How should it end? and other notable questions about the reality of the work.
Coming to the end of it all, the Hero finds the truth behind the lies. Once upon a time, mankind was at global war. There was a constant threat of a planetwide holocaust. Great men, driven by a desire to preserve man, they built The Cradles. There, mankind may sleep until this was all over. But, the combined thoughts, the group dreaming of their minds, it was made powerful, it manifested as The Lies. The abberations that affected the real world today were a direct result of The Dreamers. There, they would collectively dream paradises and nightmares all the while being able to observe the hero and the hero finding them (much like a mirror reflecting a mirror). Here at the end, they have begun to become schizophrenic. Both conjuring evils and aids to the Hero and his companions, they seek to preserve themselves and destroy those that would end their dreaming and save the world from The Lies, but also, they want to see the Hero succeed. It's as if they are being told a tale about the hero. He is the protagonist, and they wish to also see him win. Perhaps the reader is one of the dreamers, seeing this unfold before him, dreaming this adventure into being. If the reader is cheering the Hero on, are they hastening their own demise? If they find in the end that they wanted the hero to die, are they ending their own hopes for life after awakening? Will their nightmares end the world for good? Is the world a world at all? What is the reader? Will they end the world when they awake? Could the protagonists be a part of The Lies? Is this whole adventure a dream within the dream of one who is cradle bound? For that matter, is a reader one of the cradle bound? When the reader closes the book, is the room they see before them not just another dream? Maybe that is why the story follows the Hero's Journey so closely -- we find those archetypes because Jung was right.
Coming to the end of it all, the Hero finds the truth behind the lies. Once upon a time, mankind was at global war. There was a constant threat of a planetwide holocaust. Great men, driven by a desire to preserve man, they built The Cradles. There, mankind may sleep until this was all over. But, the combined thoughts, the group dreaming of their minds, it was made powerful, it manifested as The Lies. The abberations that affected the real world today were a direct result of The Dreamers. There, they would collectively dream paradises and nightmares all the while being able to observe the hero and the hero finding them (much like a mirror reflecting a mirror). Here at the end, they have begun to become schizophrenic. Both conjuring evils and aids to the Hero and his companions, they seek to preserve themselves and destroy those that would end their dreaming and save the world from The Lies, but also, they want to see the Hero succeed. It's as if they are being told a tale about the hero. He is the protagonist, and they wish to also see him win. Perhaps the reader is one of the dreamers, seeing this unfold before him, dreaming this adventure into being. If the reader is cheering the Hero on, are they hastening their own demise? If they find in the end that they wanted the hero to die, are they ending their own hopes for life after awakening? Will their nightmares end the world for good? Is the world a world at all? What is the reader? Will they end the world when they awake? Could the protagonists be a part of The Lies? Is this whole adventure a dream within the dream of one who is cradle bound? For that matter, is a reader one of the cradle bound? When the reader closes the book, is the room they see before them not just another dream? Maybe that is why the story follows the Hero's Journey so closely -- we find those archetypes because Jung was right.
