A Trickster Treat

Archetypes, shadows, identities, and meet my friend Chester

Reynard the Fox is a trickster character from Western European medieval fables. (Wikimedia Commons)

This post is part of the Jungle Writing series for paid subscribers, but I hope everyone finds something to chew on in the first (free) half.

Don’t worry, new subscribers, most of my writing is more science-y if that’s what you’re looking for, such as what sleeping sharks have to do with the theory of relativity, what space spiders can teach us about the meaning of life, or which beasts lurk the internet.

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When I was young - think primary school - I was the class clown. At some undefinable point during adolescence (age 14-15?), I transformed into a trickster. They’re not the same thing. Jesters or clowns perform on the stage, in front of kings and queens (or other kids and teachers). Tricksters don’t perform and they work mostly in the shadows. I became a solo explorer of gray zones.

It’s a story I tell myself, of course. A post hoc rationalization of distorted memories and a narrative identity that I slot into without too much uncomfortable squishing (maybe because tricksters tend to be shapeshifters). All stories, including the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, have character archetypes. There’s the hero and the villain. The ruler. The heartthrob. The warrior. The magician. The mentor. The innocent. The clown.

And the trickster.

Almost every human culture has stories and myths about tricksters, from Loki and Hermes to Anansi and Baron Samedi, from Reynard the Fox to Cheshire Cat¹. In the second half of the 19th century, Scottish anthropologist James George Frazer tried to distill archetypes from different cultural myths, but his contemporary Jung is who we most associate with archetypes.

Jung considered the trickster one of the oldest archetypes; a creature of “divine-animal nature”, a paradox and contradiction that will prove important. In contrast to many other archetypes, the trickster’s allegiance is unclear. Tricksters are not good or evil; they are both. They chart their own path and question, as Jung put it, “sacred cows of civilization.” Shoulds and supposed tos become whys and what ifs. But tricksters also enable transformation by encouraging growth and creativity. The trickster, Jung thought, provides a counterweight for the sacred by providing “all the wildness, wantonness, and irresponsibility of paganism.“ Sounds right up my cobblestoned, moonlit alley. The trickster questions assumptions to reveal the world beyond good and evil.

Consider Cheshire Cat, or Chester as I can call him, who tells Alice,

When you’ve understood this scripture, throw it away. If you can’t understand this scripture, throw it away. I insist on your freedom.

Tricksters are tragic characters. They know they are not the hero and develop a different skill set to pursue their goals, often empowering other characters along a winding path. I recently came across an illustration of this idea that will clarify it better than I can. In the fifth episode of the Netflix series Twilight of the Gods (recommended), called ‘The Scapegoat God’, we see Loki - the trickster, the storyteller, the shapeshifter - reveal his true purpose².

Without major spoilers: Loki takes the blame, the guilt, and the burden of betrayal to help the party of Sigrid make headway on their quest to kill Thor. He unburdens others from these feelings so that they move forward in their story.