X-Men 3, Harry Potter and the Imago Dei

Well, X Men 3 hit the theaters and I went to see it. I was going to use the term "Crux-Men" in the title of this post for what I noticed as connections between Harry Potter and this most interesting third installment in the X-Men series (of which there may be more, but regardless this third one works as a good finale to a trilogy, with certain "bookend" elements recurring from the first movie, such as that the movie begins and ends with Magneto and both movies begin with a flashback to the discovery of a crucial mutant's powers ... what I mean is that even if they come out with more X-Men movies, I think these first three will always hang together as at least an introductory trilogy). But I thought using the regular title would better facilitate people finding this post via google searches. Introduction: Comic Books and Fantasy Literature I'll be honest, I have never liked the category of "fantasy literature." It seems to me like merely a marketing term that really completely misses what sets authors like Rowling, Tolkien, Lewis, William, Chesterton et al apart. They are not your average grasping at the pyrotechnical appeal of swords and sorcery ... the latter of which (in its true form, ie the truly dark, but hidden and disguised, hear of dark magic) seems to be a pet special fascination of some rather popular fantasy authors (meaning that the particular works I am thinking of seem to rely heavily on a flavor of psychic animism/dynamism in their material for their draw, and maybe someday I'll get around to writing exactly what I mean by that last term, but for here I'll just say that it is at the heart of what I would call "neo-paganism," which I believe to be worse than classical paganism, which at least had some concept of the transcendent, however weak or warped) Along these lines, I am into a broader range of mediums and genres that share the symbolist outlook of the mythopoeic authors listed above, one such being film. Another is the comic book hero ... and here we find movies such as the X-Men trilogy, movies adapted from comic books. But another which greatly caught my attention in this regard was M. Night Shymalan's "Unbreakable." Samuel L, Jackson's character (Elijah Price ... a prophet for the sake of profit? ironically like true insight hidden within a medium formatted for mass production and consumption?) makes the statement that he believes comic books to be the last remaining vestige of a more primal form of communicating the meaning believed to be in the world, a medium based more directly in the image. I think Price is right about this (and I find it highly interesting that he is the villain) and that the X-Men series, now that I have seen this third installment, strongly supports this. Let me note first that if the reader is looking for evidence of the "conscious construction," any of my writing is not the place to look for it. I believe it entirely possible that such authors and movie makers consciously and methodically construct these elements into their works (and indeed I would find it highly odd if the recognition did not penetrate the consciously level to some degree or another) but I am not overly concerned when it might be the case that the authorial impetus for these elements lies in the subconscious rather than the conscious. Horcruxing and the true villain (WARNING: Contains spoiler material on the X-Men 3 movie) Before I get into the material on imagination and the Imago Dei, however, let me relate the first thing in the movie that started me thinking about the similarities and developments between this movie and Harry Potter. This thing, however, is not "within the movie itself" in explicit terms but is rather only alluded to, in the body of the film itself, very slightly. Fortunately I saw it with a friend who had heard some scuttlebutt on the net and said "we have to stay through the credits, there's a tagged-on thing that's supposed to be really interesting." So ... we sat through the credits, and there it was ... the very thing Xavier had been putting to his mutant ethics class as a question, he simply went and did - he telepathically communicates with the woman colleague who is taking care of the vegetave, "consciousless" man ... indicating he had done what he had spoken of. Somehow that odd look on his face when phoenix has him suspended in the air just before he "dies," that look that you cannot tell whether it is simply a grimace from the sheer physio-psychic force, or whether it is an oddly evil and menacing smile towards Wolverine - very well may be the latter. I immediately thought of Xavier's transplanting or migrating of his conscious/mind/soul into the vegetative man as aligned with Voldemort's favorite "life-saver" - his horcruxes. Xavier puts his soul into a body it was not originally united to, in a sense he "cruxes" or "crosses" two things that were not meant to be together - his soul was meant to be with his body. Some might think that this puts Charles Xavier in a pretty dim light, so I'll just come right out and say it: I think he is the true villain of the whole trilogy. You find as much in Logan/Wolverine's reaction at being told what Xavier had originally done to Grey - forced the control of her powers. Here we see a much uglier side of Xavier: "I don't need to explain myself ... least of all to you." (emphasis added). The better path would have been formation through personal relationship and simply, to echo Dumbledore, the amazing power of love. This is an "under the surface" but very strong theme in this movie. It is basically the element of volitional negation, the ability to say no to a certain action or course of action, use of power etc. Rogue chooses to extremely suppress her powers (I think the last scene with magneto shows that the cure does not work permanently, one cannot simply eradicate imagination, but in certain circumstances and situations, for the higher good, one can practice mortification of it) in order to be with Bobby in the human form of tactile contact. Part of the rightness in her case lies in the particular nature of her power: women are naturally more empathetic than men, but Rogue's level of empathy reaches a level where the actual life force is drained. The point in the movie is that she has the right to make that choice to sublimate that particular power so that her empathy can remain at a natural level and, by movie's end, she can complete male-female pairing with him. Free Will This is ability to say "no" is symbolized most strongly in the boy mutant whose genes provide the "cure." He is a true mutant, truly supra-physical power, but one that symbolizes the ability, in free will, to say no - and this mutant power deserves to live the same as Magneto's and others' (and I loved Kitty Pride's exercise of cunning in adapting to taking on a massive villain without her powers when protecting the boy - naturally, if she's close enough to protect the boy, her powers don't work, but neither do Jughead's. ) The nature of Xavier's denial of the importance of free will, as contra-Dumbledore (note that in the traditional Augustinian "psychological model of the Trinity" the precise and most basic function of the will, is to love), strikes me in a particular instance in Rowling's latest installment (which I have listened to twice recently) - Dumbledore (contra-Xavier) tells Harry that to coerce Slughorn by magic to share the memory, simply will not work, and in the end Felix Felicis simply helps Harry set the stage. Once the alcohol has helped Sluggo drop his defenses so that he will actually listen to what Harry is saying (rather than what Harry is saying falling on "deaf ears" that are effectually deafened by the wall of clamorously defensive arguments Sluggo has built up in his own mind - ie, the alcohol simply helps Harry actually be heard out), it is Harry's honest arguments (sans magic) that do the positive convincing, and Sluggo gives the memory freely, of his own volition (just because he will not remember it in the morning does mean he does not act rightly fully of his own accord). Natural and Supernatural In the end there is a question that neither X-Men nor Harry Potter ask on the material level, but rather leave open, and that is the question the supernatural, or Grace. For such moral formation and support (vs mutant-power forcing, psychic manipulation by Xavier) to work in the case of Jean Gray (and indeed for any and all of us, since we all possess the power of imagination and thus the power to abuse it) would take Grace. Since what Grace facilitates (the material characteristics of moral action) is precisely what the symbols or a morality tale are representing, any unique or "allegorical" representation of Grace appears more like a Deus Ex Machina (although there can be great and lesser "hints" of a presence or power coming into the story from above its actual scope, and I would say the Harry Potter series definitely has a stronger such presence in it, with elements such as Buckbeak, but I must say I did love the Angel character in X3, especially the swooping save of his father). This is simply the way morality tales work. Imagination After noticing the Horcrux connection I began thinking about the movie along the lines of what I have thought about Harry Potter, particularly along the lines of seeing the imagination as the fore-runner for Rowling's "magic" ("fore-runner" meaning I think her "magic" has many facets and correpsondances at different level, that it has a multi-faceted and multi-valent breadth and depth to it, but I think the single actual supra-physical power that it corresponds to is the imagination ... "supra-physical" meaning it is above and beyond the physical - if I am big and beafy I can pick you up and move you from one place to another by brute physical force, and I might even be able get you to do certain things by threatening to kill you, by threat of physical violence, but to motivate you do these things without such physical coercions, that takes powers above and beyond the more purely physical) Now, I have been tossing this around a lot, like simply because I postulated that "magic" in Harry Potter and "mutant powers" represent the imagination, that makes it so. So, here is the "evidence" portion. Scott/Cyclops is vision (the power of the eyes) and it is he who resurrects Jean/Phoenix from the watery grave. But then what happens? Imagination (Phoenix) perverted by controlling powers, rather than habituated properly through love - unbridled imagination, without guidance of truth habituated by love in interpersonal relationship (a fancy way of saying "family") ... kills vision. Of course, the discussion thus far does not examine the matter of Logan/Wolverine ... which is a pretty important one since he is the second love of Jean Grey, and instead of her killing him like she kills cyclops, he kills her. I'm not saying I have it all put together yet, not by a long shot, but I think it has something to do with the fact that Logan represents some new, deeper manifestation of humanity than Scott does and Jean makes a fatal mistake in movie 2 in choosing Scott over Logan. Maybe Grey, as imagination, should have progressed beyond her love of the eyes to whatever is more fundamentally human (as defined by the Incarnation - which brings healing and regeneration, like Wolverines power) The Imago Dei You may be disappointed here by the lack of verbiage (especially given my verbosity throughout this piece) but the reason is ... it is a mystery - one of the deepest. The power of imagination is so crucial and critical because, somehow, in some very deep way, it flows from the fact that humanity is made Imago Dei - in the image of God. In some mystical way, the power of the imagination is the subjective disposition that mirrors the objective characteristic of being made in God's image. I think that in both Harry Potter and X-Men you see a lot of instances that hint at this, glimpses of a deep and profound truth about the uniqueness of human dignity and the distinct powers of humanity, particularly the ability to see not only with the physical eyes but with the eyes of the mind and heart, in fact able to see higher truths with them ... which is basically what the fore-going ramble has been, an attempt to help to see those glimpses. Post-Script Just an afterthought ... Kelsey Grammer is great as beast. The whole logic of why he was such a good choice is evident in one line: in the final battle scene Wolverine says, " I thought you were a diplomat" and beast replies "well, all men reach a point where ... well, you get the point!" in a very Frasier Crane way. (But I really missed nightcrawler - great character)