An odd idea hit me on the way home from work, sort of a comic superhero vs superhero spin. If any of you have not read Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse, I apologize, as the following may therefore seem somewhat unintelligible. I also should not admit that I haven't had a chance to read the latest in the series, so please excuse any potential conflict.
Suppose Jack is led to the magic theater, whether by accident or design, possibly being guided by the map previously aquired in Gateways. Within of course is the multitude of rooms denoting various aspects of the psyche, however supose he was followed. This makes for an interesting conflict given various aspects of his persona, both young and current, are thrown free to interact without conscious edit. Imagine jack entering a room shortly before a minion of Rasalom enters, only to see himself enmeshed in a conflict from a 3rd person; he begins to realize an endgame of permutations regarding his own deepest self. It is at this point that he may come accross Harry Haller, aka steppenwolf who provides the metaphysical foundations for this place of "being out of time" whereupon our deepest souls transgress upon the realm of the otherness. Jack is then ejected from the theater, as the minion is potentially forever held within the theater bound by it's own madness. As sort of a purgatory if you will.
The fun thing about this is that the majority of the novel could revolve around a pseudo-dream sequence whicn ultimately impinges upon a much larger reality. He may learn that the adversary really has no concept of us, that this worlds connection is much more tenuous and less apocopyptic that he has thus far believed. That the conflict centers around him only as a result of his awareness of it.
Suppose Jack is led to the magic theater, whether by accident or design, possibly being guided by the map previously aquired in Gateways. Within of course is the multitude of rooms denoting various aspects of the psyche, however supose he was followed. This makes for an interesting conflict given various aspects of his persona, both young and current, are thrown free to interact without conscious edit. Imagine jack entering a room shortly before a minion of Rasalom enters, only to see himself enmeshed in a conflict from a 3rd person; he begins to realize an endgame of permutations regarding his own deepest self. It is at this point that he may come accross Harry Haller, aka steppenwolf who provides the metaphysical foundations for this place of "being out of time" whereupon our deepest souls transgress upon the realm of the otherness. Jack is then ejected from the theater, as the minion is potentially forever held within the theater bound by it's own madness. As sort of a purgatory if you will.
The fun thing about this is that the majority of the novel could revolve around a pseudo-dream sequence whicn ultimately impinges upon a much larger reality. He may learn that the adversary really has no concept of us, that this worlds connection is much more tenuous and less apocopyptic that he has thus far believed. That the conflict centers around him only as a result of his awareness of it.