I mentioned various books/movies/authors in this story. Can you recognize them? :)

Chapter Text First quote and the title come from the passage cited in Cortázar's I put some of the sentences—slightly altered—in the paragraph in which Kylo enters the garden:

THE ABUSE OF CONSCIOUSNESS

This house I am living in resembles my own in every way: the disposition of the rooms, the smell of the hallway, the furniture, the light that slants in the morning, becomes attenuated at noontime, overlaps in the afternoon; everything is the same, even the paths and the trees in the garden, and that old tumble-down gate and the paving stones in the courtyard. The hours and minutes of the time that passes also resemble the hours and minutes of my own life. In the moment in which they spin me around, I tell myself: "They seem real. How much they resemble the real hours I am living at this moment!" For my part, if indeed I have done away with every reflective surface in my house, in spite of it all, the inevitable window-pane insists on returning my reflection, I see someone there who looks like me. Yes, he looks very much like me, I recognize him! But no one must think that it is I! After all! Everything is false here. When they give me back my house and my life, then I shall find my own true face.

The moment in which Kylo looks into the sun is a reference to Irvin Yalom's book Staring at the sun: overcoming the terror of death. I definitely would put it on a list of the most important books in my life. It is utterly terrifying, serious and intellectually sophisticated and I cried a lot while reading it. If you haven't heard about it or you don't know to read it or not then I will say that you definitely should. Snoke's movies and books: The Godfather. I'm sure you know why. Nosferatu the Vampire. I chose this movie for many reasons. At first glance Nosferatu may remind you Snoke, because he is ugly and deformed. However, I think that the movie better describes Kylo's personality. First of all, Kylo is a Byronic hero, just like most of the vampires. The movie tells a story about two types of monsters: the classical one, with long nails and funny ears, both scary and grotesque, a vampire who wants to capture his prey but is enchanted with her beauty and deep inside his heart he wants to be loved. The second one is the vampire of the new generation, he is not afraid of garlic or the sign of the cross. He has no feelings and wants to rule the world. And which path would Kylo choose? Death in Venice—an elderly composer travels to Venice and falls in love with a young boy. Well, I don't believe in "Snylo," but I felt that this issue should be addressed! "The SteadfastTin Soldier" by Hans Christian Andersen. It tells a story about love of two people with deficits. Hamlet. Mentally unstable, overly dramatic prince. Do I have to say more? Sigmund Freud and his Oedipus theory. Let me cite one of my essays:

Oedipus myth and Oedipus complex: Freud

Sigmund Freud, father of modern psychology and psychoanalysis, received a thorough, classical education meaning he was well-versed in ancient Greek literature. He was especially fascinated with the story of Oedipus, which he considered to be the most important myth of all the stories the mankind has ever created.

According to one of the variant of the myth, Oedipus was a child of king Laius and his wife, Jocaste. Yet before he was born, an oracle of Delfi foretold that one day the son would kill his father and marry his own mother. To prevent the fulfilment of the ominous prophecy, the parents ordered servants to abandon the child in the mountains; however, they didn't carry out the order and eventually Oedipus was raised at the court of the king of Corinth. After many years, Oedipus – who was by that time a full grown man – found out about his wait and, to ward it off, he left the palace which he thought to be his home. On his way, at the crossroads, he was stopped by a carriage and had a quarrel with a man who drove it and who turned out to be his biological father, Laius. Without knowing it Oedipus killed Laius and married widowed Jocaste, his true mother.

Freud used this mythological story to explain a developmental conflict, which emerges in early childhood and sets a frame for psychological growth throughout our lives. In classical psychoanalytic theory, the Oedipus conflict surfaces between third and sixth year of life, that is, when children gradually become aware of their body together with its physical attributes; they also develop the concept of sex and start to notice the difference between the two sexes. What seems most characteristic of this phase is a wish to have a parent for our own: "because the Oracle laid the same curse upon us before our birth as upon him. It is the fate of all of us, perhaps, to direct our first sexual impulse towards our mother and our first hatred and our first murderous wish against our father" (Freud, 1924).

Parricide as a loving murder: Loewald

Oedipus myth is a myth about a rebel against one's parents. Early in life, when child is totally dependent upon their caregivers, the two are inseparable; they function as a whole, meaning that a newborn has no sense of separate self: both bodily as well as psychologically. The most pressing task of every individual is to establish and maintain barriers which guard our identity. First, one needs to differentiate oneself physically: "this is me" (i.e. "this is my hand"), "and that, that is not me" (i.e. "here is where the tips of my fingers end"), "this is my personal space" (i.e. "this is how much room I need to feel comfortable"). Stable identity enables individual to make evaluations of one's own needs and feelings – and tell them apart from needs and feelings of others; to make conscious decisions and create healthy relationships.

Loewald distinguished few principal elements of the Oedipus complex, yet let me adduce the two which seem most relevant to the present analysis: "1) the idea that the tension between the pressures of parental influence and the child's innate need to establish his own capacities for originality […]; 2) the notion that oedipal parricide is driven, most fundamentally, by the child's 'urge for emancipation.' Parricide involves a revolt against, and an appropriation of, parental authority"(Ogden, 2006).

The word authority, as Loewald points out, is cognate to "author" and "authorship"; in fact, two of them share the same root, Latin auctoritas which „invention, influence, command". In this sense succession of generations is not a peaceful procession in which children gradually replace their parents. Rather, the position must be won in a fight which ends with a murder, described as both passionate and loving, as it needs conviction on the part of the child and good-will on the part of the parent; oedipal father has to challenge his son and, at the same time, be ready to accept defeat.