I actually have a couple of questions. Why did the Demiurge reincarnate Nader and impregnate him? What does the Demiurge do to people (outside of add a couple of eyes and give it a blue glow)? What's Trevor's interest in the Demiurge (he mentioned love.. but in what way)?

-- Carmen Hymes (hymesc@ncat.edu), October 13, 1998

Answers

Aeon (and the Monicans) want to destroy the demiurge because it takes away free will. The demiurge is supposed to offer salvation, but they didn't ask for it. according to them, things are fine the way they are. Why did the Demiurge reincarnate itself? Perhaps it knew it was about to be blasted off in the rocket and it didn't want it's influence to be gone from the world forever. Why Nadir?I dunno. *snick er* Cause he's a main character? What does it do? According to Trevor, it makes people "one with the eternity within" Which i guess means floating in a sea of transcendal bliss, as the Hindus say. What does Trevor want with the demiurge? Apparently he needs it to bring peace to the world.

-- Frostbite (foo@bar.com), October 19, 1998.

Trevor wants to experience the Demiurge so that he can find forgiveness and salvation for his sins. He feels he's done horrible things, just like Aeon has, only he's willing to confess to his.

-- Mat Rebholz (matrebholz@yahoo.com), November 27, 1998.

It's amazing how incredibly strong these charachters are, and yet, in a way, how very weak they are.

-- Frostbite (SlipperyMermaid@bar.com), November 28, 1998.

I don't really totally buy that the Demiurge is just trying to insinuate itself throughout society. i think it's just trying uplift other beings (from the dead), but this act of stellar charity doesn't sit well with the native dominant species (humans).

It you don't think the Demiurge represents something transcendental and nearly omniscient if not indestructable in a zen sense, then take a good look at the FIVE EYES. given that having two eyes gives us depth perception, having three eyes might triangulate into superhuman visual acuity. ok, so five eyes is kind of a big step up in terms of (in)sightfulness.

you can try to shoot the idea down, but it gets under your skin and your bullets fall to the ground encapsulated in diamonds. c'mon people-- diamond-- one of the hardest substances found in nature-- the Demiurge can just crystalize the air around a flying bullet, encapsulating it in a diamond while repelling it gravitationally simulataneously.

i think that pretty much spells that the demiurge can't be destroyed. That's why it's a freaking beheaded HEAD! you can cut off it's head, but it's still alive. Which leads me to my next point...

Just think what the Demiurge could do if it wasn't being gagged/censored ? That's why the desperados are freakin blasting it into outer space, what else do ya do with it? People have at times proposed to do the same thing with radioactive waste (which also glows).

I think the love is genuine, like the love a parent has for a messianic child, but there's also a bit of mad scientist hocus pocus and cult-like fanaticism.

-- Day of Brahma (dayofbrahma@aol.com), October 26, 2004.

Q1: Why did the Demiurge reincarnate/impregnate N...? Q2: What does the Demiurge do to poeple...? Q3: What's Trevor's interest...?

Ideas drift and resettle with time. This story (of the Demiurge) is an unusual one. Maybe interpretations aren't complete, but complementary. So, I've decided to continue to contemplate this one.

A1: It's still a possibility to me, that Zenith was reanimated because he had recently been shot; although, I forget who had shot him. Maybe this is important: Rubio/Zenith both die. Celia(?) misperceives who shot one guy or the other or both. Perhaps they represent different aspects or visages of the same person. OK, anyway...

Why did the Demiurge choose reanimate? Why does anyone choose to save life? Why do doctors heal? Why would anyone every free a moth flapping at a screen or window? I think it has to do with mercy and compassion. I think the Demiurge's intent was merely to resolve some of the warlike chaos.

Then again, this would be ironic, since only one person was reanimated of a sea of corpses. Maybe the Demiurge didn't have a chance to finish its work; this seems likely. I think that this theme is repeated elsewhere in the story, and in Chung's work. Unfulfilled or latent or undermined or perhaps irrelevant events...

OK. Let's consider something new: Have we been ignoring a Buddhist perspective? Is the glass half empty or half full? I think it's fully empty. Anicca, yes, but I'm not really a Buddhist as far as I know.

A2: That really is a good question. It's hard to tell who was actually affected by the Demiurge, and who wasn't. Most would say that Zenith was, but then again he was dead. So does he actually count? On the other hand, I always suspected that the girl climbing up to Aeon's lair was affected by the Demuirge in the empty box (chest?) as it fell upon her chest. She gasps implying that she's not dead, or maybe reanimated! But who knows? The newly grown Demiurge "baby" (gee, they sure do grow up fast!) lifts her frail body up, just before the building structure collapses upon the Blue Deity. Maybe that's just part of the illusion? A convenient way to calm the humans down: pretend to be dead. It seemed at first to have fooled Trevor, but not Aeon, until Trevor gets the last word. Aeon seems glad to see it go, so maybe SHE was fooled. It's so ambiguous. Let me end with this: I think the cat was affected. But is the cat a WHO or an IT?--This is a question central to the human quest for dominance--objectification of percieved sentient threats, right?

A3: This question probably lends itself better to language. Trevor seems interested in the Demiurge for the reasons that others here have stated much more clearly and beautifully. I'm not going to rehash them. However, you do bring up an interesting dimension which is otherwise nearly ignored: Love. Love, "but in what way?"

Maybe that's a core point to the whole story. We can assume that those who are engaged in battle are battling to defend things that they love, things that they believe that they love, or things that they would want to love. Perhaps people defend the chance to love. Perhaps people defend an illusion of love. Is love truly an excuse for war? Love of people? Love of other living things? Love of nature? Love of the environment/surroundings? Love of a city/country? This is difficult to acertain. Just look at all of the destruction happening in this story. Destruction of people (lots and lots of dead people, not just Rubio/Zenith, etc), destruction of nature (attempted killing of three-eyed cat), destruction of property/city. Destruction of hopes (although not hopeless). Even the Demiurge gets a raw deal: to be a disembodied head eternally free-falling in outer space while bound and gagged. That sucks.

This last point reminds me of another thing which I have overlooked. In most of the episode, the Demiurge's emmanations seem to teleport. Yet, the GodHead Demiurge doesn't seem entirely willing or able to escape it's fate. The GodHead Demiurge is not entirely omnipotent, unless it's captive, nearly-helpless, bodiless state is part of it's illusion or an expression of it's true nature. This could even imply (as others have already done so) that The GodHead Demiurge impregnated Zenith-Nadir as one last fling to reproduce itself.

This might make sense in terms of a life cycle: Gigantically large, mature adult. Then heterospecies?! fertilization (or at least asexual reproduction via a host organism. Then (co-host species assisted) birth?!. And finally, young adulthood (the newer Demiurge seen towards the end of the film.

Blue glow? Radioactivity I mentioned earlier, but really I think Bioluminescence is more relevant to the meanings of this film that I feel in my mind's eye. Not really so otherworldly once you get to studying it.

Yep, pretty wild stuff or not.

-- Day Of Brahma (DayOfBrahma@aol.com), November 11, 2004.