Fan fiction and personality archetypes

‘Cultural artefacts’ 

Okay, I’m not sure how many of you are familiar with particular cultural artefacts. I shall give a couple of examples of what I am thinking of.

 1. Sagas, epics, contemporary myths and legends. Stories that depict the Hercules, Aeneas’ and other such protagonistic characters of our day. The Romans had Hesiod, Homer and Virgil; we have Star Trek, anime, Lord of The Rings &c; basically I am referring to stories which people both relate to and use to as a form of esape into a realm of heroism, excitement, adventure, character, and very much cockaygne ideological themes.

2. Celebrities, nuff said.

Fan fictions; a cultural phenomenon

One thing I have found since the early 2000s (when I was growing up) was that in certain communities of fans; they wanted to express and communicate their loe for a particular artefact by creating plotlines, imagery, and counterfactual situations in the world of their story (say, Star Wars).

Sometimes; they would draw pictures, speculate on characters; and, the most bizarre thing; simulate sexual or romantic situations between pairings of fictional characters. I suppose what these fans appeal to are the types of characters displayed; and what kind of things would happen if certain characters engaged in emotional and physical intimacy. I think this airs a sense of sympathy with the persons involved; or an inner desire about how relationships work. I came across some fan fiction for an anime called Tenchi Muyo!; something that I enjoyed quite a lot during my early teens.

Tenchi Muyo! character analysis

Tenchi Muyo! is a series about a boy who comes across several women who represent different personalities; and the underlying theme is that the girls compete for his affection, and the big question suggests: who will Tenchi end up with? I found the complexities of the relationships between the characters very interesting. Tenchi’s character represented vulnerability, sympathy, concern for others, hidden strength, annoyance, anxiety, diplomacy. The other character archetypes involved

• Ryoko: aggressive, physical, overtly sexual, with a hidden sense of isolation, lonliness and need for closeness; which accounted for her brash behaviour
• Ayeka: a (it seems) Japanese ideal of femininity: submission, a desire to please, friendliness, candidness about her feelings, yet, with a hidden sense of aggression and possibly sexual intentions [she was Ryoko's mortal enemy]
• Sasami: a pre-teenaged girl, very disturbing sexual suggestions regarding her and Tenchi throughout the series (as well as the suggestion of incest); she represented innocence, purity, wisdom, concern, fear. Sasami was a very fascinating character, despite her age; she seemed the most emotionally mature of the group
• Mihoshi: negative connotations of “attractive, yet dumb blonde” archetype. This was a fairly wooden character and not much needs to be said; she was unconsciously sexual towards Tenchi, which was a source of his anxiety
• Washu: 5000 year old genius; who has the physical appearance of a very young teenager. Washu displays momentary maturity and motherly qualities (as she is Ryoko’s mother – its very hard to explain). What I like about Washu is her clumsiness yet her very studious experimental scientist outlook; yet she knew a great deal about basically everything (from metaphysics to quantum physics).
• Kiyone: studious, calm, dedicated, unconcerned with romance, angered at stupidity, no-nonsense, strong sense of justice. Kiyone is essentially a male archetypal character.

As I explore these mindsets of the Tenchi series, I think of how these fictional characters are (a) like myself in some way, (b) like people I know in some direct ways, and (c) how they relate to other similar fiction archetypes. I think Jung, and Karen Armstrong have a good point about certain personalities being present in the consciousness.

TO write fan fiction which has non-canon interpretations of characters and combinations of them, seems to express something very deep about the person(s) who write them, and the people who enjoy the artefacts.

Why did I think this as a blog topic?

I saw just a moment ago, when looking for Tarot lyrics; a website with homosexual romantic situations between two members of the band Nightwish (Marco and Tuomas). I found that both entertaining, sweet, and disturbing. I think Marco and Tuomas embody very appealing masculine archetypes. I wish I were more like them…

Michael