One thing to keep in mind with both Morrison and Claremont, especially where Jean is concerned, is their Joseph Campbell influences. Campbell was the expert on mythology, it's rituals, it's symbols, and how they related to life. He was the biggest influence on George Lucas with the Star Wars movies, and a lot of writers who handle the "Heroes Journey" type stories (like both CC and GM). The idea is that these myths represent the journey we all have to go through, and serve as guides on how to handle ourselves. Catholic scholors have maintained that it's the meaning BEHIND the Biblical story that's the important thing, not whether it literally happened the way it's described in the Old Testament. They argue, and I agree with them, that these people searching the mountains for remains of Noah's Ark in an effort to prove something are missing the point.

The theory is that it's the modern writers, poets, musicians, artists, etc, who shape our modern myths, tell the stories that serve for our culture what the ancient myths, songs, and rituals served for the ancients. So, from a Joseph Campbell perspective, Jean's whole Phoenix journey is very key to her growth as a person. It's all about sacrifice and rebirth, sex and death and life, and Jean finding her center, her place in the Universe, and her bliss. It's just that, being a modern mythological figure, she has to actually DO all this stuff the rest of us just have to do symbolically. In other words, once all is said and done, she should emerge from all this a stronger, wiser, much more together, human being.

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