misqueue: grey titmouse(?) sitting amongst blossoms (Default)
misqueue ([personal profile] misqueue) wrote2012-08-04 11:11 am

[Meta] Kurt & Wings -- some brief thoughts

An attempt at meta, sorta. I posted this over on dreamwidth and thought I'd toss it up here too.

So I have kind of a head canon thing for Kurt as the Egyptian Thoth* (magician, boundary crosser extraordinaire, presider over ceremony & ritual [e.g., weddings, funerals, coronations, judgement of the soul] healer, arbiter of death & resurrection), who is associated strongly with the Greek Hermes, and I just spotted Kurt in these shoes on the Fashion of Glee blog. More Kurt + wings/birds/flying, which is even extra neat in my brain given the Kurt's travel by airplane spoilers du jour.

*Thoth/Hermes is like the primo Jungian animus archetype. Oh, is it worth mentioning, Thoth is a bird (Ibis headed)? ETA: Also Odin, whose symbol is a raven. Kurt wears a raven brooch in "Goodbye".


Also, while I'm thinking about Kurt & wings, here are a few bits relevant to ITWOS: Cupid and Psyche.

Cupid is not Hermes-like, but he is another winged thing, and Kurt plays Cupid to Blaine's Psyche in Part V, so I thought it may be worth mentioning a couple things about Kurt (and Blaine) and wings.

The Roman Cupid is interesting, but I am even more interested (in my story) in the resonance of Kurt with Eros (Cupid's Greek counterpart/predecessor/analogue) in this part. Eros, in the Greek take on things, is one of the primordial Gods, and he's no cutesy diapered renaissance cherub, he is Human Desire and sexual power, born of Darkness and Night. He mates with Chaos, within the Abyss, to produce humanity. This is just Wikipedia level stuff, but it's not irrelevant. I believe in symbolic resonance.

Psyche is also winged, once she gains immortality (the girl is a BAMF--I mean, she travels into and out of Hades on her own); she is depicted with butterfly wings. Psyche is both the Greek word for butterfly* and the human mind.

So, the marriage of desire & mind is kind of a potent thing. With wings.

*I won't ramble on about butterfly symbolism too much here, but there is so much with butterflies, not just metamorphosis, but also stuff like healing grief and keeping/transporting secrets and the love of young men and marital bliss and death & resurrection and apparently I am rambling.

eta: I'm a little behind schedule with writing this week, but have good traction today, so I hope I have the next part of ITWOS ready soon, but it may not be posted over the weekend. <3
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[identity profile] likeasouffle.livejournal.com 2012-08-05 04:17 pm (UTC)(link)
LOL I'm so tempted to compare Kurt to Bambi. Ok I'm doing it. Here goes:

Our hero (Kurt/Bambi) starts out naive and innocent, making friends and learning about the world. He sees his mother die when he's very young, and his father takes over raising him. He watches his friends fall in love and become more interested in their love interests than in him. He falls in love himself (Blaine/Faline), and things are great until his relationship is challenged by another aggressive and persistent suitor (Sebastian/Ronno). Our hero proves himself worthy, and his love interest chooses him. They grow in their relationship, but then there's a threat to himself and all his friends (Warblers/fire), and his love interest is injured (rock salt/hunting dogs). But they all get to safety. Later his virility is proven to everyone (Not the Boy Next Door/Faline gives birth to twins) and he becomes the Great Prince of the Forest. Dude, check out the size of his balls antlers!

[identity profile] misqueue.livejournal.com 2012-08-05 08:12 pm (UTC)(link)
OMG, that's awesome! If Bambi hadn't made me cry like I was dying, I'd be tempted to go reread it now.
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[identity profile] likeasouffle.livejournal.com 2012-08-05 08:25 pm (UTC)(link)
I've never read the book. I was talking about the movie. Hopefully it works either way. :)

[identity profile] misqueue.livejournal.com 2012-08-05 08:45 pm (UTC)(link)
I don't know that I've actually seen the whole movie, which is a terrible thing to admit to since I love Disney. Bambi makes me hurt. There's so much pain and death colliding with innocence and hope (so Kurt, yes). The book is good, though, and has the same overall patterns you describe, iirc. Though it has been a really long time since I read it. :)