"I am in control of my life." (Valkyrie)

"I am in control of my life."

Death, or more specifically mortality, as an abstract idea, has been on my mind a lot over this last weekend.  As anyone who follows this blog can tell, I've been having a rough time dealing with some big events in the world that I wasn't a part of, but which I couldn't help but be aware of after they'd happened.  All of us have been affected by a major tragedy that's propelled a situation into acute public awareness.  So, I don't think it's appropriate for me to lie and act as though nothing's happened to me, that I haven't been emotionally affected by recent events in the news.  One look at the date of this posting, even in hindsight, will show that such a claim would be - I like to hope - impossible for anyone with even a modicum of compassion.  As much as this blog is, as I've said, a celebration of heroism and idealism and the fictional women who have inspired me and continue to do so, these articles also serve another purpose - they're a place for me to write down a version of my own personal biography for everyone to see.

I've also said before that I have to think long and hard about every piece I write, because of how personal these feelings are that I'm putting on public display.  I'm telling stories about myself and how my life has gone, and where I think it will go - and sometimes, where I hope it will go.  As a result of this, I don't pretend that other people will necessarily be interested in the biographical elements of the pieces I write.  But, to me, there's little to be gained in simply understanding the raw mechanics of characters.  It's not how I've ever worked.  I find it far more interesting to talk about a character - or any fiction - through the lens that matters most, the human lens, the reader's lens.  I can find out about a comic book character in any number of online or print sources.  In the long run, those are just dry collections of facts.

What does a given character matter to you?  That's a much more interesting question for me.  So, that's the question I pursue on here, because it addresses a deeper question no encyclopedia of fiction can address, the question of WHY a character matters to you.  With my thoughts lingering on death as an abstraction, the fictional character who most matters to me right now is Marvel's VALKYRIE. 

Now, those of you who've read the previous article I wrote about Thundra will no doubt recognize a common theme between that character and Valkyrie..  Brunhilde, like Thundra, was portrayed very early-on in her catalog of appearances as being what was considered at that time to be a feminist.  What that meant for those appearances is that she spent a great deal of time putting down men and not much time building up women, beyond showing off a physical prowess that came and went with the beats of the story.

It's a hallmark of the character, in fact, that even as a kid I remember thinking that I never had a clear handle on how powerful she was - and, given an analysis of her character showing she's been equally powered and de-powered along with the aforementioned reintepretations of her origins, that's not terribly surprising.  And it continues to this day, when the character does appear.  

When the stories have needed her to be monstrously strong, she would be.

When the stories have needed her to be weaker than a mortal opponent, she has been.  

Consistency was never a terribly important element of comic book mythology in those times.  It still isn't - and I'm thankful.  Story, to me, is everything - not consistency of power levels at the expense of telling a quality narrative.  And sometimes that's true, even in a less-than-quality narrative.

Likewise, Valkyrie's opinions about men have been portrayed in an inconsistent fashion over the years by different writers clearly trying to use the character in different ways to make different points, whatever motivations they might have.  Sometimes, she's an outright misandrist in her opinions of men.

Then, another writer comes along and portray her as having a more even-headed approach toward the opposite gender.

And then another writer decides to shift things in the opposite direction again.

So, yes - like Thundra, Valkyrie's attitudes and abilities have changed with the times, back and forth, throughout the publication history of the character in various titles.  But that's not why I'm bringing these elements up in the first place.  What I'm trying to point out is that even with all these elements present in the various interpretations of Valkyrie, I nevertheless loved the character, just as much as I loved Thundra.  It didn't matter that their powers weren't portrayed consistently, or that their personalities shifted from comic to comic.

And that's because, sometimes, inspiration can come from what a character represents to the reader, like I suggested at the beginning of this piece.  And sometimes, the central point of a character shines through no matter how the details work out with a given writer, and that's something I think is both for Thundra and for Valkyrie.

And for me, what Valkyrie represented was keeping a warrior's heart even in the presence of death - something I'm not good at, even on my best day.

To me, VALKYRIE represents death in a way I could deal with as a child, could understand without the concept seeming quite so frightening or depressing as it usually happens to be.  

This doesn't mean I believe in Asgard, or Valhalla, or any other religious iconography or system of faith.  I don't.  I'm an atheist, through and through.  I believe that when a person dies, they simply cease to exist.  I don't believe in the existence of a soul.  I don't believe in the presence of an afterlife.  I don't believe in anything supernatural.  And yet, here I am, loving Valkyrie.  So, what gives? 

Speaking as someone who, to this day, has never dealt with death very well in her own life,  Valkyrie inspires me.  And I think that's the point I'm trying to make with this essay.  It's not that I feel a kinship to Valkyrie.  It's that her warrior's strength inspires me to try - to attempt to be more brave in thinking about death, to attempt to quell my rage when death is unjust, to try to see death not as the terrible shadow of total oblivion but rather in a way that serves as a metaphor - death as a release from obligation, death as an end to pain, death as a merciful being like Brunhilde ultimately is to me despite all the various interpretations of her character.  

The nature of the character that holds true to me is the woman warrior who sees death coming to others and stands fast against an unjust demise for a person, a warrior woman who demands that people be given their due in their final moments, who believes in rewarding those who are true and just with a journey to a sort of Valhalla. 

It's a beautiful notion, even if it's that Valhalla is a fiction.  It's that Brunhilde herself believes these people are worthy of that rest and that reward that I find inspiring - that she doesn't see death as something to retreat from but instead something to deal with, refusing to despair in its inevitability and instead seeking to guide its inexorable progression to grant people some kind of ultimate universal truth, universal justice.  And that has nothing to do with her power levels, her feelings toward men versus women, her perceptions of chauvinism. 

What it has to do with is her sense of compassion for the fallen and her recognition that she has a duty to do for the fallen rather than to simply succumb to despair at their loss.  Today, especially, those are feelings I find I still need, feelings that I recognize must stand stronger in me than any grief, must prove more powerful than any anguish I feel. 

The recognition of the idea that death isn't the end doesn't necessarily have to mean that one belives in any afterlife. 

The simple notion that the death of one person carries with it responsibilities from the living, that's keeping me going now, today, just as it did in the past.  It's keeping me from curling up in a ball on the floor of my apartment and sobbing, because I'm trying to channel that warrior woman's spirit in myself, even if it's not specifically Valkyrie herself, but rather the warrior woman's spirit of all the fictional (and real) beings who inspire me in this world and in the near-infinite fictional universes. 

The idea can come from those fictions, but the actions and stance of strength must ultimately be mine, even if thinking of fictional people helps with that process.  

As a child, I lost a few people who were very close to me, people whom I loved more deeply than I could ever articulate.  There are no words, really, to describe those feelings of loss beyond simply cataloging them.  I can say the pain was indescribable, but all that's saying is I know of no way to articulate it in a proper fashion.  And, certainly, a comic book character can't replace a real person; it's not even relevant in that respect.  

But what a fictional comic book character can do is to serve as a symbol in my own mind that I can use to try to take on real-world traits I value, like serving as an example to others in terms of not cowering before death no matter how terrified of it I might be. 

That fictional avatar can help me get up out of bed in the morning, not becuase "Valkyrie would get up" but because "I need to get up," even if the imagery I'm using to channel my energy is Brunhilde atop her mighty steed soaring across a sunlit cityscape.

None of this means my rage at unjust death is deterred.  None of this means the pain of real life death is assuaged.  None of this means I feel any better about even one person lost before it's their time.  

What it does mean is that I can call upon myself and others to behave in a way I admire, in a way I find inspiring in my own personal life.  Those are elements of myself I believe I learned in part from a fictional character named Brunhilde, most powerful of the Valkyire of legend.

Despite all the different stories, all the different personalities, Brunhilde in the Marvel Universe has come to stand as a courageous warrior who will never compromise to honor the fallen.  It's her life's work, and she performs it - in the best of stories - with honor and dignity.  These are the traits I took from her, and these are the traits I believe know no gender, no bias, no outrage except at unjust death.  And it also knows no limitations, no sense of surrender, no sense of quitting out of despair, no matter how pained we might be. 

Today, I agonize and I grieve, even though the things that cause me to do so didn't happen to me.  They happened to other people, people I don't know - people I don't have any kinship to beyond being a fellow human on Earth.  I recognize that I can't know or feel their pain. 

I can't magically experience some kind of supernatural empathy with them that makes me understand what they're going through.  

But I can demand justice from the world, and I can object to unjust loss of human life.  And we, all of us, can insist of ourselves that we stand as heroes, that we stand as warriors who don't need to fight with weapons but instead with our compassion and our intellect and our understanding of each other, our tolerance.  

In the real world, the stakes are  much more complex than in the fantasy world of comic books.  In that world, problems are solved with fisticuffs and rhetoric, bold words and bolder deeds.  Our world is more subtle than that. 

In our world, true victories come not from shouting bold statements but from standing firm to our own conviction in terms of finding the balance in ourselves and living our lives as we want others to live, rather than simply demanding of the world that it conform to our expectations - because it won't, no matter how much we'd like it.

So I'm thinking of Valkyrie in a time where the world seems to be filled with pain an death, and asking myself to think about how I can be like the virtuous elements of her character and how I can find the strength I know is inside me but seems so challenging at this point, the strength to be a good person to others, to not simply yell to shout down other people's opinions but to listen and be confident, to find my inner strength, my inner character.

I can work to further my beliefs, to stand against what I perceive as injustice.  I can't pretend to speak for the dead, but I can try to make the world the kind of world I'd want those people to live in if they were still living, and can seek change in our world to try to better my own existence as one of the living.  I can't guide the dead to Asgard or some other magical realm I don't believe exists, but I can try to make the real world closer to an Asgard, a Valhalla, a Heaven.  To me, that means making this world more peaceful, not less.  It means making it more introspective, not shrill and loud.  It mean making the world more calm and reasoned, not more savage and barbaric.  It means making the world a place where we can hope one day there will be no perceived need for weapons, even as we realize that such a world is at present - at best - only a dream.

And perhaps those of us who try to remake the real world into the paradise of our dreams are the true valkyrie, the people who bridge the gap between what is and what we wish was, to make sure that all of us get to one day live in a reality that resembles the dreams out of our past.  That, of course, will take tremendous courage and tremendous strength.  Fortunately, strength can be achieved.  And courage can be found.  You just have to be willing to try, no matter how difficult the task might seem, to never give up, and to recognize that true victory comes in refusing to be cowardly, in refusing to give in to one's fears, even if one fears as overpowering a force as death itself.  That's what Valkyrie teaches me.

She teaches me that I am in control of my life.