A Dark (K)night origin story
or another way of saying 'rock bottom'
“We know how this ends. You’re going to die and so will everyone… you love.” is the opening of Will Storr’s ‘The Science of Storytelling’.
Ominous. Demoralising. Comical. True.
I think Storr hit the nail in the head but so did Nietzsche when he introduced to the world the idea of the Übermensch.
THE ÜBERMENSCH
is a giant with feelings. That’s how I imagine it. Sort of like Hulk.
A textbook definition would be someone who abides by life-affirming and creative values. A literal translation is Overman or… Superman.
Coincidence? YES.
🤓 “The Reign of the Superman” is a short illustrated story published in 1933 by Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster about a homeless man who consumed an experimental drug and gained superpowers. It was the beginning of Superman as we know him today.
Yet, I think there are similarities between the Übermensch & our popular culture superheroes as they save the world from otherworldly harm.
Will Storr refers to stories as a way out of the deep dark pit of our minds that grapples with death. Says, “story emerges from human minds as naturally as breath emerges from human lips.” Giving the Übermensch some popular culture validation, we may be able to understand why superhero stories have dominated a large part of the audience for a while now.
Every superhero has an origin story. In fact, every character has one. An origin story is the backstory that informs the identity and motivations of heroes and villains most commonly but not limited to: comic book stories.
Humans, mere mortals, also have a version of an origin story… it’s called rock bottom.
Blake Snyder would call this the Dark Night of the Soul. The lowest moment in a character’s arc. A crisis of faith or a difficult, painful period in the character’s journey.
So let’s bring everyone together. The ÜBERMENSCH. The SUPERHERO. The AVERAGE PERSON WHO WENT THROUGH A HARD TIME AND SURVIVED IT.
One thing they all have in common is 1) a relationship with struggle.
In Nietzsche’s ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None’, Zarathustra (30) “left his home and the lake of his home and went into the mountains.” There he sat and pondered and ultimately came up with the ideal of the Übermensch.
Writes Nietzsche, “Man is a rope tied between beast and Overman - a rope over an abyss. A dangerous crossing. A dangerous wayfaring. A dangerous looking back. A dangerous trembling and halting.” OK. That’s one way to put it.
The guys behind Philosophy Vibe have one or two more things to say about this. In one of their dedicated Ubermensch videos, they argue that Nietzsche gives us only a vague idea of what or who the Ubermensch could be. He refers to it as a means to achieving a higher morality but without identifying what this morality looks like.
Based. Philosophy is never straightforward. Always interpretative.
“Soul is only a word for something about the body,” writes Nietzsche. From this, could we interpret that higher morality is achieved when body and spirit become one?
Andrea Towers’ book ‘Geek Girls Don’t Cry’ is all about that. In identifying the trauma behind female superheroes, she elaborates on their origin stories, crediting them for the source of their superpower.
Natasha Romanoff was trained to become a dangerous and elite sleeper agent through brainwashing and biochemical enhancements through the infamous Red Room training program. Later in life, she joins the Avengers and is able to use her training for good. When she finds out the Red Room is still active, she’s thrown into action to save an army of Widows, bound to kill (and suffer in the process).
It’s fiction but it means something. And an audience (a large part of it, dare I mention) find meaning in Black Widow’s struggle of an origin story. Says Towers, “Natasha has had to overcome her fears and trauma the same way we do - by finding ways to work through the self-doubt and anxiety that comes with accepting the idea that you don’t have to be who you were made to be.”
There’s also 2) the idea of the establishment of a new world order.
The Übermensch creates their own values and meaning, rejecting external authorities like religion or societal norms. This is reminiscent of the MORAL DILEMMA that plagues many superhero narratives: The world needs saving. Who’s going to save it and on whose terms?
For Batman, it’s simple. He is a vigilante. The death of his parents allows him to create his own value system where he deems himself responsible for restoring justice and order in the city of Gotham. In the Marvel Universe, the situation is a little bit more controlled - the Avengers are a recognised authority. They can fight crime as long as they obey the rules. Yet, the same dilemma is at the heart of most movies as the rules get broken, more often than not.
Scaling down the conflict, we can see it applies to any crisis in life. Crises are uncomfortable. To embrace them it means to abandon comfort and to do so is undeniably hard. Much like Bruce Wayne and Natasha Romanoff, one has to stand up for their trauma and establish their own grounds for a mental battle.
To leave comfort one has to be brave. To meet the Ubermensch one has to be ready. To be a superhero, one has to embrace their origin story, the trauma that holds them back and let that define their abilities.
The last link between them all is 3) a rejection of God.
Nietzsche’s text is heavy on ideas about the Death of God. By rejecting the construct of a higher power, one can become the higher power.
While Batman decides to take the blame for Dent’s death to give Gotham city the hero that it needs, Black Widow sacrifices herself to obtain the Soul Stone that restores the lives of trillions of people. OK, these are superheroes and their way of defying God is by claiming a godly authority.
Characters, too, have an opportunity for empowerment. If there is one thing that is good about being at the bottom is that you can only move upwards from there.
The Dark Night of the Soul beat comes at the end of Act II. It’s the end of an act but the beginning of another and the decision that the character will take will determine the outcome of the story (or the beginning of one’s journey).
If authenticity matters (which always should), then a Deus ex Machina won’t work. An audience always roots for the CHARACTER to make the right decision.
That’s all to say, if hitting rock bottom sounds terrifying, it’s because it probably is but it’s the only way to embrace the Übermensch. Or the superhero in you. Whatever sounds less cheesier.
Interesting! Thanks for sharing this insight.