Mark's Interpretations of Movies, Series, Books, Music, Games etc.

This is basically an answer to a question about enlightenment and an interpretation of the show Lodge 49:

Is it necessary to be enlightened, awakened, or aware? Can one live a normal life without these things?

Thomas Gray wasn’t wrong when he coined the phrase “Ignorance is Bliss” and enlightenment/awakening/awareness are pretty much the opposite of ignorance.

“Bliss’ is defined as “perfect happiness, great joy”.

So, if enlightenment, etc. are the opposite of ignorance and if ignorance is bliss…

...you see where I’m going with this, right?

The picture above is of Sean “Dud” Dudley (played by Wyatt Russell) in the series Lodge 49.

Dud and his father had a pool-cleaning business. To an outsider looking in, it may have seemed boring, but cleaning pools was Dud’s Bliss, but then Dud’s father died and Dud didn’t know how to run the business without him.

So, Dud (who was already Enlightened, by the way - we all are, we just usually don’t know we are) is “awakened” by the death of his father and has to go on a series of adventures to come to understand that while he certainly had Bliss, his life needed more Depth.

A couple of phenomenal quotes by Dud (the Enlightened Fool):

• All I can feel is the shadow. And I wish my dad were here to see where I am. See where I'm going. But I know that the only reason that I'm here is because Liz and I lost him. And sometimes I don't know how to square that. I don't know if I can handle paying that kind of price. Everything is all tangled, the good stuff and the bad stuff. It just seems unfair. And on some days, all of the beautiful things in my life break my heart. Will it always feel this way?

• My life was perfect, but I didn’t realize it was perfect until later.

Enlightenment, awakening, awareness - none of these things are necessary to live a “normal” life. None of these things are necessary to live.

However, they are necessary to be aware of and understand all the nuances of living and that is the great dichotomy that they represent: to be aware of all of the good, one also has to be aware of all of the bad.

Enlightenment is the greatest cosmic joke ever because you could chase it your whole life only to catch it and realize that you already had it - maybe somewhere way back in your past or it was in your pocket the whole time.

• We cannot be more sensitive to pleasure without being more sensitive to pain. - Alan Watts

Here we are presented with two female characters. One of these women will take the Soul Diver’s Journey to completion through Frozen and Frozen II and the other woman will take the World Weaver’s Journey path to completion through both movies as well.

There is, however, one caveat to that statement: since Frozen begins with the women as children, we have to understand that they begin their Journeys from the exact same point - in The “Perfect” World, in the depths of Love.

Every single one of us is born into The “Perfect” World. Some of us are fortunate enough to remain on that path, but the larger percentage of us will most likely be forced into the world of Labor and have to become Soul Divers in order to bring ourselves back to oneness and wholeness.

This is no different for Anna and Elsa in Frozen. Both are princesses living in a beautiful castle, in a beautiful land and both are carefree and happy children. There is no more “Perfect” World than that.

Unfortunately - or perhaps it’s very fortunate - there is no truly Perfect World. The Death of Innocence is a very real event for all of us and for Anna and Elsa it comes when Elsa accidentally strikes Anna in the head with her ice powers. And with this Death of Innocence step, Trauma enters the lives of the young girls.

It is at this point that Elsa is forced into the Lands of Labor - or perhaps “Slavery” in this case - when she is told to no longer use her powers. She is told to “Conceal it, don’t feel it.”

Woah, woah, woah, woah, woah…”Conceal it, don’t feel it”?????? That’s some bad fucking parenting, Mr. King of Arendelle. Did he love Anna more than Elsa? Sacrifice one child to save the other?

Whatever the case, without that bad parenting we wouldn’t have much of a story and I wouldn’t get to explain my binary Journey theory with this movie. As I was saying, Elsa has been forced to shut away a part of who she is. Her powers don’t manifest without her emotions…

…our powers and special talents don’t manifest without our emotions and emotions come from the depths of Love. Without them we walk the cold and lonely wastes of The “Mundane” World - a world of only Labor.

Not that Labor is bad by any stretch of the imagination. Never assume I’m saying anything like that, my Dear Listeners. We need both Love and Labor to be Whole and Complete individuals and to create a better world.

So, with Elsa now removed from The “Perfect” World and living in her “Conceal, don’t Feel” Noose of the Pretender loop, what has become of Anna?

After Anna had her head frozen, her parents took her to the trolls where their Shaman forcibly removed all memories of Elsa’s power from Anna’s mind.

Is this movie just about bad parenting and poor choices made by elders? Thank the Goddess grandpa troll left the “fun” intact or we, once again, wouldn’t have a movie left to talk about.

Sadly, this forced removal of memories causes Anna to live her life in a loop. This is what I refer to as The Denial of the Broken Glasses step of the World Weaver’s Journey, but in Anna’s case she’s no longer aware that her rose-coloured glasses were broken, so her being stuck is not her fault in the slightest.

What’s interesting is that Elsa always has within her the power to change their lives. Were she a little more rebellious we would have a much different story once again. However, since Elsa is obedient and compliant and because she believes that her power is dangerous, she locks herself away physically and emotionally and refuses to see the Truth within her.

Elsa’s Call of the Sea is to not be afraid of her own power, but all of her conditioning convinces her to continually turn away from that Call. Even when the girls’ parents are lost at sea - what should be another Death of Innocence moment and what should break them both out of their prisons - Elsa’s conditioning prevents both girls from moving forward.

So, here we are with two princesses both stuck in loops of behaviour that were essentially forced upon them. One on the verge of a Soul Diver’s Journey and the other on the verge of a World Weaver’s Journey.

When you really think about it, how strong was Anna to be able to endure being trapped in that castle for years and not lose her hopeful outlook on life? She could’ve easily slumped down into the sloughs of despair and become a bitter and angry villain.

In most fairy tales this is where a Faery Godmother would arrive to rescue our Damsel in a Dress, but in Frozen Elsa is the one with magic powers that are locked away, so Responsibility and Maturity in the form of Coronation Day take the place of Anna’s Deal With the Fae step of her World Weaver’s Journey. It’s on this day that the castle is opened up and Anna is finally set free.

This “opening up” also leads to Elsa being forced to finally answer her Call of the Sea.

You see, Anna and Elsa aren’t whole in and of themselves yet. They need each other to be complete at this point. I could actually make an argument that one or the other of them doesn’t exist: that one is merely the psychological construct from the mind of the other.

So, when Anna finally confronts Elsa about why she shut Anna out of her life for so many years, she forces Elsa to actually feel her feelings rather than to conceal them. Anna is Elsa’s Destroyer. When it comes to emotions, Anna is a Mentor of sorts since Elsa no longer feels her own.

Suppressing one’s emotions for years and then suddenly being forced to confront them almost always results in a blow-up of some kind. Bruce Banner turns into Hulk, Vanya Hargreeves cracks the moon, Jean Grey becomes a weapon of mass destruction, and Queen Elsa sets off the next ice age.

Because the castle is now open, because she has to face Anna and her people and her Self, Elsa flees Arendelle and heads for the solitude of the mountains. This is her Dive into the Deep moment, because while she is running away, sometimes you have to climb a distant mountain to find yourself.

Anna is determined to find her sister even though she knows nothing of the outside world. In World Weaver’s Journey terms, I’ve called this step Leaving the Waters, which is immediately followed by The Brilliant City step...or more accurately The Dark Forest (my original intended name for this step) which is exactly where Anna ends up - in a dark and frozen forest. I swear I didn’t use this movie as my template. My World Weaver’s Journey model was developed from numerous fairy tales, movies and books.

In The Dark Forest, we see that Anna truly is a capable adventurer. Victim or Chosen One is the next step of her Journey, but Anna never plays the Victim card. She does carry the burden of rescuing her sister though.

Every World Weaver has to Meet the Beast at some point during her Journey and Kristoff is certainly one half of Anna’s two-headed beast. She absolutely requires companionship and guidance on her first foray out of the castle.

The other half of Anna’s beast is her almost-evil-at-this-point sister. Think of Elsa as a dark mirror image of Anna at this point in the movie.

Elsa creates her ice castle which is very much her Witch’s Forge step of her Soul Diver’s Journey. The song, Let it Go, is about the death of old and tired thinking and being reborn as a self-reliant and free person. The problem with the Let it Go song is the line “Let the storm rage on” - this is Elsa’s acknowledgement that her identity is linked with her inner turmoil. This is what locks her into a temporary Neverending War loop.

Elsa’s Neverending War is split up in multiple events in this movie, but the true purpose of what she goes through on the mountain and in her ice palace is to determine whether she is going to continue her Soul Diver’s Journey or whether she is going to become the Villain.

And now Elsa must Stand in the Moonlight. She has to meet her complementary energy, her bright and shining mirror image - which, again, is none other than Anna.

Are you beginning to see what I mean about the Soul Diver’s and World Weaver’s Journeys intersecting and interweaving and being mirrors of each other?

Anna is the embodiment of Elsa’s emotional, Love-driven nature. The part of her that wants to be out and be free.

However, Anna is also the reminder that Elsa can’t live in the mountains alone forever. Arendelle is frozen and in need of its queen - and with that statement, perhaps you can already see where I’ll be taking my analysis of Frozen II.

So, Elsa once again accidentally strikes her sister with her ice powers, but this time she hits Anna’s heart instead of her head and, as our shaman friend Grandpa Troll says, it’s easier to fix the head than the heart.

Maybe. I’m not entirely convinced of the truth of that statement, but it’s kind of beside the point.

The actual point is that Anna’s heart begins to freeze - Elsa’s powers have finally knocked down Anna’s upbeat and hopeful emotional centre. This leaves Anna at her Standing on the Shoreline step of her World Weaver’s Journey where she must decide if she is going to abandon her sister or continue to believe that she can be saved.

Of course, Elsa is the Soul Diver and must ultimately save herself, but every Soul Diver still needs someone to believe in them and cheer them on.

Due to circumstances, there is a short time where Anna must abandon her sister. First she believes that Hans can heal her frozen heart. Then she believes that Kristoff will be the one to do it, so she braves the storm to find him.

The storm, of course, is merely a reflection of Elsa’s inner turmoil - as I’ve been saying ever since I analysed Sucker Punch, the Outer World is merely a reflection of what our Inner World plays on its stage. The storm is Elsa’s "The Joker" step of her Soul Diver’s Journey. It’s the Joker's Temptation to run away again. The Temptation to not continue moving forward, but to climb the mountain once again and start the entire death and rebirth cycle all over again.

But take very special note here of when the storm ends. Hans tells Elsa that Anna is dead. It doesn’t matter that it’s a lie, the important fact here is that Elsa finally feels something. She is on the tipping point of genuinely giving into or giving up her emotions.

Notice how everything freezes in motion at this point. Even the snow holds its position in mid air. The world holds its breath in anticipation of the next moments of Elsa’s life.

It will take one, final act to send Elsa one way or the other.

With the storm halted, Anna’s vision is no longer obscured. She can see her goal clearly and knows what she must do.

Every good World Weaver must eventually Overcome the Devourer.

Every good World Weaver must eventually set her boundaries.

Every good World Weaver must stand up and say “No!”.

[remeber the scene of Anna freezing as Han’s sword descends and breaks?]

Only an act of love can thaw a frozen heart.

Elsa embraces her frozen sister as the two become one.

Only Anna’s act of love could thaw Elsa’s frozen heart.

Well, whose heart did you think was actually frozen? Anna was always in touch with Love and with her emotions.

And finally, finally, FINALLY Elsa feels her grief - the grief of her lost sister, the grief of her lost parents, the grief of her lost childhood. Elsa feels her emotions. Elsa weeps. Elsa feels and no longer conceals. Elsa’s frozen heart has thawed. And that, my Dear Listeners, is a true Soul Diver’s Acceptance of What Was and What Is moment!

And in that moment of Acceptance, one half of Anna’s two-faced Beast is transformed from Almost-Evil Elsa, to Elsa the Saviour. Anna is unfrozen and Arendelle is also unfrozen as Elsa lets Love flow through her and becomes her own goddess: Death, Resurrection, and Treasure moment complete.

The other half of Anna’s two-faced Beast, Kristoff, is transformed from travelling companion and guide to boyfriend and, while there is no marriage and no apparent sex - this is a movie aimed at kids, after all - there is definitely Pregnancy at this point in Anna’s World Weaver’s Journey. Her life is pregnant with infinite and beautiful possibilities of a hopeful future.

Queen Elsa once again takes her throne and brings that Treasure of Love to her people and to her friends: ice powers certainly do have their benefits and beauty when used appropriately.

As Frozen 2 opens, we see that Anna definitely seems to have everything she’s ever wanted. She’s completely living in her Bliss. She has friends and love and joy and open doors and she has her sister close at hand at all times.

In fact, if you look at the situation intently, you can see that Anna has become the Mother. In World Weaver’s Journey terms, this step is what I call Family Life or Hermit Life. Anna has obviously chosen Family Life and it is the perfect life that she’s always wanted. What she needs to be very, very careful about at this point is holding onto that perfect life too hard.

You see, Anna is actually toeing the line of Villainy throughout a large portion of this movie. She mothers and smothers Elsa to the point of almost becoming a Devouring Mother archetype simply because she is so afraid of losing her connection with her sister once again.

Ralph from Wreck-it-Ralph II was in a very similar situation in his relationship with Vanillope..

Elsa, meanwhile, is in a very different place mentally and emotionally. She actually feels out-of-place. In story-telling terms, this looks very much like a new Soul Diver’s Journey - especially as there seems to be a very literal Call from the Sea that she keeps hearing.

However, Elsa is actually at the Bliss Within the Castle loop of her Soul Diver’s Journey. Elsa has a further and deeper place to go and the Voice she keeps hearing is the help that she needs to get her started on her way.

Now, perhaps you’re slightly confused. If this is Elsa’s Return stage of her Soul Diver’s Journey, shouldn’t she have left from somewhere? Well, she did actually come from somewhere else, she simply doesn’t know that she did. She’s not aware of her mother’s history yet The Voice she hears comes from deep Within her as much as it comes from Without her.

Look at it like I explained in my Kung Fu Panda series: in that series of movies, Po actually came out from the Panda Village. He doesn’t remember the Panda Village until he comes across the ruins of it and he doesn’t know that the pandas have made a new home for themselves in the mountains.

However, in Kung Fu Panda 3, Po’s birth father, Li, finds him and brings him back to the Panda Village. That is Po’s Return to where he came from.

Elsa must now make this same journey. While she doesn’t know it yet, her mother was a Northuldran which makes Elsa, by birth and in spirit a Northuldran. Elsa must Return to her homeland.

And this makes Elsa’s Return Journey very, very interesting. Honestly, I can’t say I’ve seen any other Return story quite like it. You see, Elsa’s Journey is kind of a Return loop of sorts, but not in a bad way, because there are further and deeper levels that she must go along the way - it’s more like a downward spiral.

First there is the evacuation of Arendelle and Elsa must temporarily Abdicate the Throne (not realizing it’s permanent). When they reach the Enchanted Forest a threshold must be crossed and this begins a long and profound Time of Finding for Elsa. She finds out many things about her mother, about her parents, about her family history. And when she enters Ahtohallan she discovers more mysteries and more answers. I believe it’s during the song Show Yourself and while meeting the spirit of her mother that Elsa achieves The Mantle of the Mentor step. Her clothing and appearance even change to take on a more mature look.

And her Time of Finding isn’t done! Remember, these steps don’t have to take place in precise order and some steps can be whole Journeys in and of themselves. So there are even further answers to Find when Elsa jumps into Ahtohallan’s darkest depths.

That, Dear Reader, is some goddamn serious Soul-Work - that’s years of Discovery all packed into a few days or weeks!

I think it may have something to do with how powerful a person is or what kind of talents and capabilities that they may have: the more capable you are, the more you’re going to be tested and challenged and to deeper depths you’ll have to plunge to reach your highest potential - to whom much is given, much will be required.

All this talk about Elsa brings me to an interesting point in our analysis of Frozen II. There’s only 20 minutes of the movie left and our dearest Anna hasn’t budged from the Family Life step of her World Weaver’s Journey. She keeps hearing The Call from Home - the next step of her World Weaver’s Journey - and she took the journey with Elsa to the Enchanted Forest, but Anna really wants the problem to be solved and to have Arendelle back as it was with her sister at her side.

That’s genuine Devourer syndrome: having everything you ever wanted and denying change to yourself and to everyone around you.

This is why the movie talks about change so much. This is why Olaf laments about how everything has been changing ever since they started this particular adventure.

Change is necessary for each one of us to live our best life and to reach our highest potential. We may not like it. We may not want it, but it’s going to happen.

So, here Anna sits in a dark cave. Her sister is frozen and apparently dead. Her friend, Olaf, is unfrozen and seemingly dead. Her boyfriend has, from her point of view, abandoned her for some reindeer games. Anna’s world has completely fallen apart. Everything she’s ever wanted is now out of her reach and possibly gone forever.

In Frozen 2 it’s Anna’s turn to almost be the Villain. I’m quite certain that we all know at least one person who has been in that same position: someone who has lost everything so they lash out at the world and blame everyone and everything for their loss.

Anna could very well become that person at this point in the movie. She could give into the same fear that her grandfather did when he attacked the Northuldran because of their use of magic. Anna could blame magic and the Spirits and the Northuldran for the loss of all she holds dear.

Anna could continue the cycle of generational trauma if she so chose.

And in this moment, who could really blame her? She’s grieving the loss of her sister, her friend, her lover and her kingdom. She’s grieving the fact that her wonderful life was built on the blood of innocents. In her grief she could easily turn a blind eye to that fact: she’s hurting right now, it’s not her fault that someone else was hurt decades before, she didn’t do it.

But one thing we all know about Anna is that she's as strong-willed as Hell itself and she’s just too bloody good to let herself go bad for very long at all.

What comes next is what I call The Challenge of the Throne step of the World Weaver’s Journey. Anna is grieving and hurting, but she has always been a powerful Queen at heart and every good Queen will put her kingdom and subjects first - even if it means having to destroy it (much like Thor had to do in Thor: Ragnarok).

Anna knows that she has to do the next right thing. Her past...our past may be built on lies and heinous acts, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make it right and move forward. Every good World Weaver must make a Sacrifice to reach her Best and Highest Self and in order to move forward, Anna must Sacrifice the dam that holds the waters back from Arendelle.

The dam that holds the deep waters of Love and Emotion and Spirit back from our Labor-driven societies has to be sacrificed and broken down.

Are you seeing the parallels here? Just like Elsa had deeper and deeper levels to dive into, I’m always trying to encourage you to go to deeper levels with your movies and books and art. There are entertainment levels, meta levels, rational levels, political levels, societal levels, personal levels, emotional levels and spiritual levels to all the bits of story-telling and symbolism of the visual elements.

More on that water symbolism in a moment, because what comes before the dam breaks is Anna’s The Empathetic Ruler step of her World Weaver’s Journey. It comes at the moment that she is leading the giants to the dam and Kristoff and Sven swoop in to rescue her from being crushed. Notice how Kristoff doesn’t try to carry her off, he doesn’t yell at her or try to stop her, he just says:

“I’m here. What do you need?”

To which Anna responds with:

“To get to the dam!”

That, my Dear Listeners, is Love and Labor energy in harmony. Anna is fully using her heart and her emotions to guide her and she’s using her head and her leadership abilities, with Kristoff as the embodiment of Labor, to get the job goddamn done.

All of these frenetic actions lead to the dam being destroyed and Arendelle facing imminent doom, but never fear, my Dear Soul Divers and World Weavers, the Fifth Element is here to save you!

[clip from The Fifth Element film]

No, not that Fifth Element! Although it’s kind of the same thing...hmmm…

That’s for another time...The bridge between the elements - YOU! You’re there with your powers to temper the raging waters of Spirit. Waters of the emotions that have been dammed up for far too long. They want to be out, to be free. They aren’t aware that they could destroy everything in their path.

But you are there to save your Self, just as Elsa was to save Arendelle - by basically pulling an epic Gandalf “You shall not pass” moment against that massive tidal wave.

Which brings me to the end of our analysis today with Elsa and Anna having reached their Best and Highest Self and living contentedly in Balanced Worlds.

Elsa is truly a Master of Land and Sea. She seems to have discovered her Tao (Dow) and maybe Overseer is a better word than Overlord in this case. Hmmm…perhaps I need to adjust some of my wording still.

Meanwhile, Anna is embodying the Joyful Guardian as the new Queen of Arendelle and has given herself The Permission of Happiness even though she doesn’t always have her sister in sight at all times.