Since Bleys impedes the pilgrimage to transcendence Hal incites, they collide like immovable object and irresistable force. But their clash is necessary as well as inevitable for, as the Greek philosopher Heraclitus puts it, "Out of discord comes the fairest harmony." The racial organism cannot pass from youth to maturity until its conscious and unconscious aspects are properly developed and fully integrated into a single self.
Humanity's contrary impulses to hold fast and reach out wage random war with each other until mystically divided by Hal's earlier incarnation Paul in Necromancer. This intervention allows the nascent Splinter Cultures to go their separate ways among the stars. Then the new planets' right to independence is assured by Cletus Grahame in Tactics of Mistake (1970). Generations later, Cletus' descendant Donal Graeme imposes interstellar peace in Dorsai!.
Now the experiment is nearly complete. The garden planted by Paul and cultivated by Donal ripens for Hal to harvest. The special gifts that bloom best in the Splinter Cultures have begun to wither. But as they fade, they cross-fertilize one another. When traits mingle and perceptions change, mystical Dorsai, brave Exotics, and wise Friendlies emerge. When intermarriages multiply, the Others appear. Unless the new variants are grafted back on Earth's old roots soon, the entire species will perish in a final winter that never sees spring.
Curiously, despite the utter opposition between the sides Hal and Bleys lead, the rival paladins are obscurely alike, as if they were the right and left hands of a single entity. Cunning Bleys is quicker to spy an affinity and adds this notion to his tempter's bag of tricks. But Hal denies any likeness so vehemently, the very force of his revulsion impels him towards understanding.
Nevertheless, the haunting issue remains. Mere disbelief cannot drive the demon from the mirror. Indeed, his mocking image grows clearer over the years as Hal reaches full adult size. By the time he hurls his solemn défi at Bleys, their physical resemblance is unmistakable.
What might brotherhood between these enemies imply? Past situations offer parallels. The starkest tragedies Hal witnesses as Donal are deaths of brother-figures: the slaughter of his uncle James (his father's counterweight), the assassination of his uncle Kensie (dark Ian's bright twin), and the murder of his elder brother Mor (a hostile shadow of himself). Meanwhile, in Soldier, Ask Not (1965), young Tam's malice destroys three men who could have been his brothers and thereby filled the chasms of his lonely heart. Thus fraternity can fail through too much closeness or too much distance. Ian and Kensie are doomed from the very beginning when fate cleaves them into separate persons instead of the one they would afterwards yearn to be. Death renders the lifelong gap between Mor and Donal forever unbridgeable, leaving Hal a legacy of guilt for his part in the fatal estrangement.
Instinct and memory also breed imagery that inspires art. For example, Hal's vision of himself and Bleys confined in membrane-walled compartments not unlike amniotic sacs is transformed and incorporated into his poem "The Enchanted Tower": "And now, through double glass I see/My brother's image darklingly." This poem, quoted in Necromancer, will become a psychic vehicle to bring their sundered selves together face to face in Childe. Nourished by the Final Encyclopedia's vast resources, Hal's innate sensitivity to mythic symbols will equip him to place his predicament in a universal context. For as anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss proposes, "The aim of myth is to furnish a logical model for solving a contradiction."
Likeness and unlikeness define existence. Their interplay pulls the cosmos apart and brings it back together. Thus although we perceive our world through pairs of opposites such as Light and Darkness, we also long to transcend these oppositions once and for all. Various solutions are possible. Light may ultimately overwhelm its twin Darkness (Persia) or coexist with it in dynamic harmony (China) or coincide with it (India). Many cultures see a cryptic kinship beyond appearances, making deities and devils interchangeable poles of some primordial unity. ("God and Satan are brothers," says a Romanian proverb.) But if Light is active Darkness and Darkness potential Light, what reconciliation waits when they meet at midnight noon?
The growing understanding that leads Hal from rejection to recognition of Bleys as his counterpart transforms their relationship. Hal's road to wisdom retraces the tradition-hallowed path of heroes - separation, initiation, return. (Tam, ever the pioneer, travels this route earlier in Soldier, Ask Not.) The process also repeats Hal's experiences with the trios of elderly men who are his prototypes.
Since his origins are unknown, young Hal strives to identify with his tutors, each of whom speaks to one portion of his full-spectrum self. As age-patined relics of their cultures' peak years, Walter, Obadiah, and Malachi are worthy of emulation. But in order to surpass them, Hal must leave them. The child grows to manhood relearning his foster-fathers' lessons from models he initially tries to resist.
Tam, the Earthman with Exotic links, had been a demonic force in Donal's day, before his polarity was reversed in blood. Hal is unready to assume the mental task Tam offers him at the Encyclopedia because the promotion is premature. He needs to understand how his precursor anticipates him in the evolutionary adventure. Recognizing Tam as the age-gnarled taproot and himself as the ripening fruit of the same tree shows Hal why the newly selected strains of humanity need the adaptable hardiness of the old.
At first, Hal and Child-of-God are totally at odds despite their significantly parallel names. Not only does "Child" pun childe, the Friendly's messianic surname is equivalent to "Immanuelson," Hal's alias on Harmony as a member of the Revealed Church of God Reborn. (And note that Donal's beloved uncle and surrogate brother is also called James.) But suffering in a common cause brings the two men together. The same inflexible Ironside who would have barred Hal from the Command in the beginning, demands he be retained at the end. "Unshaken, unseduc'd, unterrified," Child is the unyielding die that stamps Hal into shape as a Friendly. His example of fidelity unto death teaches Hal to live by faith, the sole weapon that can match the Others, though might and mind falter. This spiritual transfiguration completes the circuit of the hero's lives and readies him for his saving task.
Initially, Donal's filial piety inhibits Hal's reaction to Ian because young Donal could scarcely imagine equaling his revered uncle's prowess. Although he later surpasses Ian's military record, he never matches the older man's towering stature. But Hal's recreated body does approximate Ian's as Amanda swiftly recognizes. Her spell-song "Green Water" has finally sung back Ian's springtime after years of heartbreak. Graemehouse itself bears witness to the chieftain's return, like Celtic talisman stones welcoming a high king. When Hal can fill the measuring doorway as completely as Ian once did, he is ready for Amanda and the rest of Ian's unfulfilled potential. In life, Ian was the Dorsai ideal incarnate, the knight with the purest heart. Through Hal, his protective spirit will reach out to enfold Earth's besieged walls.
Thus by identifying with Tam in mind, Child in spirit, and Ian in body, Hal inherits the young woman who loves each of these aged men. Whereas Donal and Paul meet danger and disappointment in their relations with females, femininity enriches Hal's life on every level. He is fully immersed in feminine influences, both real and symbolic. This is only fitting, since goddesses are the traditional guardians of creativity, the boon Hal is destined to win for all human beings.
In Ajela lives the "dearest freshness deep down things" for she is the last flower to bloom before Fimbulwinter. Hers is the nurturing glow of golden sunlight. As handmaiden of the Final Encyclopedia, she is a living link between Hal and Tam as Tam's late wife Lisa was between Tam and Mark Torre, the first Director. Like Lisa, she is an unconventional Exotic, an idealist with a capacity for deep and lasting attachments. Her romantic fixation on Tam has gradually come to terms with reality. By sharing his work she possesses the man of her dreams, the splendid titan untouched by time. But it is a partnership of mind alone - Ajela is no bedwarmer for an enfeebled king.