A post about ashes and the Iliad
Early April, 2016:
I was hoping to move on from “ashgate” without comment, but my observation of the discourse around it compels me to bring a couple more ideas to the conversation. There are many ways to look at this strange little bit of extra “text” that JJ Abrams gave us, pretty much all of them bad, but there’s one other reading that I have not seen mentioned, which suggests the possibility of a different, less grotesque interpretation, and that’s why I am writing this.
First, (and most importantly) bear in mind that the “ash” scene did not appear in the film in a way that demanded the explanation JJ offered. It does not appear in any of the other formats of the story (novelizations, visual dictionary, etc), so as far as the Star Wars universe and canon is concerned, it never happened. I rather wish I’d never heard, read or seen anything about it either, but JJ Abrams felt the need to share it with us, so here we are.
Let’s begin with a few lines from the Iliad, an epic poem written more than two thousand five hundred years ago, about the Trojan War. It is the story of the Achilles, a warrior who, at the beginning of the story, is a model of honor and strength. Later, grief over the death of a special comrade sends Achilles into a berserker’s murderous rage. He kills the Trojan warrior Hector and brutally dishonors Hector’s corpse before the gods intervene to bring about an end to the conflict, allowing Hector’s body to be returned to Troy. It’s a very long poem about war and its costs, but the gist of what I’m getting at in this writing appears in early sections of the work that establish Achilles’ good character as a warrior, describing his respect for the enemy dead:
[Hector’s wife, Andromache, praises Achilles’ past respect for the dead in this passage]:
My father great Achilles killed when he plundered Thebe
He killed him, but, reverent at least in this, did not despoil him.
Body, gear and weapons forged so handsomely, he burned,
and heaped up a barrow over the ashes.” (6:484ff)
This form of respect for the dead of an opposing army was culturally normative for both the ancient Greeks and Trojans. King Agamemnon agrees to a truce with the Trojans to permit them to bury their dead in another early part of the poem:
“As to the dead, I would withhold no decency of burning; a man should spare no pains to see cadavers given as soon as may be after death to purifying flame.”
What on earth does this have to do with Star Wars? Bear with me.
I’ve been thinking about the possibility that the new Star Wars trilogy may be structured like an ancient Greek tragedy, but I have not tried to frame this larger idea. In any event, the crux of my argument tying Star Wars to ancient Greece, the structure of a tragedy, and the Iliad as a war story has a lot to do with Adam Driver, and the unique perspective he has brought to the creation of the character of Kylo Ren.
As most of us know, Driver was classically trained in theater. He also served as a Marine, and while he was still a student at Juilliard, he and his wife Joanne Tucker created the non-profit, Arts in the Armed Forces, which brings professional theater to active duty military and their families. Here’s part of their mission statement: AITAF programming accentuates the shared humanity of all Americans by using performance to unite artists and service members and encourage dialogue.
Arts in the Armed Forces is an organization dedicated to helping people who are engaged in war to process their experiences by offering up compelling stories which can “describe the indescribable,” as Driver said about his own process of learning to deal with his military experiences through self-expression, storytelling, and theater.
One of the stories that has remained relevant to military audiences and to veterans dealing with combat trauma is the Iliad. The passages I quoted above are from Jonathan Shay’s excellent book, Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character. In it, he draws comparisons between Achilles’ experience of war and the moral injury of soldiers suffering from the unresolved grief of combat trauma. Driver himself is clearly familiar with the connection of this ancient story to contemporary ideas about war. He is the narrator of the book, The Theater of War: What ancient Greek tragedies can teach us today, written by Bryan Doerries, who is also a member of the board at Arts in the Armed Forces.
Adam Driver has been aware of these ancient war stories for many years, and sees their connection to contemporary experiences of war. He may even see them as connected to a war taking place in a galaxy far far away.
So here’s my point, and the intuitive leap that I made when I looked at the still photo that accompanied JJ Abrams strange revelation about Kylo Ren and the “ashes of his enemies.” Another interpretation, one which suggests it is possible that this weird bit of discarded film may have had roots in something quite ancient, and without evil intent.
As a character, Kylo Ren is a warrior acting within the realm of what can be considered honorable in war. Viewed through this lens, the character’s behavior can be construed as morally right within his own experience. The ashes can represent respect for the bodies of the dead. An act of remembrance perhaps, and an act that could be intended as honorable.
This is a complicated idea to try to express (look how long this damn meta got), and includes concepts that are alien to a contemporary American movie audience. The scene didn’t fit in the story, and it was dropped - it’s not hard to see why. It’s unsettling and strange, and obviously very open to interpretations that may not have been the intent. But it was there, and now we’re talking about it. My little essay should probably have spent more time talking about the creative process, and why we scrap or edit bits of story that don’t fit the larger narrative. The timing of JJ Abram’s revelation absolutely bears mentioning. He made these comments about ashes on the eve of the release of the The Force Awakens DVD, and may have been trying to bolster Kylo Ren’s dark side bona fides with his comments. If the fandom’s response is any guide, he may have succeeded.
My last word on this: People have felt very free to express their disgust and revulsion about the ashes, and to take it as final, grotesque proof of the evil and irredeemable madness of Kylo Ren - But maybe someone should ask Adam Driver to talk to us about Achilles before we pass judgement. I would love to hear what he has to say.
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