Checking the Lore: Resurrection Narratives and Leaky Spaces in Plato and Supernatural (original) (raw)

The television series Supernatural is full of marvelous transformations and horrific possibility. Now entering its eleventh season, the show is currently exploring the time before there was time, before the creation of the world. This time before history, full of danger and chaos, has been stalking the protagonists of the series for the entirety of the show--the darkness just at the outskirts of reality bleeds into the fabric of the universe and causes unreality within the matrix of the real. These spots of unreality have been the focus of the show week to week for over a decade and there is nearly always “lore,” fairy stories and mythology wound together to aid the hero (or anti-hero) in completion of his or her duty. The Ancient Greek philosopher Plato too explores myths and fairy stories in his own way. Indeed, the entirety of the Platonic corpus may be seen as a mythological tale--the dialogues of Plato are, after all, stories about his deceased teacher Socrates. Plato weaves myths into his philosophy, the two intertwining such that the distinction between myth and philosophy becomes unclear--rather than giving an account of the meaning behind existing myths (a mytho-logos), Plato creates the myths themselves (mytho-poesis), their power unclear and likely dangerous. In this paper I will explore the interrelation between the resurrection narratives and fantastical spaces that make up the world of Supernatural and the philosophy of Plato. The telling and retelling of these myths creates a compendium of “lore” which the series and philosopher use to explore the nature of what it is to be human, what came before, what will come to pass, and the possibility for redemption. While the lore in Supernatural seems to provide escape and safety, its representation in Plato belies the dark warnings at the heart of these wondrous tales.