The story so far: archetypal dynamics

Episode IV: A New Hope is the most classic and straightforward expression of the quest in the Star Wars cycle. Frustrated farm boy Luke leaves the arid Tatooine (infantile identification with the mother) where he has grown up to become a rebel fighter pilot. He’s prompted to do so by his first ever glimpse of Anima (R2D2’s projection of Leia’s plea to Obi Wan for help): she connects him with his latent desire to become like the father who, he believes, died heroically, fighting for the rebellion. The destruction of his home and family as Vader (Shadow/Bad Father) tears up Tatooine in his search for R2D2 and the information Leia has hidden in its circuitry then makes Luke’s departure inevitable. Having been miraculously rescued from death at the hands of Tusken Raiders and given a lightsabre by the mysterious Obi Wan (Spirit, which typically acts to rescue, inspire and provide talismanic resources), who has powers to channel the Force (ie the relationship with the unconscious), Luke makes contact with the earthy, dynamic Han Solo. The three men set off to help Leia and find her aboard the vast, dark sphere of the Death Star, the Empire’s greatest weapon. With the help of the others Luke rescues Leia from the clutches of Vader and, introjecting the Spirit in the form of the now-dead Obi Wan, he joins the rebel fighters and destroys the Death Star by flying along a deep canal in its surface and dropping a bomb through a tunnel into its heart – symbolically destroying the possibility of re-absorption by the Mother. All the elements are here: the princess needing rescue, the wise magician and the destruction of the monster, culminating in a kind of coronation ceremony at which Luke and Han are awarded medals by Leia in the presence of the assembled rebel army. This is a relatively uncomplicated fable exploring the infant’s separation from the Mother, ie an unconscious identification, in order to achieve consciousness that is represented in the recognition from Anima in the final ceremony.

By contrast Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kershner, 1980) is a darker film and the dragon-slaying is both less successful and less central to the action. Nonetheless, it shares many of the heroic motifs of the first film. Again Luke leaves his (new) home when Vader discovers and attacks the rebels’ base on the ice planet Hoth; but not before he has again been rescued from death (this time by freezing) by a vision of Obi Wan and the miraculous appearance of Han. Where in Episode IV Luke’s greater consciousness was brought about by the death of Obi Wan, in this film he more deliberately seeks out contact with the unconscious, going to the misty, forested swamp planet of Dagobah to seek training from the one remaining Jedi Master, Yoda, who appears as a kind of ancient wood sprite speaking an archaic form of English. Then, in the middle of the film, we meet for the first time the Emperor who commands Vader. Suddenly a space opens up between the archetypal Shadow and his agent, the Dark Father, who acts through Luke’s father complex. The distinction between Father and Shadow, and that between the personal complex and the archetype, (ie the interaction between the two layers of the unconscious proposed by Jung) is explored in a pivotal scene in which the Emperor and Vader discuss Luke and his significance. It is at this point we see a gap between to open between the Emperor’s agenda and Vader’s. Vader is given the task of bringing Luke to the Dark Side and sets a trap by taking Han and Leia hostage. Luke succeeds in rescuing Leia but Han, the embodied, earthy male ego quality, is left frozen alive in carbonite. In the final scenes Luke confronts Vader on a gantry above a vast reactor shaft and is subjected to a psychological assault reminiscent of Christ’s temptation in the wilderness. Vader tells Luke that he does not know his own importance: ‘you have only begun to discover your power. Join me and I will complete your training.’ When Luke refuses Vader inflicts a severe wound, severing Luke’s right hand, which clutches the lightsabre he inherited from Anakin. This physical wounding is followed by the psychological blow: ‘Luke, I am your father.’ Intending to trade on Luke’s sense of the inescapability of his own darkness, Vader tries again: ‘join me, and we will rule the galaxy as father and son.’

In this early bout in the Oedipal struggle, then, the Father is clearly the superior force, energised by the personal father complex. Luke must mature further, taking ownership of his own projected darkness, before he can confront him as an equal. The Father’s very domination and savagery is in itself an agent of progress in the quest: the severing of Luke’s hand, clutching the inherited lightsabre, represents the need for him to separate from his over identification with the Good Father, the shadow side of which complex is the projection of Vader the Bad Father. When they meet again in Episode VI Vader will acknowledge Luke’s greater maturity and power represented by the lightsabre he has built for himself.

At the end of the film Luke is rescued again, this time by Leia in a rare show of ability with the Force that will become significant later on; but the overall feeling is of escape rather than triumph and it is not until Episode VI that we see the quest again in the ascendant. At the archetypal level this is a narrative of fragmentation, failure and death, the breakdown necessary for psychic growth. The fact that Episode V is largely concerned with Luke’s experience of failure is the first intimation that Lucas’s relationship with the notion of quest may not be uncomplicated as Episode IV implied.

This connection between failure/death and psychic rebirth in Episode V is underscored through repeated use of womb/birth images, initially suggested in the destruction of the Death Star in Episode IV. At the beginning of Episode V the rebels have made their base in caves tunnelled into the ice of Hoth; early on Luke is attacked by a massive ice beast and taken back to its cave, where it intends to devour him; Leia and Han take refuge in what they think is an asteroid cave but have in fact flown into the mouth of a vast space slug; on Dagobah Luke enters a mysterious, primal cave and duels an image of Vader. Beheading him, Vader’s iconic helmet melts away to reveal Luke’s own dead face. After his rescue from death by Obi Wan we next see Luke in the medical centre suspended, unconscious, in a glass tank full of clear fluid that is healing him; and after his fight with Vader and revelation of his paternity Luke falls through Cloud City and through a tunnel at its base, emerging to be saved by Leia. This wealth of image reflects, among other things, the interior action of the film; the struggle is Luke’s confrontation of his own darkness, his journey into the unconscious and subsequent rebirth. The images make clear the danger inherent in this interior quest: the return to the womb provides new information but also always holds the risk of destruction.

The more usual quest structure is restored, at least overtly, in Episode VI: The Return of the Jedi in that it sees the final destruction of the Empire. By now Luke is himself close to full consciousness (ie a Jedi) and is therefore able to turn rescuer rather than rescued. He snatches Leia and the defrosted Han from Jabba the Hutt who has been holding them on Tatooine – the home planet from which Luke originally escaped. Here, then, the ego is able to release the other elements of the psyche from the power of the unconscious and find right relationship with them, and particular Anima. On the forested moon Endor, and by moonlight, he talks to Leia about her mother as a way of bringing her to the realisation that they are brother and sister. Having stabilised this previously troubling relationship, Luke turns to the task of confronting the Shadow, the split off Bad Father he now recognises as his own projection. In a climactic scene with the Emperor and Vader he names Anakin Skywalker and calls his identity out of Vader; Vader finally turns away from the Dark Side and destroys the Emperor who has been orchestrating the dark power throughout the films. It’s therefore Vader who’s the triumphant hero, finally delivering on Obi Wan’s conviction (in Episodes I-III, which of course were written after the making of Return of the Jedi) that Anakin is the Chosen One who will bring balance to the Force. Luke’s restoration of galactic order is thus achieved through separation from the Mother and a coming to terms with the power of the Father, with whom he has finally been able to have dialogue in full consciousness. Peace and order is restored in the galaxy and in the Skywalker family as masculine consciousness apparently reaches its zenith.

Episode I: The Phantom Menace (George Lucas, 1999) goes back in the chronology of Star Wars to follow the development of Anakin Skywalker, the child who will become both the villain and the final hero of Episode VI. Already, therefore, it shifts our perspective on who the hero of Star Wars really is and the possibilities he embodies. In the course of the film Anakin is rescued both from his mother, Shmi, and from an identification with the Mother represented again by Tatooine, the planet on which he is kept as a slave. As in Episodes IV-VI, he makes this break with the help of Spirit (Jedi Qui Gon Jin) and Anima (Queen Amidala and her alter ego Padmé). Amidala is leader of one of the peoples on the paradisiacal planet Naboo, paralleling Leia’s relationship with the doomed Alderaan. Naboo has been invaded by the capitalist/imperialist forces of the Trade Federation with the covert collusion of Senator Palpatine, the future Emperor. In the climax of the film the young Anakin, a miraculously gifted pilot with Jedi qualities, destroys the mother ship that controls the invading army of the Trade Federation; the scene is intended to parallel Luke’s destruction of the Death Star, the figurative dragon-slaying.

Episode II: Attack of the Clones is set ten years after Episode I and Anakin is now in some ways a clearer parallel to Luke, not least in that he too is attracted to the role of romantic hero: as Amidala’s bodyguard he has the opportunity to save her from an assassination attempt. But where Luke was unfailingly courageous and highly principled, Anakin is resentful of his Jedi superiors, in particular his teacher Obi Wan, and struggles with his own ambition and desire for power. Irritating the teenage Anakin may be, but he is more complex in his relationship to the quest than Luke was/will be. The primary focus for his inner conflict is his relationship with Anima and the Mother: he wants to be the romantic hero for both of them. Anakin is haunted by his longing to return to his mother, so much so that he abandons his Jedi duties to find her. He returns to Tatooine but arrives only in time to see her die, a trauma that triggers a crisis of violent fury and denial. Anakin’s desire to return to his mother is in direct conflict with his quest to become a Jedi, and also seems to be negatively associated with his growing attachment to Padmé (Anima). Where Luke obligingly complied with the requirements of the quest, the need to separate from the Mother, find relationship with the unconscious maternal, allow the assistance of Anima and Spirit and find dialogue even with the Shadow element of the psyche, Anakin rebels. This repeating pattern of rebellion is in itself interesting – Luke is a rebel fighter but in fact wants to restore order (the Republic), where the Empire in fact stands for a more fundamental rebellion against the principles of compromise and collectivity. In Episode II the Republic does indeed seem a doubtful enterprise that warrants resistance, weak and vulnerable as it is to manipulation and the goal of Anakin’s quest is less clear. Nonetheless, Anakin and Padmé participate in the defeat of the Droid Army mustered by forces opposed to the Republic and the film ends with a triumph of sorts, or at least the perpetuation of the flimsy status quo. The final scene is the marriage of Anakin and Padmé in the Eden of Naboo, the ego tying Anima closely to itself.

Anakin is therefore altogether a more troubling kind of hero because of his ambivalence about the value of the quest. He wants it all: the dyadic relationship with the Mother, erotic connection with Anima and her promise of discovering personal destiny, the power of the Father and achievement of consciousness. In Episode III: Revenge of the Sith we see the impossibility of these desires and Anakin’s consequent breakdown into psychosis, his subjection to his own Shadow. This fragmentation is triggered by the Mother, in fact by Padmé’s revelation that she is pregnant. Anakin’s eroticised relationship with Padmé has literally borne fruit and this provokes a crisis of fear, guilt and resentment expressed in his dreams of Padmé’s death in childbirth – dreams that parallel those in that tormented him in Episode II about his mother’s death. The significance of Padmé’s pregnancy is two fold: first it makes manifest the complete elision of Anima with the Mother in Anakin’s psyche and their association both with violence and with absence; and second it expresses the Mother’s role as holder of the potential both of birth and death. Padmé’s pregnancy kills both her and, in a sense, Anakin, but it also produces Luke, Leia and, indirectly, Vader. All three are necessary to the resolution of the galactic/psychic crisis. Nonetheless, his refusal to permit separation from the Mother, now tangling with his Anima relationship, is the catalyst for Anakin’s turn to the Dark Side. The goal of his quest is now hopelessly confused – where once it was clear that the summit of his achievement would be to become a Jedi Master, Anakin ends not by slaying dragons but children, and nearly killing his wife. The moral is that the attempt of the ego to control the activity of archetypes can only end in failure, the acting out of desire for the Anima has troubling results and that the Mother jealously resists the move to separation.

The very repetition of the quest in the two trios of films, separated by twenty years, thus brings to the surface tensions and complexities in the quest archetype. There are two particular matrices of archetypal activity where the complexity operates: the Spirit/Father/Shadow group and the Anima/Mother patterns. The Anima/Shadow axis bridges these two groups of dynamics.