SPECULATION SW:TFA Inspired by Myths in Ovid's Metamorphoses—Kylo Ren as the Raven, Poe Dameron as the Peacock,

Mythology as inspiration for the film? See the reddit post here complete with citation links:



Some elements of Star Wars: The Force Awakens may have been influenced by mythology, specifically Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which is a compilation of several myths that includes the Greek/Roman gods that share the theme of Transformation, of changing physical characteristics—and the characters themselves—into a new form. For instance, the Raven was cursed to be black, and the peacock receiving the hundred eyes of Argus in its tail. This, I believe, is a potential link with TFA. Hear me out.

The Significance of Mythology and Ovid’s Metamorphoses on Language and Storytelling
Consider this quote regarding the influence of Ovid’s epic masterpiece, particularly in regards to historical and contemporary influence on storytelling itself, rivaled only by the Old Testament and Shakespeare.

“No work from classical antiquity, either Greek or Roman, has exerted such a continuing and decisive influence on European literature as Ovid's Metamorphoses. The emergence of French, English, and Italian national literatures in the late Middle Ages simply cannot be fully understood without taking into account the effect of this extraordinary poem. And the development of a great deal of modern poetry draws no less heavily on Ovid's masterpiece. The only rival we have in our tradition which we can find to match the pervasiveness of the literary influence of the Metamorphoses is perhaps (and I stress perhaps) the Old Testament and the works of Shakespeare.”​

Inspiration for the Filmmakers?
I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that Ardnt, Abrams, and Kasdan et al might’ve been tempted to tap story ideas from that same well-spring for material, namely the Bible itself. Hell, a flaming sword wielded by winged angels goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden/Paradise in Genesis, and Lucas clearly tapped that as source material. They may tap the Bible again, sure, especially the Old Testament (JJ and Larry Kasdan have Jewish roots, so the OT isn’t out of the question). But did they tap the original epics for story ideas? The Odyssey? The Aeneid? Even Ovid’s Metamorphoses? Star Wars has been called a modern-day myth, and it's certainly been influenced thus far by epic mythology. It’s not just a family soap opera in space. Big themes of good and evil are at play. It would make sense that the filmmakers would want to perpetuate Star Wars as an epic story of good and evil. What better place to get ideas than the classical epics? (Note: I agree with others that JJ et al are going to explore the gray area more, similar to what Game of Thrones has done, exploring the area in between the dark and the light with characters struggling between both. I would love the Knights of Ren to be a hybrid, in between, using both the Dark and the Light, though they may be purely dark side users. Many gods in the epic poems were supposedly good then do something unscrupulous, impulsive and maligned in their self-interest.

The First Clue Pointing to Ovid’s Metamorphoses: Character Names
When the first character name cards were released, I began researching the meaning of the names we were given on those trading cards: Poe Dameron, Kylo Ren, Rey, and Finn. Sure, much has been written about these names already, and I don’t necessarily disagree with that speculation. I actually think a lot of it is correct, but I felt there was something deeper to these character names, especially Kylo Ren and Poe Dameron. Obviously, we know Ren is a surname Kylo aquired later after becoming one of the Knights of Ren. JJ said so. And really, that’s been such a fantastic idea for the past little while that it has all of us buzzing with questions and anticipation…the future is wide open with this idea of the Knights of Ren thing plus the potential connection with the Acolytes of the Beyond and ideas of Vader worshippers, all of which suggests a more religious, even extremist, terroristic type of threat compounded by the rumor that they’re equipped with weapons of mass destruction (eg, the Starkiller Catapult). But before discussing the potential links to mythology as inspiration for the film, let’s look at the names of Kylo Ren and Poe Dameron more closely than we have before:

In the Name Kylo Ren: The Dark Bird, "The Raven,” the Victorious One, “Church”?
“Ren”: A closer look at the etymology of “Kylo Ren” reveals that Ren actually means "Ruler" in Welsh and "Raven" in English. It means "Rebirth" or "Born Again" in Latin, and "Clean" in Norwegian. So there’s definitely a religious connotation to it, as well. Ren also might be a short form of LawRENce, and a less colloqial, less common version of "Larry." Can't have another "Larry" in the Star Wars Universe, except for Lawrence Kasdan, can you? Yes, I believe that Lawrence Kasdan is inserting his own name into the series as a personal signature/legacy type of thing. The Knights of Ren will now always be The Knights of LawRENce. The root of “ren” is the Latin “re-” meaning “again, back, anew, against.” Ren is therefore in a number of other interesting words, like “reverence” (to stand in awe of, respect, honor, fear), recurRENce, RENder, surRENder, refeRENce, prefeRENce, tRENd, curRENt, undercurRENt, phRENetic (or schizophRENic), peRENnial, paRENt, NazaRENe, appRENtice, stRENgth, seRENity, siREN, wREN and wRENch among many other uses of the word stem “ren” that can be affixed (prefixed, suffixed, transfixed, etc.) to create new words or derivations. The fact that the filmmakers chose “ren,” a word stem that goes way, way back, demonstrates a deeper understanding of its origin, meaning and use in language. It has a lot more application in language than say “sith,” which means “after that, since, later". In myth from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the Raven was once a bird with white feathers, but its color was transformed to sooty black, and forbidden to perch among the white birds. Kylo Ren is certainly wearing black and part of his over-cloak looks to be torn or deliberately designed to be "feathery," which conjures to mind a bird's plumage, and since it's black, the plumage of a raven. Perhaps this next part of the saga is the story of Kylo Ren transforming back into a white bird. But at what cost? Or perhaps he's damned to be a raven.

“Kylo”: It’s been discussed by many already that Kylo may be the combination of “SKYwalker” and SoLO, which I think is quite plausible and probably correct. First, a number of other names end in “o” in the Star Wars Universe. Lando. Greedo. Teedo. Beedo. Teebo. Sim Aloo. Max Rebo. Kata Koio. Solo. Even Threepio! So KylO, certainly fits in this Universe. But Kylo is also one letter away from Kyle, a name whose meaning would also fit very, very well. In English, Kyle means “Victorious.” And, interestingly, in Gaelic or Irish, Kyle is more of a description of a place, specifically "a wood or a church." The wood? Meaning the forest? Well, the snow forest scene from the first teaser immediately comes to mind. But church? Based on rumors we’ve all heard already, I definitely think there’s a religious aspect to the Knights of Ren, something sacred. But back to the first definition “Victorious.” Achieving victory is also certainly a desired outcome of any great warrior. And throughout history (and historical fiction), many warriors were certainly religious, pious, disciplined (or perhaps undisciplined). The Crusades comes to mind. So does Excalibur. Oh, and in Scottish, Kyle means "narrows," "straight" or "channel." And the root “Kyl” is in the dinosaur name ankylosaurus, from Greek ankylos meaning "crooked" and Jekyll, from Jekyll and Hyde, “the story of two completely separate personalities, one good and one evil, that share a body and are at war with each other.” Do any of these have something to do with why Kylo was selected? I certainly wonder.

In the Name Poe Dameron: Royal Bird of Light?
“Dameron”: In MSW Podcast 58 (@6:15), Jason commented on some emails he received from fans in France saying that Dameron means effeminate young male and would be “the worst name I’ve ever heard for a hero.” I’d agree. But it must be pointed out that’s what it might mean in contemporary French culture. In OLD FRENCH, however, “Dameron” is a derivative of the Latin dominus, meaning “Lord” or “Master.” Could Dameron be a name denoting status, or perhaps even royalty? Like “Organa”? And, of course, we know JJ Abrams used Dameron because it was his long-time personal assistant Morgan’s last name (Morgan Dameron), a Bad Robot employee. Another seemingly tangential but related aside, Rebecca Dameron was a writer/producer of the TV Series The Following, a Fox drama series about a serial killer English professor obsessed with Edgar Allan POE (played by James Purefoy) and who has a cult following of copycat killers. He is chased by Kevin Bacon’s character. Once upon a time, Kevin Bacon played a character in Footloose and his name was … can you guess it? Ren. Yeah. But speaking of Poe…

“Poe”: Poe is a nickname from Old Norse or other meaning “peacock,” meaning “a vain or flamboyantly dressed person.” Is Poe Dameron vain or flamboyant? What does he say? “He’s the best frickin’ pilot in the galaxy.” But here’s a potential historical association with Poe or “peacock” that might be a more plausible explanation of this name, and it can be traced back to myth, specifically from Greek mythology. Juno (Hera), Queen of the gods, is often depicted armed and sitting or standing with a peacock, her favorite bird, whose tail contains the hundred eyes of Argus (many eyes suggests he’s a special watch guard or spy, and eyes are full of light as to be able to see, rendering the peacock a bird of light, and light itself contains all its many colors, as evidenced by the bird's plumage). Leia has also been rumored to be a Queen. Not just that, an armed General. Armed with a super-weapon, a so-called “Sledgehammer” that reportedly rips through Star Destroyers like a knife through butter. Who is Leia’s favorite bird, her little peacock? None other than Poe Dameron, the showy, cocky pilot. Poe is also one letter short of the words “Poem” or “Poet.” Is this a nod to the great poet Ovid and others?

So, to recap:

• Kylo Ren = Raven, Sacred, Victorious, and the Raven used to be white
• Poe Dameron = Peacock, Royal Bird of Light

Now Consider several lines from Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Book 2). A link with TFA?

The Queen’s Bird

“Her gawdy peacocks drew her through the skies.
Their tails were spotted with a thousand eyes;
The eyes of Argus on their tails were rang’d,
At the same time the raven’s colour chang’d.”​

Creation of the Raven, the Black Bird

“The raven once in snowy plumes was drest,
White as the whitest dove’s unsully’d breast,
Fair as the guardian of the Capitol,
Soft as the swan; a large and lovely fowl;
His tongue, his prating tongue had chang’d him quite
To sooty blackness, from the purest white.”​

Secret Rival Joined? Snoke?

“But his own bird the raven chanc’d to find
The false one with a secret rival joyn’d.”
…
“And saw the monstrous infant, in a fright,
And call’d her sisters to the hideous sight:
A boy’s soft shape did to the waste prevail,
But the boy ended in a dragon’s tail.”​

A Raven Offended and Enraged

“The raven, urg’d by such impertinence,
Grew passionate, it seems, and took offence,
And curst the harmless daw; the daw withdrew:
The raven to her injur’d patron flew,
And found him out, and told the fatal truth
Of false Coronis and the favour’d youth."​

Snatched Child Cared for by Chiron the Centaur in a Cave

“But lest his offspring should her fate partake,
Spight of th’ immortal mixture in his make,
He ript her womb, and set the child at large,
And gave him to the centaur Chiron’s charge:
Then in his fury black’d the raven o’er,
And bid him prate in his white plumes no more.”​

“…but he snatched the child from the flames and from the womb of his mother, and carried him into the cave of the two-formed Chiron. And he forbade the raven, expecting for himself the reward of his tongue that told no untruth, to perch any longer among the white birds.”​

Caves and Cyclops
I saw some concept art of an X-wing flying into a cave pursued by a TIE. Perhaps this is at the end of the film where Poe or some other pilot makes an underground Death Star-type run through the caverns of the snow planet that houses the catapult? In teaser trailer 2 we see Captain Phasma walking down a hallway with noticeable rocks – perhaps Starkiller base is mostly underground. Perhaps Kylo grew up in the care of Snoke in these caves?

In myth, the Cyclops also lived in a cave. Take a closer look at Kylo Ren’s mask. One eye. Look at Phasma, the TIE pilots and all flavors of new Stormtroopers. The eye lenses are connected. We already know from other concept art that a cave is significant. In myth, the three Cyclopes forged one of the mightiest of weapons of Zeus: the thunderbolt.

Immortality? Reanimating the Dead? “Thy daring art shall animate the dead, and draw the thunder on thy guilty head”

From Metamorphoses Book 2, the story of “Ocyrrhoe transform’d into a Mare”:

“Old Chiron took the babe with secret joy,
Proud of the charge of the celestial boy.
His daughter too, whom on the sandy shore
The nymph Charicle to the centaur bore,
With hair dishevel’d on her shoulders, came
To see the child, Ocyrrhoe was her name;

She knew her father’s arts, and could rehearse
The depths of prophecy in sounding verse.
Once, as the sacred infant she survey’d,
The God was kindled in the raving maid,
And thus she utter’d her prophetick tale:
“Hail, great physician of the world, all-hail;
Hail, mighty infant, who in years to come
Shalt heal the nations, and defraud the tomb;
Swift be thy growth! thy triumphs unconfin’d!
Make kingdoms thicker, and increase mankind.

Thy daring art shall animate the dead,
And draw the thunder on thy guilty head:
Then shalt thou dye, but from the dark abode
Rise up victorious, and be twice a God.
And thou, my sire, not destin’d by thy birth
To turn to dust, and mix with common earth,
How wilt thou toss, and rave, and long to dye,
And quit thy claim to immortality;
When thou shalt feel, enrag’d with inward pains,
The Hydra’s venom rankling in thy veins?
The Gods, in pity, shall contract thy date,
And give thee over to the pow’r of Fate.”​

Other thoughts:

• Raven is pretty damn close to Revan. No, I don’t think Kylo Ren is Revan. I’m just saying it’s close.
• Does anyone read Plagueis from the above excerpts? Chiron may be Snoke or Plageuis, perhaps.
• I don’t think TFA is just going to be a rehash of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. I’m suggesting that it may have been used as inspiration for source material minus the sexuality of gods impregnating nymphs and humans.

 

Bachelor of Science, Mass Communication (Journalism and Public Relations)
Master of Public Health

I analyze clinical research stuff for a living ... and I happen to like words ... as long as I use them in the right order, that is. I hesitate to reveal this stuff because I'm finding errors I made in that post!

 

You're not being a dick. Really, thank you for that lengthy, well-put response. Your points are gladly taken. In response, I'd like to draw your attention to the very last point I made in the post:

• "I don’t think TFA is just going to be a rehash of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. I’m suggesting that it may have been used as inspiration for source material minus the sexuality of gods impregnating nymphs and humans.

I'd also like to draw your attention to my very first sentence:

"Some elements of Star Wars: The Force Awakens may have been influenced by mythology, specifically Ovid’s Metamorphoses..."​

To reiterate, I said "some elements" ... "may have been influenced by mythology." May. Or they may NOT have been influenced. Or they may. It's up to the reader to decide.

But here's the thing...here we have a movie, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and we're all very eagerly awaiting it. We have hopes. We have expectations.

But here's the other thing...I just finished describing that I saw a correlation, a very simple one, that Ren = Raven and Poe = Peacock, and I cited an epic poem from classical antiquity that contain both personifications in the very same epic book of a multi-book compilation that contains other classical epic poems. Where else does this occur in classical literature? As far as I know, nowhere else. Therefore, this is an association that shouldn't be casually disregarded until data becomes sufficient to rule it out (such as the case with another trailer, but more likely after we can see the film itself). It seems to me it's not a random correlation. It's beyond chance alone. And as of right now, to me, it fits.

But should it be accepted as truth? Of course not. Why? Because I'm NOT presenting it as truth. I'm presenting it as speculation. I saw correlations. So I did some research. I saw more correlations and continued researching. Then I found even more stuff. In fact, I found so much interesting stuff that could potentially be real, meaningful elements drawn as inspiration by the filmmakers of TFA that I decided to post here because I had to share it with my brahs ... I knew you'd enjoy it, no matter how plausible or implausible it seemed.

I have some questions for you: What of what I wrote was most plausible? What was least plausible?

 

No problem, my Swedish brother.

 

FOR GOODNESS Friggin SAKE....

I will enjoy the film and I hope you will, too.

 

Lazlo, very insightful and clever commentary, including "connections ... that are very real nonetheless." You get it! And I appreciate the praise. I don't know if you're the same person on Reddit yesterday who replied to another one of my comments ... someone raised the influence of Joseph Campbell, and you're certainly invoking Campbell here again. Before I wrote the Ovid connection last week, I had only been passively familiar with The Power of Myth and a link to Star Wars. And I hadn't picked that up for 20 years, and it was at a bookstore nonetheless. But later yesterday evening I downloaded Campbell's book "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" and other general Internet research on him. I confess I probably should've made that connection earlier and included it in my analysis. It's illuminating. In that book, Ovid is cited numerous times along with all the others. If I were to write a more in-depth essay (I won't), I'd certainly cite Campbell and do a lit search of recent authors. But no need to do that.

Very interesting about Macdonald, especially the Gospel of Mark. A New Testament connection is interesting. I'll see if I can get that book. As I mentioned in my first post, there are other potential sources such as the Old Testament and Shakespeare, but I didn't want to explore those because I wanted to focus on those lines from Ovid's Metamorphoses. I actually think the Excalibur theory proposed by Revanite on this forum I believe (I saw it second-hand on Reddit) is probably another source of inspiration and I anticipate the Medieval, Crusader-type imagery in TFA (from what we've seen thus far) will continue.

"My suspicion is that if Kasdan and JJ intended us to make very deep connections to mythological themes they would have been more obvious about it." Well they want it to stand alone as an original film and look as if it's not heavily borrowed from any one thing in particular so they don't get accused of being lazy and copying from any one source. They aspire to produce original content, just as any artist does, but they aspire to make references. JJ has said that he's tried to be cheeky with some references to other parts of the Star Wars Universe, but he was very careful to not overdo it. Likewise, they may paint hints of inspiration from other sources with small brush strokes while they boldly craft what they believe to be an original vision for a modern day audience. There's no way I intended to say that the filmmakers are not endeavoring for originality, only that they may have looked at the epic myths and picked and chose some elements they felt would drive or fit the objectives of the trilogy. I'm only pointing out a few potential correlations. There are likely to be many more ... in the far reaches of space.

 

It's alright, dude. And you're right, it is elaborate. My writing style could've been more concise, but I wanted my thought process to be transparent, detailed and fleshed out enough to support the notion that mythology may have been used for the overall story. To what degree (if any) remains to be seen. The length of my post ... yeah, some may react just to it simply because of the length as information overload. As a result, many will just skim through it and not want to dive into details that are acknowledged to be just speculative anyway and not be into it. That's totally okay by me.

 

I'm surprised no one commented on the cyclops observation and all the helmets of the FO, including KR. I shouldn't have buried that part near the end with select excerpts from Metamorphoses. But I'm interested to hear what people think.

 

More evidence supporting the TFA link with mythology hypothesis ... The Odyssey is referenced in the very opening dialogue of the final trailer (trailer #3)! See my post from yesterday here: REY: "I'M NO ONE." ODYSSEUS SAID THE SAME THING TO THE CYCLOPS POLYPHEMUS IN THE ODYSSEY