The imagery around Jack's death (and indeed Rex's) was absolutely, unmistakably Christlike, so much so that I was tempted to quote Marlowe's "Dr Faustus" See, see where Christ's blood streams in the firmament! One drop would save my soul—half a drop! ah, my Christ!— Ah, rend not my heart for naming of my Christ!— Yet will I call on him!—O, spare me, Lucifer!— Where is it now? 'T is gone; and see where God Stretcheth out his arm, and bends his ireful brows!— Mountains and hills, come, come and fall on me, And hide me from the heavy wrath of God!
But there are some important differences. Jack becomes mortal, as Christ did, and then goes through an ordeal (I see the Angelo episode as his Passion) before regaining eternal life - but his act of mercy is not to give humanity eternal life, as in the Gospels, but to give mortality back to them. And he does not act alone. I think it's very significant that he has to be helped and would have been unable to bring about a resolution alone. There was tremendous symbolism in the Blessing, its appearance resembling the hell mouth of a morality play (or indeed Dr Faustus) and also the gates to the Underworld, complete with the voices of the dead.
There has to be trust, co-operation and communication between human beings. On the other hand we have Rex, whose name means literally "king". Each has a Pieta - Jack has Gwen who asserts his mortality by killing him, Rex has Esther (a Biblical name) who dies for him, but it's made very clear that both men have to look beyond immediate relationships and work together to redeem humankind. There are oppositions too numerous to go into here - Europe/USA, the Antipodes, black/white, male/female, and indeed those who seek to reveal truth contrasted with those who tell narratives that deliberatly obscure it - Oswald and Jilly.
What RTD seems to be saying is that the answer isn't out there - it is deep within us, in the bowels of our own planet. Again and again, through all his work, his theme is hammered home, that we are capable of enormous evil and individual acts of heroic sacrifice.
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Date: 2011-09-16 02:11 pm (UTC)See, see where Christ's blood streams in the firmament!
One drop would save my soul—half a drop! ah, my Christ!—
Ah, rend not my heart for naming of my Christ!—
Yet will I call on him!—O, spare me, Lucifer!—
Where is it now? 'T is gone; and see where God
Stretcheth out his arm, and bends his ireful brows!—
Mountains and hills, come, come and fall on me,
And hide me from the heavy wrath of God!
But there are some important differences. Jack becomes mortal, as Christ did, and then goes through an ordeal (I see the Angelo episode as his Passion) before regaining eternal life - but his act of mercy is not to give humanity eternal life, as in the Gospels, but to give mortality back to them. And he does not act alone. I think it's very significant that he has to be helped and would have been unable to bring about a resolution alone. There was tremendous symbolism in the Blessing, its appearance resembling the hell mouth of a morality play (or indeed Dr Faustus) and also the gates to the Underworld, complete with the voices of the dead.
There has to be trust, co-operation and communication between human beings. On the other hand we have Rex, whose name means literally "king". Each has a Pieta - Jack has Gwen who asserts his mortality by killing him, Rex has Esther (a Biblical name) who dies for him, but it's made very clear that both men have to look beyond immediate relationships and work together to redeem humankind. There are oppositions too numerous to go into here - Europe/USA, the Antipodes, black/white, male/female, and indeed those who seek to reveal truth contrasted with those who tell narratives that deliberatly obscure it - Oswald and Jilly.
What RTD seems to be saying is that the answer isn't out there - it is deep within us, in the bowels of our own planet. Again and again, through all his work, his theme is hammered home, that we are capable of enormous evil and individual acts of heroic sacrifice.