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“The great and amorous sky curved over the earth,
And lay upon her as a pure lover.
The rain, the humid flux descending from heaven
For both man and animal, for both thick and strong,
germinated the wheat, swelled the furrows with fecund mud
and brought forth the buds in the orchards.
And it is I who empowered these moist espousals,
I, the great Aphrodite.
Aeschylus, The Danaïdes Fragments (translator unknown)
Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, beauty, and desire, presides over the union of earth and sky, according to Aeschylus. She is the procreative force animating these primordial beings. No wonder love is considered divine. This powerful and sometimes destructive energy pulsates throughout the universe.
The Lover archetype seeks connectedness at its deepest and most profound. It seduces us towards that which makes us feel most alive, daring us to see more within ourselves, giving us the courage to defy boundaries we could not see beyond, and thus expanding us into the possibilities of who we might become. At its fullest, the Lover archetype allows us to feel utterly alive and at one with the very fabric of being.
Epic cinematic love stories like Titanic, The Notebook, or A Star is Born capture glimpses of the force of the Lover archetype, showing how lovers change each other’s lives. Their desire for one another moves them toward different aspects of themselves, expanding the possibilities they had before and, at times, challenging class, society, and circumstance in its attempts to contain this sacred force. Even amidst the tragic aspects of these movies, we can witness how powerful love can be for those who are captured by its thrall. But can the story of a Marvel villain contain aspects of the Lover archetype? While it is an unlikely place to find love, I believe it is here as well.
*The following content contains spoilers.
The love-death
Marvel’s series Agatha All Along further develops the villainous character Agatha Harkness. In the lineage of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and its expansion of the Scarlet Witch character, viewers are introduced to the formidable witch, Agatha, in Wanda Vision when she portrays a friendly neighbor while harboring her true intentions of attaining the Scarlet Witch's astonishing power.
Agatha’s lover, Rio, is the personification of Death. To fall in love with Death seems like a problematic relationship from the start. Yet, for Agatha, love and death intertwine. At a young age, her coven, led by her mother, attempts to kill her. At this moment Agatha realizes she absorbs the powers of those who attack her; she drains their life force. With a trail of bodies in her wake, at some point, Agatha falls in love with Death herself.
Fear and desire are driving emotions that often defy reason. Thus, it seems natural to intertwine the two in a love affair; as with Aphrodite’s entanglement with Ares, the Greek god of war.
Joseph Campbell tells how love and death are closely related in mythology. From early Bronze Age fertility rituals to the “interior kingdom of the soul” of Hellenistic mystery cults, fertilization occurs “through death … a submission of the solar principle of rational self-reliant consciousness to the song, the sleep-song, of the interior abyss where the two [lovers] become one” (Creative Mythology, 195). Love, death, and rebirth are at the core of these ancient fertility cycles. As with the ecosystem of a forest, the trees that die nourish the new growth of the forest floor. Love and death regenerate life, together creating something enlivening and new for the community and the soul. But for Agatha, her affair with Death is consumptive, feeding an endless need for power.
“Follow me, my friend”[1]
Agatha All Along depicts the journey of a coven of witches on the Witches’ Road, a path of trials that promises to deliver what one wants most, if the traveler has the fortitude to make it to the end. The road itself pulsates with the Lover archetype, luring adventurers with their deepest desire, even at the risk of death. The love of their life beckons them onward.
Billy, a teenager yearning for belonging, instigates the journey, asking Agatha for help finding the Witches’ Road. Though she is ever deceiving, Agatha seems to have a maternal pull towards Billy, or at the very least a soft spot for his plight.
Agatha seeks power from the Witches’ Road, as she always has, but we catch glimpses through each of the trials of a deeper desire. In the final trial, when she is forced to face the thing she wants most of all, she opens her locket revealing a lock of hair. Agatha is driven by the love for her son.
“Darkest hour, wake thy power”[1]
Death comes for Agatha’s son as she writhes in the throes of labor pains, and she begs Death, “Please, let him live, please, my love” (“Maiden Mother Crone” 3:53). With empathy in her eyes, Death states, “I can offer only time” (“Maiden Mother Crone” 5:00), a “special treatment” that no one in history has received but Agatha (“Follow Me My Friend / To Glory at the End” 5:47), a testament of Death’s feelings for her.
After delivery, Agatha tells her son: “I spoke no spell. I made no incantation. You, I made from scratch” (“Maiden Mother Crone” 5:04). No magical powers were employed in this creation, just the procreative magic that belongs to all beings on earth. A lover’s union that gave birth to life not death. The love Agatha expresses for her son is pure, singular for this coven-less witch whose mother attempted to kill her. And she protects her child with vicious resolve.
But time runs out, as it does, and when Death comes once again for her son, Agatha’s heartbreak leaves her untethered. It amplifies her lust for power as she attempts to fill the void of grief.
Love animates the universe
Throughout the hundreds of years of her life, Agatha is only known for her cruelty. She takes lives, steals powers, and is said to have sacrificed her son for forbidden knowledge. When Death asks, “Why do you let them believe those things about you?” her response is, “Because the truth is too awful” (“Follow Me My Friend / To Glory at the End” 6:28). It is better to evoke fear than show the vulnerability of someone who has loved deeply and lost. Yet love pulls Agatha onward, even in its perceived absence. As the character Vision states in an earlier episode, “What is grief, if not love persevering?” (“Previously On” 24:48).
The prize Agatha truly yearns for at the end of the Witches’ Road is a return to the life-giving love she shared with her son. Though hidden deep within Agatha’s treacherous actions, this connection remains within her, calling to her heart. As cultural historian Charlene Spretnak explains, “Everywhere, Aphrodite drew forth the hidden promise of life” as “she alone understands the love that begets life” (Lost Goddesses of Early Greece, 71-2). The Lover archetype calls us to that which gives life.
The Lover archetype calls us to that which gives life.
At the end of the Witches’ Road, Agatha returns to the heartbreak of her loss, but now within her locket, beside the lock of her son’s hair, she finds a seed. To complete the final trial, Agatha plants the magical seed within the earthen floor, waters it with her tears, and witnesses it grow. “Out of death, life” (“Follow Me My Friend / To Glory at the End” 24:59), she proclaims, acknowledging the generative cycle of fertility, both in nature as well as symbolically. For death is the regeneration of life—destruction evokes creation.
Something seems to shift in Agatha through this experience. The Lover archetype stirs within her. When Death comes once again to now take Billy’s life, she is reminded of her son and sacrifices herself for Billy’s life with a passionate kiss of Death. Giving the ultimate commitment to Death in the end, Agatha exchanges her life for the life of another. As her body returns to the earth, a multitude of vegetation emerges from where she lies–a testament to the life-giving nature of her sacrifice.
Agatha All Along is not a love story per se. It is a superheroine fantasy with aspects of horror, comedy, and adventure. But, love is here too. The Lover archetype beckons these characters forward even as she is distorted, misunderstood, or hidden. Love is ever-present, even in unlikely places–a testament to the idea that it surrounds us, pulsating throughout the universe, if we have the courage to listen to her call.
[1] “Ballad of the Witches’ Road.” Disney Fandom Wiki. https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Ballad_of_the_Witches%27_Road
MythBlast authored by:
Stephanie Zajchowski, PhD is a mythologist and writer based in Texas. She serves as the Director of Operations for the Joseph Campbell Foundation and is a contributing author of Goddesses: A Skeleton Key Study Guide. Stephanie is also a co-founder of the Fates and Graces, hosting webinars and workshops for mythic readers and writers. Her work focuses on the intersection of mythology, religion, and women’s studies. For more information, visit stephaniezajchowski.com
This MythBlast was inspired by Creative Mythology and the archetype of The Lover.
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This episode of Pathways, the final episode of Season 4, features a lecture recorded in 1985 in Southwest Germany. In it, Joseph Campbell explores the significance of mythological images and reflects on some of the major themes that shaped his life and work. He also shares personal stories about how and why he became so passionate about mythology. Dr. Bradley Olson introduces the episode and provides insightful commentary on some of its important themes at the conclusion.
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"The conquest of the fear of death is the recovery of life's joy. One can experience an unconditional affirmation of life only when one has accepted death, not as contrary to life, but as an aspect of life. Life in its becoming is always shedding death, and on the point of death. The conquest of fear yields the courage of life."
-- Joseph Campbell