Hell on Earth in Garth Nix’s Old Kingdom: Dark Jouissance and the Dead Mother

Authors

John Rosegrant, New Orleans-Birmingham Psychoanalytic CenterFollow

Abstract

The Old Kingdom’s River of Death is a hell impinging on life: The Dead take hideous Boschian forms, and helped by necromancers wielding “Free Magic” they often emerge from Death. Necromancers, Free Magic, and the Dead are battled by Abhorsens wielding “Charter magic,” Free Magic that has been transformed by symbols. Immersion in the Charter gives a joyous experience of connection to all life. Symbolization must unite with Free Magic to create this experience; symbolization alone is inadequate, as we see in the example of mundanely rational people who dwell in a neighboring land. But the source of joyous access to the Charter is also the source of access to Death, demonstrating jouissance that can provide great pleasure or great horror.

Integrating symbolic with nonverbal experience is fundamental to humanness, becoming crucial when language develops around year three. The theme of dead mothers indicates how this development can leave gaps that horror creeps through. Some mothers of Abhorsens and necromancers are literally dead; other mothers are emotionally dead. Desire for joyous connection turns hellish under the sway of the dead mother.

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