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Dan handcuffed , threefold manacles
The young golden hero sheriff
The amoral monster in the wild wilderness
FORTITUDE SERIES 3 FINALE
In killing Elana, the love of his life, at the end of
series 1, Dan must now bear the consequences of this action. It was an
impossible decision and that’s the tragedy of it! The good sheriff saved Carrie
and Elana but the murder with intent condemned
him to eternal damnation, same action causes opposite consequences. It drives
him mad and he remains in agony throughout series 2 and 3 because without the
capacity for love man becomes a monster. So Dan loses the golden hero image and
becomes a hairy “steampunk” maniac, possessed, fixated, perverse, deluded,
demonic. His world has also gone wild with a riot of gratuitous sex, unlimited
violence and hedonism, a place without meaning. The preoccupation is with regeneration
and super powers, for life beyond human limits, in fact that age old concern
for the secret elixir of eternal life/youth so prevalent in modern Hollywood
There are attempts to reach out and form relationships,
but ultimately it’s just sex. There are attempts to literally and
metaphorically “castrate” and limit the unbridled male/Ego, but it’s just messy
mutilation. Series 1 oscillated between extremes but series 2 and 3 have become
the extreme. There is no voluntary way back unless the forces of the universe
take over to restore order and that is what happens in the Finale as the drama
itself also coalesces from its riotous multiple forms of genre into the single
unity of a Tragedy. (Aspects of the tragic form were always present, for
example harmatia, hubris, reversal, cosmic battle between Good and Evil, the
evocation of horror and pity towards a tragic hero, eventual catharsis.)
Fittingly, it’s a woman who strikes the fatal blow that
brings Dan to his senses and inevitable death. Whether it’s called Natalie or
an anima, it’s the same intrusion and an awful shock. The screen goes blank
with a bang as his consciousness changes and he becomes aware of his own
mortality as a human being once again. Dan is in a womblike ambulance where the
real Erich disappears and is replaced by images of the dead, visitations of
personal representations of the collective unconscious; matriarchal
compassionate woman (Hildur), violent conflict (Pettigrew), fatherly wise old
man (Henry), chthonic mystery ( polar bear).
Dan is violently ripped out of the womblike ambulance to
be born again into the arctic wasteland, dragged kicking and screaming in
resistance until he is forcibly handcuffed to the same pylon he handcuffed
Pettigrew ( karma). These handcuffs form the figure 3, suggesting submission to
the threefold laws of the universe inside and outside, laws acknowledged by
writers as far back as the Upanishads, not the dualities of Descartes that
leave a world in conflict, but the tripartite understanding of older
civilizations. These natural laws are binding and there to ensure both
limitation and safety.
Submitting finally to these laws of nature and mortality, Dan
glimpses the mysterious bear, a chthonic elemental force prowling through the
fog and lurking at the perimeter of his consciousness. We do not see it attack
but it is there, waiting, a beautiful moment. The image of Henry then informs
Dan of his impending lonely death. In full realisation of his condition and
without delusion, Dan is now alone in turmoil and a state of hell. His eyes
empty as he sees a plane above him before losing consciousness. Dan becomes
himself again, a man mortal and fallible.
Above him, the lesser character of Lennox is left to mop
up the story, as happens with most Tragedies .Finding love in the form of Elsa
and forgoing the mind-bending alcohol, Lennox finds meaning in life and
accompanies her on a plane to a hospice in Bergen where she can die naturally
instead of seeking unnatural eternal
youth. However there is something strange about this plane where everyone is
asleep. In response to a shadowy air hostess, Lennox
says, “everything is fine, all’s good” before falling asleep together with Elsa.
He seems radiant and in bliss, a state of heaven. So he also submits to the
cosmic power of the collective unconscious, whether it’s called sleep or death.
It’s a welcome catharsis for the audience shattered by the experiences of series
2 and 3.
Dan’s error was to kill Love in the world and in himself.
He had no right to do this, though he thought it was the right thing to do at
the time. It cut him off from one of the great mysteries of Life and made his
world soulless, an empty meaningless materialism. He sought a life without
limitation, outside the laws of existence, to be absolutely free with an
uncontained Ego. It’s monstrous and mad. Only when forced back into the
threefold manacles of “body, mind AND soul” does he submit to the realisation
that he is not the centre of it all but only part of something greater than
himself .He must find his place in this as a simple, balanced human being. This
knowledge releases him to the wonder of a freedom he could never have imagined
himself, but that is beyond the tale of any telling.
On one level, “Fortitude” fits into the storytelling
tradition of “far fetched yarns, action packed epics of men at arms”, (see
Gawain and Green knight, 1400, another mixed bag of bloodthirsty absurd,
morality tale, myth and romance). On another level it is pure Tragedy, (see
Shakespeare’s Horatio, “ So shall you hear/of carnal, bloody and unnatural
acts/of accidental judgements, casual slaughters/of death put on by cunning and
forc’d cause/and in this upshot, purposes mistook/fall’n on the inventors
heads”). Deeper still it is an exploration of the threefold nature of existence
and the role of the Ego (part) within the Psyche (whole) in its struggle to
maintain balance and meaning, (see Upanishads, “that something no-one can see,
hidden in the space in the heart of a living being/ smaller than an atom and
immense/beyond the realm of reason/a treasure wrapped in mystery and
impenetrable depths/who lies awake within those who sleep/the radiant self
within”).
As series 1 began with the crash of arctic sunlight like a
blast of consciousness, series 3 ends with the dissolution back into the void
of dark unconscious nothing. However we know from the story that there is
something in the nothing that we cannot see. Things not visible are just as
real as things visible. This drama itself is the manifestation of something
invisible; the Imagination. Like Love, it cannot be found by scientific method
or captured by rational thought. These things are real but belong to the
impenetrable mysteries of life.
When something fresh and different is brought up from the
Imagination, like this drama, it takes time to assimilate. It can be misjudged
and not recognised. And it’s true that first seasons are always the best
because the first surge of that Imagination is at its brightest before the
material demands of number ratings and investor stake interests take hold. The
first seasons show the most courage .It’s a relief that this drama ultimately
keeps faith with its original vision.
Sky television is currently producing some dramas that
defy expectation and category, like Fortitude, True Detective and Britannia.
They are opening up a new aesthetics which means they are often misunderstood
by contemporary critics and mainstream media. These dramas are products of real
Imagination in an industry that has lost itself in political correctness. Let’s
hope these outlets continue where brave writers can dare to Imagine.
THE RABBIT
One of the most curious motifs in “Fortitude” is the
rabbit, a mundane form of the hare. It recurs as cuddly pet companion, contents of a
stew, Harvey
In folklore the rabbit is associated with the moon, a
mysterious prolific lunar creature who intercedes between worlds, bringing
knowledge from one world to another. Thus it is a revelatory animal between the
unconscious/night and consciousness/day, between states and connecting them. As
a device it is part of the mystery of symbolism which is a product of the
Imagination giving glimpses of an understanding beyond reason or explanation, a
glimpse of the Psyche in action, perhaps.
(see white rabbit in" Alice In Wonderland")
