Z-Spaces: An Animorphs Psychochronography #7

[poparena.livejournal.com]

#7 - Inside your head. Inside this planet. Inside the fabric of space and time (#7 The Stranger)

It's April 1997. March harbors in the American debut of the British pop band known as the Spice Girls with their single "Wannabe," which actually went over better in the States than in the UK, and signaled a change between the soulful R&B and rap dominated chart scene to a more glitzy artificial pop scene, though not without a fight, as April was owned by Puff Daddy, Mase and "Can't Nobody Hold Me Down." The Notorious B.I.G. is shot dead. In theaters, the two Star Wars sequels gets re-released, Jim Carry hits it big with Liar Liar. Other releases include Jungle 2 Jungle, Cats Don't Dance, Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie, Chasing Amy, Anaconda, 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag and Volcano. DVD is launched in the United States. Toonami begins on Cartoon Network, and Ellen DeGeneres comes out of the closet, both in real life and in her sitcom "Ellen." "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night" comes out on the Playstation and becomes one of my favorite games of all time.

In real news, President Clinton bans funding for human cloning, the Heaven's Gate cult commits mass suicide, and the Algerian towns of Thalit, Haouch Khemisti and Omaria are massacred by guerrillas. The first space burial happens while the early days of stem cell research produce the first artificial human chromosomes.

Four months prior, Carl Sagan passed away. Two months after, Contact, a film adaption of Sagan's 1985 science fiction novel, would hit theaters. An astronomer, cosmologist and science popularizer, Carl Sagan was a key figure in making scientific ideas accessable to the common man. His methods of doing this were largely through poetic works. Sagan was as much a man of words as he was a man of science. To date, no one has claimed his title as world's most successful science orator (It is that reason why he is so easy to put into those Symphony of Science music videos you see on Youtube, his poetic flair translates easy to music).

Sagan's most famous work was "Cosmos," a thirteen-part miniseries that first aired in 1980 (Katherine Applegate would have been twenty-four at the time). Each hour long episode explored different aspects of cosmology, from the cellular level to the edges of the universe, with Sagan presenting as a kind nth-dimensional tour guide. "Cosmos" never fell into the Discovery Channel/talking heads/boring CGI stuff we're so used to with our educational cable today. Instead, Sagan transcended him image from that of a science poet and attaining a level of omnipotence within the television medium. Within the domain of television, as long as an episode of "Cosmos" is playing, Sagan's image is that of cosmic authorship, controlling the medium completely to deliver his message.

Just take the very first episode, "The Shores of the Cosmis Ocean." In it, Sagan leads his audience in a journey through the cosmos, both the factual universe and the realms of ideas, in a starcraft literally made of imagination, unhampered by the limitations of space and time. He takes them on a tour from the far edge of infinity inwards back towards Earth, then back in time to walk through the Library of Alexandria, and finally presenting us with a calender covering all of history, from the Big Bang to now, all the while making it clear where we as a species stand among this grand vastness. Sagan, or at least Sagan's TV image, controls the narrative with absolute power, but he is never preachy, never condescending. He leads his audience to enlightenment with a soft voice and steady hand.

And there's that word again. Enlightenment. I used it earlier to describe the Animorphs personal journey in a previous essay, and people naturally pointed out that, if the Animorphs are becoming more enlightened, then how come they end up so miserable? It's true that enlightenment is often a term used to imply a better state of mind, but it is not entirely synonymous with this. To become more aware of ones surroundings is also to become more aware of its horrors, to become aware of how small you are in grand scheme of things. This is the most essential concept in the works of H.P. Lovecraft, who wrote stories about horrifying beings that could scratch their ass and destroy the Earth in the process, and the process of trying to understand this driving people mad. It's a concept adopted by occult author Kenneth Grant, who postulated that when one expanded ones mind into more mystic areas was not a source of wonder, but of terror.

And with the introduction of the Ellimist, the Animorphs find themselves taking a leap into the deep end of the pool of Lovecraftian implications. The situation changes overnight from that of mere alien invasion of something far more cosmic and primal, of space and the endless spaces between spaces (as hinted with the introduction of the Crayak in the last book, witnessed by Jake while in a state between life and death). Their enlightenment to these situations has an almost immediate emotional effect on the Animorphs, and will only get worse the deeper into the Ellimist/Crayak plot they go.

What's interesting here is how similar the Ellimist and Carl Sagan's TV image operate. The Ellimist isn't quite as honest as Sagan, but manipulates and leads his audience in exactly the same way, showing them the beauty of the world and its place in the cosmos in a magical tour, then leading them through time towards a possible future, then producing fractured dream images to lead the Animorphs like a trail of bread crumbs. Like Sagan, the Ellimist has complete authorship over his domain (but which only hints at his true role in the narrative, which we'll touch on when we get to the Andalite Chronicles).

The Ellimist even places responsibility of the human race on the Animorphs in a similar fashion as Sagan does in many of his works, including the opening of "Cosmos," where he says, "For the first time, we have the power to decide the fate of our planet and ourselves. This is a time of great danger, but our species is young and curious and brave. It shows much promise." It is the same kind of sentimentality for the human race the Ellimist expresses, only now he's given the Animorphs a fake ballot to determine its fate.

Sagan's enlightenment and the Ellimist's enlightenment may lead to two different ends, but they both start in the same place, in the same idea of godlike authorship of a medium. They are, basically, both made of star stuff.

Comments

[box-life.livejournal.com]

Oh man, Symphony of the Night. '97 was a pretty epic year for video games in general, actually.

Also, no one replaces Carl Sagan, but Neil DeGrasse Tyson is doing pretty well as the pop science guy. Less wonder and more snark, but those are the times we live in.

[felinephoenix.livejournal.com]

Also, no one replaces Carl Sagan, but Neil DeGrasse Tyson is doing pretty well as the pop science guy. Less wonder and more snark, but those are the times we live in.

Agreed. I wouldn't want the re-release to reference DeGrasse Tyson instead of Sagan, so to speak, but that would be an interesting change.