Spoiler Alert: This article contains spoilers for the series Kaos.
With the recent canceling of the Netflix series Kaos, starring Jeff Goldblum as Zeus, it led me to speculate about what this says about the movement within popular culture in general and our response to “these types of shows.” These types of shows in question are not the updates of Greek mythology but those that include the shoe-horning of postmodern, near-nihilistic perspectives on hierarchy and freedom.
Though the series itself will likely prove to be largely forgettable, its cancellation proves a deeper point about human nature and our inherent desire for coherence in story.
The series, which was meant to be a provocative and subversive take on the traditional Greek myths (and not only because it took place in modern times), followed a series of characters well-known to those familiar with Greek mythology—Orpheus and Eurydice, Zeus and Hera, Ariadne and Minos—along with smaller roles for Dionysus (because we haven’t seen enough of him lately), Poseidon, and Hades. Viewers are led through all of the labyrinthian storylines by our narrator, Prometheus, as he experiences his punishment for stealing fire from the gods. The overarching story of Season 1 (and now the entire series) was that the control of the gods was slipping, largely because the humans were losing their faith in them.
I am kind of a sucker for any Greek myth retelling, and maybe a little bit of a sucker for Jeff Golblum’s charisma, but I suspected that there were going to be some unsavory elements to this TV-MA rated drama/comedy (who even knows these days as the genres, among other things, are so fluid it seems, it is all very, ahem, chaotic). Despite this I thought it would be fun to see a unique take on the traditional myths, especially since I am not emotionally beholden to any of these characters. It is not like someone is portraying a lustful Jesus, an anti-ecclesial Joan of Arc or an overly-saccharine Therese of Lisieux, to name a few totally non-hypothetical examples.
As the series begins, one might assume that Prometheus will play nothing more than the role of a kindly-though-tragic narrator. The series directly follows the actions of the human characters, namely Orpheus, Eurydice, Ariadne and Caenaus. However, it is later revealed that they are unwitting pawns in Prometheus’s long struggle to usurp the power of the gods, namely Zeus. It is in the season finale that all of the pieces come together and “Kaos” finally reigns for gods and men alike.
I hope that the lack of interest in this show is evidence that audiences are recognizing the emptiness of chaos, of a truly de-formed human society.
Though the series itself will likely prove to be largely forgettable (it would have worked better as a one-off mini-series anyway), its cancellation proves a deeper point about human nature and our inherent desire for coherence in story. Humans, because we are formed in the image of He Who forms everything, naturally desire to participate in form. We cannot help it. In fact, even defining the word “chaos” as its own existing thing is actually working against the formlessness that chaos implies. How does one know if something is chaotic unless there is a clear definition of what chaos is, unless chaos itself is formed?
We can, however, fight against this form. In fact, we do, all the time. It is called sin and it is literally de-formed. This is not just a pejorative to tear another person down. It is what sin, understood as a privation by St. Augustine (City of God, Book XI.9) and St. Thomas Aquinas (ST I-II. Q 75. A 1), is. One learns in Philosophy 101 that Aristotle introduced us to the Four Causes of being. Very simply, these include: the material cause, the “stuff” of the substance in question; the formal cause, the “shape” of the substance; the efficient cause, the “agent” behind the substance; and the final cause, the “purpose” of the substance. The first three causes, the material, formal and efficient, are all meant to work together in order to serve the final cause. This is why a hammer is made of iron and not gold: it must hit other hard things, like iron nails, and keep its shape.
Sin, because it is a willful thwarting of an action’s final cause (the substance in this case), will necessarily undermine the form, and vice versa. It is an action that is starting to lose its form. In Kaos, we see the obliteration of form in the political and theological senses. Yes, I grant that the political and theological “forms” of government were corrupt, but no form at all, which is what we are left with in the season (series) finale, is little better.
When we are expected to invest in storytelling whose very basis is un-formation, it seems we largely ignore it, with good cause.
This disintegration is indicative of a wider trend that has been happening in media but is exemplified in Kaos as well, which is a flattening out of the spiritual to just another form of the material. There is no higher ordering principle to reality; reality is entirely dependent on us. In this view, even the gods here are atheists. In the show, the implication is that the gods’ existence relies on us. We learn part way through the series that the gods are nourished by the souls entering into “the Frame” found in the Underworld. One soul, whom we had met earlier in the series, is a pious, self-righteous, self-martyr who represents all of the simple-minded religiously coerced unfortunates who fear the gods. While there is a kernel of truth to the idea that humanity instantiates or even incarnates these spiritual powers through our actions, the spiritual world actually precedes us and our acknowledgment of it.
I hope that the lack of interest in this show, which had no shortage of the typical “Mature Audience fare,” is evidence that audiences are recognizing the emptiness of chaos, of a truly de-formed human society. When we root for the good guys, and even when we try to re-form Prometheus into a sympathetic hero, it is not because of his chaotic societal destruction, but because he brought fire, techne, or form to the wild world in front of him. Again, ironically, it was his intricate, well-formed plan that was many years in the making, patiently laid and executed, that brought about his chaos, even at the expense of his purported love.
The best, most prophetic storytelling is that which is prognostic: it can tell us where we are going, largely because it is diagnostic, it tells us where, and who, we are. While many entertainment writers would be quick to agree that Kaos is a very diagnostic allegory of where we are now as a culture, it largely misses the transcendent reality of human nature that we are both formed and form-ers, imitating the One who formed us. When we are expected to invest in storytelling whose very basis is un-formation, it seems we largely ignore it, with good cause.
