The Scarab and the Phoenix
Part Two: The Dragon
Part One was an introduction to Egyptians myths. the Sun God Ra and the Goddess Hathor are in eternal war against the chaos demon Apep, a manifestation of the Ouroboros. They die and are reborn in an endless cycle of resurrection.
Fire and Blood
And then came the end of the era of Ra, Sun God and Apex of the Pyramid. His people felt he had grown old and distant, his system had become corrupt and unjust¹. Rebellion was brooding. When the gods learned about the conspiracy, they resolved to unleash the Eye of Ra, as the goddess Hathor, on their own people. Imbued with the power of the Eye, she comes down on falcon wings with tremendous fury, meeting the rebellious army in the desert. She plows through their lines like a meteor, cutting through flesh and armor alike. Her blade knows no mercy, her pleasure no limits. The army of sinners disappears in the whirlwinds of her cleansing fire. The land is soaked with rivers of blood, and thick smoke carries the smell of burnt flesh up to the sky.
Hathor’s higher self goes back to Ra, and delivers the news of victory. But her blood-lust is left on the battlefield, and is molded by the Night into new form: Shekmet, the fire-breathing lioness². She won’t stop until all of humanity is destroyed. As if, in the end, no one is redeemable.
Ra can’t allow this, but neither has the power to stop her. So he gets creative: he orders the brewing of thousands of barrels of red beer, and with the help of humans pours them onto the battlefield. The lioness, mistaking the red liquid for blood, drinks profusely and gets herself really drunk. Suddenly, all she wants is singing, dancing, partying and making love. Why was she even mad in the first place? Ra welcomes her back to the fold with open arms³.
But these events have consequences: Ra will abdicate, and leave room for a new world order, led by the other gods.
The Dragon
The Dragon merges in one symbol Hathor’s totemic forms: lion, falcon , and cobra. The dragon as we imagine it today is an invention of medieval folklore, later developed by modern fantasy. But its lineage can be traced back to the ancient Ouroboros, the fundamental natural force. It is often interpreted by civilizations an existential threat to the constituted order, in forms like Apep (Egypt), Jörmungandr (Scandinavia), or even Satan (in its serpent form)⁴. On the other hand, Ophion (or Oceanus, Greece) lies with Eurynome and generates the Cosmic Egg, origin of the universe⁵: the Ouroboros has both a creative and a destructive aspect, making it a symbol of transmutation⁶. These old representations are difficult to fully recognize as dragons, because some of the elements, like wings and fire, remain scattered in the respective mythologies. Furthermore, in what sense would a dragon represent femininity?
In Greek mythology the fire element would seem pertinent to Hephaestus, the god of crafting, or Prometheus. This line of inquiry may lead us to consider the dragon in its masculine aspect. But fire finds its oldest application in nutrition and heating: in this aspect, it’s pertinent to Hestia⁷, the goddess of the household. Houses were built around the hearth, where the family gathers to share meals and warmth. Hestia’s fire symbolizes home, unity and affection: the center of the house is the warm heart of a woman, puffing gentle smoke out the chimney’s throat.
Hestia is often represented on a chariot pulled by two fire-breathing Dragons.
In a time before civilization, fires were not lit in a house: they were kept perpetually burning in a cave. Hestia is the legacy of the Matron, the burning heart of the cave⁸. Her power depends on the perceived value of resource provision versus procreation. Anybody can provide resources, but only women can use them to further the clan. Women, imbued with generative powers, must be the recipients of these resources and transmute them into human form. They act exactly like the Ouroboros: a woman’s body rearranges elements of chaos and gives them coherence. Her burning heart ignites the flame of the soul with love.
Her swollen belly is the Cosmic Egg: she fills every new child with the potential to be the seed of a new world. Whom women choose to invest their powers in, is of paramount importance: Matrons judge and select men worthy of their daughters. From an evolutionary perspective, men unsuccessful at this ritual are in the exact same category as those eaten by predators. A woman’s judgment, rage, or rejection can be so dreadful to a man, that he comes to imagine the Matron’s cave as the belly of a fire-breathing beast⁹. The same fire that can warm his heart, can also turn it to ashes. Hence the metaphor of the Hero entering the cave to prove his worth against the Dragon, and conquer the virgin. Darwin observed that sexual selection is a crucial part of natural selection. This leaves ground to distinguish between the Enemy, the Ouroboros as a threat to civilization, and the Dragon in the feminine sense: the former represents environmental pressures, the latter sexual selection. Dragons are often guardians to gates, gardens, or, more overtly, to princesses. They are also found guarding treasures, a general symbol indicating something of great value, like an offspring: Dragons incorporate a mother’s protectiveness. The most dangerous wild animal to encounter is a mother with her children, especially if she’s old. In this protective aspect, Hathor is represented as a cobra. Finally, a matriarchal order¹⁰ would have left a blind spot to excessive assimilation: that happens when, instead of demanding abundant resources to support its creative powers, the feminine demands everything. The Dragon then becomes a monster: the all-swallowing Ouroboros, the devouring mother, the toothed vagina. Graves suggests that neolithic kings were ritually sacrificed by their queens every year, often in cannibalistic rituals. Females of various species have been known to require their mates’ sacrifice¹¹, thus transmuting the males into their own offsprings. Or even, under extreme circumstances, to cannibalize their children¹².
According to to the Egyptian myth, Hathor’s judgment and protectiveness unleash a power that risks swallowing humanity entirely, but is redirected by Ra towards a revolution: the birth of a new world, of which he is no longer part. In other words, Hathor, the Dragon, lays an Egg filled with potential, and Ra, the Hero, fertilizes it with self sacrifice. The Egyptians suggest that feminine power either comes to fruition, with a the help of a masculine element, or ends in blood: it’s a metaphorical elevation of menstruation and conception.
Awareness
WARNING: huge spoilers ahead for Game of Thrones.
Daenerys Targeryan and Jon Snow both carry the signs of divinity. Like the gods of every mythology they engage in incest, and are themselves fruits of an incestuous dynasty. Jung points out that these acts constitute taboo in every society, precisely because they violate a privilege of the gods. It is not surprising then, that the pharaohs as well, who thought of themselves as of gods, would famously engage in systematic inner breeding. The obsession of Egyptian mysticism with eternal life points to another sign: both Jon and Daenerys go through death and rebirth. Jon is resurrected by the the Lord of Lights like a warrior Jesus. He is both Hero and Savior.
Daenerys has an abortion, kills her husband, lies on a funerary pyre with him and three Dragon Eggs: she comes back as the Mother of Dragons, incarnation of a power capable of saving or annihilating the world. Like Hathor, she protects the realms of men against the Night King and the forces of chaos, come to swallow civilization back into the coils of natural order. The Feminine fights the Enemy, Dragon fights Dragon.
Even more importantly, when Daenerys is resurrected, her Eggs disclose like the seed of a revolution. The Dragon Queen, once weak and passive, has come to know a world of slavery, depredation, misery, corruption, and injustice. Usurpers claim a throne that is rightfully hers. Now she has the power to wipe out this cosmic order in an orgy of fire, and bring about a new world of freedom and justice.
She lies on the cusp between creation and destruction. Her advisors call her to restrain her worst impulses, but her feelings are too strong. Her heart is the source of her power, and only Jon’s love can infuse that power with creative intent. But, withheld by the taboo of incest, Jon cannot deliver, and everything ends in blood. When Daenerys’ feelings finally trump her restraint, sinners and innocents alike disappear in the clouds of her holy fire. The conquered capital trembles and falls, the blood of soldiers, women, and children runs through the streets, and the air is filled with the smell of ashes and burnt flesh. Daenerys Stormborn of house Targaryen, Unburnt, Breaker of Chains, Protector of the Realm, Mother of Dragons… and Eye of Ra.
What Daenerys calls justice has become destroying: the Hero Jon Snow finds himself in the same position as Ra. He is left with two options: being faithful to his queen, and join her in destroying the world. Or betraying and kill her to save humanity. Here’s how it played out:
A blade through the heart has replaced fruitful penetration. Is it bound to be either love or death? Jon doesn’t think so: he walks into this confrontation appealing to Daenerys’ awareness, because he knows that’s the only thing that can control the Dragon: Daenerys herself. But all she can see is her own delusional self image of richest queen and great liberator, clouding her mind and numbing her soul. Her true self stays dormant, and she is irredeemably possessed by the Dragon. In betraying her, Jon gets past his morbid attachment to loyalty, which used to define him. Daenerys cannot get past her morbid attachment to feelings, and succumbs to madness.
Ra’s solution might have looked more reasonable. It’s just more cowardly: he renounces trying to raise Hathor awareness, and opts to lower it by inebriation instead. The role of the Hero with respect to the far more powerful Goddess, should be precisely that of a vertical propulsion towards higher consciousness. The Hero always faces overwhelming odds: the spiritual endeavor is heroic because it stacks the thin blade of intention against the mighty dragon of chaos. Choice can be taken in awareness only after looking with clarity at the inner turmoil of emotions, desires, and illusions.
According to the psychoanalytical method, awareness is achieved by bringing subconscious forces into the conscious sphere through verbal discourse. The discourse concerning Heroes has been explicitly developed in the past centuries, while the discourse concerning the Goddess has remained subterranean. The latter has resurfaced after a long period of silence, and invariably focuses on the problem of restraint versus power. Or, as Freud would put it, of repression versus perversion. That is the conundrum Marvel’s Phoenix tries to discern in Part Three: The Phoenix.
- Just like the Louis XIV, the Sun King, shortly before the french revolution.
- Dolores from Westworld undergoes a similar dissociation at the end of season 3.
- Freely inspired to the Egyptian myth: The Destruction of Mankind.
- The Dragon as Enemy is well represented in the movie Beowulf (from the old Germanic saga).
- The Cosmic Egg is well portrayed in: the comic Berserk (chapters: Retribution: The Birth Rite).
- The relationship between destruction and creation is very well represented in Reign: The Conqueror.
- Hesta as described by E.M. Berens in The Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome.
- In Game of Thrones, the burning heart is a symbol carried by Melisandre, a cahracter sharing traits with the Vestals, priestesses of Hestia.
- In today’s stereotypes, the dragon would be the over-critical mother in law, or the femme fatale.
- The imagery for the neolithic, European matriarchy described, relies on Graves’ The Greek Myths (Chapter 1).
- In ethology: nuptial gifts.
- In ethology: parental cannibalism.
