However, the more you study all of the these things, the deeper and more complex the narrative becomes. I've not seen any compelling evidence that this number is being used deliberately- in fact, its resonance seems almost entirely unconscious. But it keeps popping up, particularly in popcult contexts.
The first Harry Potter and Narnia novels- themselves both restoration narratives- had 17 chapters. And the latest literary sensation among the tween set- Stephanie Meyer's Twilight novels- opens with a quote from the Bible, namely Gene-Isis 2:17:
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.*Whatever the intent, the quote certainly charges this whole series with a transgressive buzz.
US 17.
This is a classic case of the evolution of the concept of the Other, from object of fear to object of desire, both sexual and aspirational. Watch this trailer- this isn't your grandmother's vampire story...
No, these aren't even like Anne Rice's revisionist frou-frou vampires, these are superheroes, flat-out and straight-up. They're superheroes who are every bit as exotic and threatening as The X-Men.
There are good vampires (the "vegetarians," who don't drink human blood) and the bad ones, who are almost identical to The Hand in the Elektra movie or The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants in the X-Men films. Bella even thinks Edward is a superhero at first.
As in the similarly-memed Underworld films, these vampires co-exist with werewolves.
Here we see the polarity in the New Other- the refined and cultured contrasting with the earthy and earnest (the werewolves are all Native Americans, just to sweeten the pot). Both are feminine fantasy visions of idealized men, and vampire mythology seems to be resonating more powerfully with girls these days, which may explain why the excellent Blade: The Series flopped on Spike, that sweaty jockstrap of a cable network.
A lot of wags have noted the Mormon abstinence subtext in Twilight, but the stories are also 100% wish-fulfillment in other ways.
The vampire fantasy addresses the top anxieties of modern women - aging, abandonment and bad relationships. Edward is handsome, powerful and brilliant and his family is cultured and close-knit. He offers Bella eternal life and companionship, and will wait until they are married to consumate this vampire love. It's the ultimate one-sided tradeoff, the kind most women would give their souls for. Which, of course, is what Bella does.
Twilight goes to extreme lengths to rewrite vampire mythology. The vampires can operate in daytime, but avoid the Sun not because it will fry them- they avoid it because it makes their buff, hard bodies glow like diamonds. So here we see a nice Solar signifier, characteristic of superheroes.
Bowie's real-world Otherness has not gone unnoticed by his associates and intimates. The man operated at a level of sheer activity in the 1970s that was unimaginable on the face of it, never mind his incredible batting average, quality-wise. But it was a role from the 80s- not his peak years in anyone's estimation- that ties straight into the Twilight universe...
For all its verve and style, The Hunger still subscribes to the view of Other drawn from monotheism, where transgressing traditional moral boundaries or human potential must be punished with a painful death. It's arguable whether Mormonism is in fact monotheistic, but if nothing else its history lends a more sympathetic view of Other as an existential concept (see Battlestar Galatica for further elucidation).
But of course, The Hunger brings us right back to the ultimate concept of Other- the extraterrestrial. The original novel was written by Whitley Strieber, multiple abductee/contactee. In a sequel, Strieber explains that his vampires are in fact alien astronauts stranded on earth, who parasitically feed on humans while helping also steer their evolution.
We see the Egyptian link in The Hunger film, in a flashback scene showing Miriam sucking on some poor slave's jugular. And not really having much fun of it, either, I might add. So aside from all the hot g/g play, The Hunger offers up the double whammy of the Bible's libel against Egypt, as well as the metaphorical condemnation of transgressive sexual practices (of which the vampirism is simply a metaphor). Strangely enough the first season of the series had an episode titled "Room 17." The 17th episode of the second seaon of The Hunger was called "Sacred Fire," and touched upon the alien vampire memes that Strieber later elaborated on. From the DVD episode description:
Luann is a kind and generous woman who volunteers to help the homeless find food and shelter but when she meets Nick, who lives on the street, he warns her that there are street people who are aliens in disguise, intent on killing humans.So as conservative as Stephanie Meyer's faith may be, her novels are anything but. In text, subtext and pedigree, Twilight is very much part of the new continuum, in which Evolution is the New Revolution, in which Otherness is something to be deeply desired, not shunned. No surprise that the 17 memes lurk beneath the surface. Because that Otherness is the restoration. It's this present mess that is actually the deviation.
There's a sub-program in our neural software that seems to have been activated, and is leading the next generations to a very different reality-consensus than the audiences of Bela Lugosi's- or even Gary Oldman's- Dracula would be familiar with. That- in the end- may be what Synchromysticism is really all about.
