theodore, or the 3rd Magi, to figure out at some point, and I wonder if Dr. McCoy perhaps is in some way representative of him?
No comments:
Post a Comment