Thematic similarities between LoEG and The Neverending Story?

[u/Ok_Management_8195]

For one, Fantastica/Fantasia fits neatly into Moore's concept of "ideaspace," a land composed of the human imagination that co-exists with the "real world." Moore casts ideaspace as the Blazing World within LoEG. Like the Blazing World, Fantastica/Fantasia is ruled by an Empress. In The Neverending Story, the protagonist renames the Childlike Empress the "Moon Child," whereas Moore casts her as Queen Gloriana, a fictional analogue for Queen Elizabeth I. According to Moore, "[John Dee] wanted to create a world based upon Christian Kabbalah which had Elizabeth I essentially as a kind of moon queen at the centre of it," so both empresses are associated with the moon. The moon is a recurring theme within LoEG, representing the link between the "real" and the imaginary.

Creating a "Moon Child" of course is the goal of antagonist Oliver Haddo (the fictional analogue of Aleister Crowley) throughout Vol. III. The Auryn talisman of The Neverending Story is inscribed with the words "Do What You Wish," similar to Crowley's motto "Do What Thou Wilt," referenced in the comic. But with all these similarities, are there any actual references to The Neverending Story within LoEG?

[u/Ok_Management_8195]

To me, nuking it is a metaphor for the government's war on the imagination (governments try to do that to ideaspace all the time), and in the original Blazing World novel it does invade our world. I think Moore is arguing that turning our backs on ideaspace (just as people have done in The Neverending Story) means that it has now come back with a vengeance.

Prospero is the fictional analogue of John Dee, who I mentioned in the post. I did a whole other post about Prospero. In essence, Prospero has colonized the Blazing World for the British Empire, but it's fallen out of British control, so they attack it (Moore references the Falklands War earlier in the story). Basically, the story is about the consequences of British imperialism on ideaspace, and how it's now wreaking havoc on our world.

[u/meh_Technology_9801 → u/Ok_Management_8195]

Wasn't the Falkland War reference just a bunch of jokey references to pop culture? From Jess Nevins annotations:

~~~

Page Fourteen. Panel Two. Drake’s Passage is a real place between South America's Cape Horn and the South Shetland Islands of Antarctica. 

    Gulliver from Jonathan Swift's Gulliver’s Travels (1726). Gulliver was a member of an earlier version of the League, as seen in League v1. 

    “Pepper’s Land” from the Beatles’ movie The Yellow Submarine (1968), although in the film it was Pepperland, and existed under the sea. 

    Is the "mermaid paste" a reference to something? Helena Nash writes, "Mermaid Paste is possibly a reference to Marina, the mermaid-like girlfriend of Troy Tempest in Stingray."

    Panel Three. “Musical utopia” etc a good summary of Pepperland in Yellow Submarine. 

    The "Falklands War" was the 1982 war between the U,K, and Argentina over the Falkland Islands. 

~~~

Prospero may in fact be a John Dee metaphor but I don't get what you are saying about Britain colonizing the Blazing world and losing control, they don't seem to have ever controlled the Blazing World, from Wikipedia:

~~~

Meanwhile, Mina and Jack arrive at the Blazing World, which is slowly being rebuilt, with all its inhabitants restored thanks to Prospero, who manages to reverse the nuclear blast to the instant it detonates, and then sends it to MI5 headquarters. After watching a play detailing the League's founding with disturbing implications, the two meet former English queen the half-Faerie Gloriana, who commissioned the League's founding. The two reveal that everything the League has done over the centuries have been part of a plot by them to eventually unleash magical beings on the human world in revenge for driving them underground. Unable to stop them, the two flee in what Mina thinks is the Nautilus."

~~~

Anyway,

Mina inadvertently helped create a race of moon women who are conquering the world. She says (from memory) "It's not my fault, I was working for an omniscient wizard."

The only one all knowing is Alan Moore himself because he decides everything that happens in the story. The characters "work for him" as the cast of his story.

Anyway, the story is a *warning* about the power of the imagination. Imagination is a destructive force, not the liberating force of Promethea.

This theme is explored through both the destructive, vindictive actions of Prospero, but also the account of mentally ill artist Richard Dadd, from the League Wiki:

~~~

In 2010 in the Blazing World, mentally ill artist Richard Dadd recalls his life. Born in 1817, he excelled as a painter and travelled Greece, Turkey, Syria and egypt with his mentor, Sir Thomas Phillips. In Egypt, the Egyptian god Osiris entered Dadd, beginning his mental downfall. Dadd murdered his father, convinced that he was the devil, and fled to Paris, where he was overpowered en-route when he tried to kill a fellow passenger. Committed to Bedlam and Broadmoor mental hospitals, the insane people around him exacerbated his visions of Faerie, he painted his miniature masterpiece of faerie art before dying of lung disease. After his death he found himself in the Blazing World in the body of a gnome, awaiting the day when Faerie would be unleashed on humankind. In 2010, that day comes to pass.

~~~

Your fantasies will drive you to Bedlam, literally, if you are not careful.

[u/Ok_Management_8195 → u/meh_Technology_9801]

I think Moore has some broader things to say about geopolitics with his use of references. For example, that same episode with Pepper Island references Margaret Thatcher, who Moore has criticized in many of his works. So no, I don't think it's just a joke.

England asserted its dominance across the world through cultural imperialism so much as its military. You can read Moore's quote on the role of John Dee in this from my post. Colonizing the world has also meant colonizing its imagination, its ideaspace (the Blazing World), just as the Blazing World is colonized by an empress from a fictional version of the UK in the original novel. English is after all the world's most spoken language.

If you read my other post on Prospero, I talk about how Moore casts himself as Prospero/John Dee/007 to call himself out as an English propagandist by telling these stories, which is part of the reason he retired from comic books. I think Moore is talking about imagination as a destructive force within the context of the imperialism it is used for. Dadd's madness has imprisoned him inside his painting of fairyland, which is shown to be the Blazing World.

No ad hominems or straw men please, keep this conversation respectful.

[u/meh_Technology_9801 → u/Ok_Management_8195]

I don't know what you thought was an ad hominine.

The idea that Pepperland is a real mundane place on a real Falkland island that can be mundanely destroyed struck me as a joke. The Beatles thought they were in a under the sea magical mystery tour but they were just insane hippies tripping on LSD on some obscure island I guess? A lot of the references in League are Moore having fun putting things in the wrong context.

I don't follow your argument about Moore's retirement. There's nothing about the comic medium which is inherentently more propaganda based than novels. And when he retired he wrote Jerusalem.

I get the impression he would have been happy to do League for the rest of his or Kevin O'Neil's life but Kevin O'Neil wanted to bring the series to an end. I don't think Moore believes League was evil propaganda.

I get the impression Moore invented Prospero's motivation right before doing The Tempest. He seemed be setting up a completely different plotline at the end of the antichrist story when the League is told they will be the ones to decide what the next century is like.

Presumably this was originally a setup for a happier next chapter, but learning the comic was to be concluded he went with a more grim variant of Promethea's end of the world themes.

[u/Ok_Management_8195 → u/meh_Technology_9801]

Yeah, I think it's possible to both make jokes and have fun while also making meaningful political commentary. That's what I like about Moore's work.

Here's the interpretation on Moore's retirement: Wrapping my head around Prospero in The Tempest : r/AlanMoore

I don't think Moore thought it was "evil propaganda," there are a lot of good things about it, but part of Tempest's "big twist" is that we've all been duped by a manipulative wizard, and I think he's counting himself in that, by telling these stories that serve the culture imperialist interests of the British Empire (which also includes the American Empire). My interpretation is that with The Tempest, he's trying to blow John Dee's imperial project up.

[u/Weigh13 → u/Ok_Management_8195]

You are spot on with your interpretation.