i really like your take on it, Chesed, though mine differs in some points.
as i see it:
we perceive ourselves to exist in four-d spacetime. however, perceived from five-d, four-d is a unified whole, a whole which is, in fact, a larval version of a 5-d entity of some unfathomable sort.
both the archons/Quimper/Outer Church forces and the greys/Invisibles/Invisible College forces are perceived by themselves and others (or, rather, by 'themselves" and "others") as existing on the borders of 4-d spacetime and are trying to serve as midwives for the cosmic baby. 4-d spacetime as we know it, however, is by its very nature, a liminal "entity" and taking it out of that liminal state will "destroy" it in the sense that it will no longer be what it once was. 4-d space is like an interpretation of Schrodinger's Cat - once you open the box, it's special liminal state must end. the waveform collapses as it becomes something definite.
right now, what is keeping 4-d space in its liminal state are the perceptions of its inhabitants. they perceive themselves to exist as separate and discrete entities existing in four dimensions, which are "Real" and have Real consequences. both sides seek to strip them of that perception in order to force 4-d spacetime out of its unresolved state, each by attacking one side of that equation.
the archons want to accomplish this by stripping people of their perceptions of themselves as discrete individuals and break down the perception that different things exists, which would subjectively appear to cause everything to "collapse" into a single, undifferentiated point of zero dimensions. because that involves stripping us of selves which we perceive to be Real, we react with terror to this thought, and our terror causes the archons to appear in terrifying visages. the loss of self we experience under their attention manifests as shame, self-hatred, conformity, etc etc.
the Invisibles, on the other hand, want to accomplish this by destroying the artificial limitations of 4-d spacetime, to essentially convince us all that the limits of 4-d spacetime are not Real. rather than stripping everything down to zero dimensions, they are trying to open things up to an infinite number of dimensions.
the trick here is that the dichotomies are false. infinity=zero. the Invisible College and the Outer Church both essentially represent the same thing (exit from 4-d space and transition into 5-d existence), seen through different lenses. the Outer Church is shaped by our fears of loss of self and our attraction to stability (RR - "I want to be a number"), the Invisible College is likewise shaped by our attraction to the infinite possibilities of existence and by our fears of loss of coherence and direction (Sir Miles' challenges to KM during their psychic combat, that revolutionaries like him can't build anything to replace what they destroy).
from the 5-d Supercontext, the reality experienced subjectively from inside 4-d is a fiction. John and Quimper are both fictionsuits worn by the same 5-d entity to experience the game of 4-d subjectivity.
it is the nature of the game that while you are "in character" you don't normally know that you're "in character." subjectively, you think that your fictionsuit is the "real you." however, because of John's encounter with the Shoggoth/discarded timesuit, he momentarily escapes from 4-d space and sees that "John-a-Dreams" is just a fictionsuit from the perspective of 5-d, and that [he has also played/is also playing/will also play] other characters as well. this experience is subjectively disruptive to his identity - imagine what would happen to Pulp Fiction if, when the character of Jules looked into the briefcase, he "woke up" in mid-scene and not only realized that he was a character in a movie, but also realized that he "was" also Mace Windu and Shaft and a bunch of other characters in realities he can scarcely comprehend, while also glimpsing an uber-reality where all of those realities are just movies and he's an actor called Samuel L. Jackson.
things that are perceivable in 4-d spacetime like the Hand of Glory, the timesuit, magic mirror, and Barbelith are essentially "game cheats" left inside our reality which, in various ways, crack the perceptual boundaries of 4-d spacetime and, to a certain extent, remind the entities that their fictionsuits are just fictionsuits. also, certain fictionsuits (the Harlequinade and the Blind Chessman/Satan in particular, but also magic mirror and Barbelith if those are fictionsuits, which i think they are, and ultimately, also, Dane) are, by the nature of the role, more aware of their own fictionsuit-ness than others, and some fictionsuits (the archons, the grey aliens) are sort of on the fringe, aware that 4-d space is an illusion but not aware that their own struggles with the "opposite pole" are also another level of illusions.
this last part reflects the experience of many mystics, especially Buddhist ones, who warn against the dangers involved in the experience of blissful union with [the divine/the cosmos], in which the precise danger is that those experiences are so overpowering and seemingly all-encompassing and liberatory that they may be mistaken for true liberation. those who have undergone modification in the Outer Church or who have been abducted by the greys often feel that they are "out" of the game and perceiving it from outside, when they are actually on the very cusp of true release, but looking inward. however, the folly of this mistaken belief is, through another lens, the compassionate response of the bodhisattva who chooses to forego liberation in favor of helping others get as far as they have gotten. one could argue that John-a-Dreams and Quimper reflect both sides of this particular coin - John the boddhisattva who liberates others, but most importantly Fanny, and the delusional Quimper, who is in turn liberated by Fanny.
Fanny, to me, is an entirely different can of worms in this whole issue, and the complexities of the John/Quimper/crucified alien/crucified toad relationship with Fanny is one of the most rewarding to explore for me at this point in my understanding and appreciation of The Invisibles. there's so much depth and complexity to it, and i think for me the key is that John/Quimper is the quintessential fictionsuit, and Fanny is the very embodiment of the shapechanger who assumes and discards identity at will and with conscious intent. my head starts boggling at the whole thing when i think about it too hard.
in any case, it's important that Dane almost falls into the trap of the divine bliss in his first major test (his battle with the King-Of-All-Tears) and succeeds in escaping it, in a prefiguration of the ultimate liberation in the assimilation into the 5-d Supercontext which occurs through the reconciliation between the liberated sense of individual identity and Barbelith, the 4-d physical manifestation of the knowledge that that 4-d spacetime (and individual identity in that spacetime) is an illusion.
the whole fictionsuit/Supercontext opens tantalizing possibilities. we are to understand that 4-d spacetime is a fiction, and the individuals within that spacetime are characters, fictionsuits worn by 5-d beings in the Supercontext. from the Supercontextual perspective, 4-d spacetime is "only a game."
here is the train of thought that leads me on. the three major points that hit me are in bold italics below. i apologize if any of it is old hat to experienced Barbelithers.
4-d spacetime is a fiction from a 5-d supercontextual perspective. however, 4-d spacetime has its own fictions, movies and pop culture and video games and such.
4-d reality begins to unravel concurrently with the blurring of the line between what is reality and what is fiction in 4-d space. to borrow a Baudrillardian term, the development of hyperreality is discussed by the characters at several points in the series, especially by Mason Lang and most notably by Mason Lang and KM right before KM blows up his house.
this line continues until, in Robin's future of 2012 (or her past, or, well, you know what i mean) the combination of drugs, virtual reality, and nanotech/liquid computers have rendered the distinction between fiction and reality all but meaningless.
this growing softening of the line between reality and fiction gets to be almost absurdly convoluted in Moebius-strip fashion when you consider that The Invisibles exists as a book and an interactive simulation/video game in the 2012 world. the book not only describes the past, but allows Robin to don a fictionsuit and alter it at the same time that her subjective present is part of the book/game. so, as it becomes possible for the fictionsuit that is Robin to wear another fictionsuit of herself and use it to alter the past of her own fiction without ever leaving it, and (pardon me while my brain catches its breath for a second) the nature of that alteration is itself the whole timesuit clusterfuck, the "reality" of 4-d spacetime collapses in upon itself, and no wonder, because it is well past the point where it could possibly make any fucking sense at all.
once this happens, the entity that is 4-d space is "born" as an individual in a "higher" context which is 5-d existence. however, there is no reason to believe that the 5-d supercontext is itself not an illusionary game played by 6-d entities, and so on and so forth. it's like Russian matryoshka dolls. 4-d space is encompassed in 5-d space which is "above" and "outside" it, but it also has pop culture "below" and "inside" it. the fictions "below" and "inside" 4-d space erupts up into 4-d spacetime which is its own Supercontext, at the same time that 4-d spacetime erupts up into 5-d. in both cases, the eruption "upward" is prompted in part and goaded along by the "downward" intervention of supercontextual entities wearing fictionsuits (RR intervenes in her own fictions as the 5-d entities intervene in theirs). it's hard not to imagine a ripple effect of sorts, but even that implies that somewhere up or down the line, there's an "Ultimate Supercontext" where "Time" is "Real." in the absence of such an Ultimate Supercontext, all of this [is an illusion/will happen/is happening/has already happened/never happened] depending on your perspective, which doesn't exist except to itself.
in the context of all this, it's important to remember that the Invisibles as a comic book is a fiction, to which our reality is the Supercontext, and GM has explicitly stated that at least KM is the fictionsuit in which he intervened in that fiction/reality. moreover, the commentary on hyperreality and pop culture and technology and magic(k) and such, as well as the future-tech stuff GM brings up, is based on things in our own reality. we already exist in hyperreality (if we haven't always) and the rush of technological change is making that ever more evident. the implications of the relationship between our reality and the fiction of The Invisibles are interesting considering the relationship between fiction and reality within The Invisibles.
of course, this post is a metanarrative on top of The Invisibles which affects my subjective... ack...
metanarratives within metanarratives. head hurts. must stop. |
