The Shadow (Jungian Archetypal) (Every Version)

The Shadow (Jungian Archetypal)'s powers and abilities

There is 4 Key Defining Features of this Characters Powers...

#1:

"The brighter the light the darker the shadow"

-Carl Jung

This "Light" is loosely Defined, but i view it more as the Light of being!

Essentially In Laymans Terms... "The Shadow" Scales Relative in Power to his Opponent.

Because, Think About it...

A TRUE "Platonic Archetype"... A being of Perfection, can't PHYSICALLY exist within the Real World (Which lacks perfection)!

In This Way... The Shadow JUST LIKE DARKSEID has a True Form, a Emanation Form (aka: A form when the True Form Attempts to move into reality via Possessing a host/victim), and Avatar Forms.

MOST OFTEN

It Interacts through Avatar Forms, which scales Relative in Power to it's Opponent BECAUSE it is the Opponents Jungian Archetypal Shadow given Manifestation!

#2:

This is a long one... But, I Feel this Quote from Carl Jung (The Creator/Presenter of the "Jungian Archetypes" idea to Public) will be suiting to help make sense of it

"Be silent and listen: have you recognized your madness and do you admit it? Have you noticed that all your foundations are completely mired in madness? Do you not want to recognize your madness and welcome it in a friendly manner? You wanted to accept everything. So accept madness too. Let the light of your madness shine, and it will suddenly dawn on you. Madness is not to be despised and not to be feared, but instead you should give it life...If you want to find paths, you should also not spurn madness, since it makes up such a great part of your nature...Be glad that you can recognize it, for you will thus avoid becoming its victim. Madness is a special form of the spirit and clings to all teachings and philosophies, but even more to daily life, since life itself is full of craziness and at bottom utterly illogical. Man strives toward reason only so that he can make rules for himself. Life itself has no rules. That is its mystery and its unknown law. What you call knowledge is an attempt to impose something comprehensible on life."

-Carl Jung (Talking about the Shadow aka this Madness)

ALRIGHT

Sooo, Why am i showing this Quote???

Well... Because, We can nitpick it a bit to get an idea of its nature and IN TURN powers...

Let's Take a look at this portion

"Be glad that you can recognize it, for you will thus avoid becoming its victim. "

^

This in laymans terms is Contextually linked to other quotes like this one

�??All those qualities, capacities and tendencies which do not harmonize with the collective values �?? everything that shuns the light of public opinion, in fact �?? now come together to form the shadow, that dark region of the personality which is unknown and unrecognized by the ego. The endless series of shadow and doppelga�?nger figures in mythology, fairy tales and literature ranges from Cain and Edom, by way of Judas and Hagen, to Stevenson�??s Mr. Hyde in the ugliest man of Nietzsche; again and again such figures have appeared and made their bow before human consciousness, but the psychological meaning of this archetype of the adversary has not yet dawned upon mankind.�?� -Depth Psychology and a New Ethic, Erich Neumann

�??The enlargement of the light side of consciousness has the necessary consequence that the part of the psyche which is less light and less capable of consciousness is thrown into darkness to such an extent that sooner or later a rift occurs in the psychic system. At first, this is not recognized as such and is therefore projected �?? i.e. it appears as a religious projection, in the form of a split between the powers of Light and Darkness.�?� (The Symbolism of the Spirit, Carl Jung)

�??The situation which is more common and more familiar to the average man is that in which the ego identifies itself with the ethical values. The identification takes place by means of an identification of the ego with the persona. The ego confuses itself with the façade personality (which is of course in reality only that part of the personality that is tailored to fit the collective), and forgets that it possesses aspects which run counter to the persona. This means that the ego has repressed the shadow side and lost touch with the dark contents, which are negative and for this reason split off from the conscious sector.�?� (A Psychological Approach to the Dogma of the Trinity, Carl Jung)

NOW

What Does this all mean???

Well... Once Again in laymans terms...

This Means "The Shadow" ALSO scales relative Personality and Power wise relative to his Opponent!

If you are a being of Light, a being of Hope, and Good in General Like Superman. If Superman Gets in this Archetypes way HE IS GONNA GET WRECKED!

Because Said Enlargment of the Light Side makes "The Shadow" more Powerful... Furthermore This ALSO effects the Shadows Personality!

If you Enlarge the Light Side, the More you Split off the Shadow as some sort of Duality, creating the Idea of Pure Platonic Evil in the First Place due to different Interpretation of the Shadow!

AKA NOT JUST Is the Shadow More Powerful among beings of Good... BUT, He is ALSO more Chaotic and PURE EVIL toward you in Alignment the More you enlarge this Light Side...

WHILE

If you are merged and in tune with your Shadow, your Dark-Side just like Darkseid (Pun intended). THEN "The Shadow" would almost act as an Amp in Power just to be Consumed and Used like a Slave/Power Amp... Like what Thanos did to the Cosmic Abstracts with the Infinity Gauntlet (Consume them and become one with them)...

This is Because "The Shadow" doesn't JUST represent the Darkness within people... But, He Represents the Collective Harsh Truths of Reality that is Shunned from the Light of Public!

ESSENTIALLY

If Darkseid or someone who is in tuned with there own Personal Shadow, is the Omega... The Shadow is the Rift In Between that allows said Omega to Interact with the Alpha that is said God Ruling Said Fiction (Like the Source, and The Preasence of DC, OR TOAA of Marvel).

Which Means... If someone like DARKSEID merges with "The Shadow", he would QUITE LITTERALLY gain complete and full control via becoming one with the Source itself (That is a No Bouno)

While if your just the Average Character with a Little Bit of Both... THEN The Shadow is more like a Chaotic Neutral Character in Alignment, CONSTANTLY Fluctuating in power, and CONSTANTLY doing random stuff being more Unpredictable then even Deadpool HAR HAR HAR.

#3:

Remember how in Part #2 of the Explanation i mentioned how "The Shadow" Represents the Collective Harsh Truths of Reality Shunned by the Public???

Well... This means IN A WEIRD WAY.

"The Shadow" Especially Embodies the Harsh Truth of "Death", and the Existential Abyss itself, which creates all human fears!

This makes the Shadow PARTICULARLY Entropy Based!

The More Destruction and Chaos that is Going on, the more Powerful "The Shadow" gets!

ALSO

The More Destruction and Chaos going on causes "The Shadow" to be in a Good mood, and more a Chaotic Good Alignment!

Sooo "The Shadow" is the Type of Character that would give someone like Darkseid Supreme power over everything, just to Turn Against Darkseid and help out the Heroes in Beating Darkseid!

That is Chaotic AF

This ALSO means, the more ordered and Peaceful Reality is... The Less Likely "The Shadow" will manifest!

This Is Because, IF The Shadow is a Force of Entropy... It would much rather sleep within the Void of Nothingness outside of Creation, rather then going through the Troubles and Difficulties of throwing creation into chaos!

This Seems Contradictory at first...

But, Let me put it in laymans terms!

The Shadow which rules the Empty of the Supernatural Series!!!

This is a particularly accurate character to model of "The Shadow" after since it essentially is the same thing!

Here is some quotes from "The Shadow" of the supernatural series:

"If you can't sleep, I can't sleep. Yeah? And I like sleep. I need sleep"

-The Shadow to Castiel in the Big Empty episode

"I'm on Death's side. When her plan works, I finally get to go back to sleep. (�?�) Funny thing about her plan though: she didn't say anything about needing you. (�?�) See you soon."

-The Shadow to Castiel in Destiny Child Episode

"I'm the only one that has any pull here. Not Heaven, not Hell, not GOD himself."

-The Shadow to Castiel in the Big Empty

In fact in a weird way... God Takes advantage of the Empty of this series in order to create creation itself hence the line

"The Empty was supposed to be mine. Not even God held sway. But lies, sweet little lies."

-The Shadow to Same in the Unity Episode

The Shadow (Jungian Archetypal) PRETTY MUCH is the same thing and therefor holds these same traits...

He Opposes everything Ordered and Natural, because that is what God Himself aka his Ultimate Enemy Represents!

AND

The Shadow is Dormant UNTIL something Chaotic like FOR EXAMPLE a Cosmic Crisis such as the "Crisis On Infinite Earths" awakes it... And, THEN It starts to Wreck havok...

Because, Creation to It is PAINFUL... It wants Revenge.

Hence Explaining why it AT FIRST is lazy, and then switches sides constantly to make Creation a Chaotic Hell of Hells when it awakes!

#4:

THE FALL

See... The Jungian Archetypal Shadow MOST OFTEN takes form as the "Ultimate Evil" in stories and Religions...

This means a PART of his Nature, destines it to Fall and Painful Endless fall OVER AND OVER again... The Fall of Lucifer in Real World Religion and Fictional Stories, The Fall of Darkseid in DC Comics, the Fall of Mandrakk DC comics, the Fall of Dr Hurt DC comics, the fall of the Beyonders Marvel Comics, the Fall of Reality to Thanos, the Fall of Human Kind in the Religious Stories of Adam and Eve and ETC...

Due to this...

Losing ACTUALLY is a Strength!!!

When "The Shadow" Finally Falls in Battle he AUTOMATICALLY becomes more Powerful then the person he fallen to, OR what he fallen to... INCLUDING Power Amps Generated by Himself!

Sooo, For Example if Darkseid Absorbs him and Conquers all of Reality via said Amp... This Guy, aka the Shadow can Pull Out essentially a big **** you Plot Armor amp and can 100% defeat said amped Darkseid!!!

Power Levels:

True Form: Above Everything Possible and Imaginable including any "Omnipotent" being, and can pretty much beat all (given enough time) EXCEPT "The Transcendance"

Soooo, If you have "The Transcendance" as #1 on your power level list, this guy is pretty much Guarenteed to be #2... Since, Due to this Endless Fall he is CONSTANTLY increasing Dimensional Relativistic Frames (aka: Entire Infinite Continuums beyond Omnipotence) INFINITELY Fast, causing his Power Levels to Converge to a Infinitecimally small difference in power from "The Transcendance"... Meaning to us Finite Beings it Appears as "The Transcendance" = "The Shadow" power wise, when IN REALITY to High End Transfinite Beings and/or Omnipotent beings "The Transcendance" > "The Shadow".

Emanation Form:

Varies ALOT. Fiction Busting Usually Though... He Usually tries to Insert His True Form into Fictions behind Different Faces/Identities, of Different Villains... This is RARE though, and Catastrophic to the Fiction he enters in usally!

The one and only example of this ever occuring out there is FINAL CRISIS, where True Darkseid FALLS onto the Multiverse!!! This is "The Shadow" taking form in the Identity of True Darkseid!

Hence The Line in DC Universe 2008 issue #0 (when Darkseid is Falling) saying

"The Light. The Shadow. I'm the Only One Who can see the Shadow. A Gigantic Shadow Cast Acrossed the Multiverse. Falling over EVERYTHING."

This event ALMOST Destroyed the Fiction of DC and is Comfirmed to have COMPLETELY destroyed the Fiction of Milestone Comics an Entire Fiction Away, as comfirmed in JLA 2006 issue #34

Avatar Form:

Varies Too Much to Specify power levels...

Ranges From Real World Sleep Paralysis Demons and Mental Crud to ACTUAL Fictional Villains, and REAL World Villains such as Hitler.

The Shadow (Jungian Archetypal)'s weaknesses

Weakness #1:

Order and Creation Itself Hurts It!

Although to Be Fair, this Doesn't Quite "Weaken" it Physically, it more just PISSES it off, and ACTUALLY usually makes it Stronger (Physically).

Sooo, This is more a Mental Weakness that can be exploited...

AKA

If you FOR EXAMPLE get a lord of order to piss the Shadow off... And, In Turn Take Advantage of its Chaotic Impatience...

You can piss "The Shadow" off enough to be FOR EXAMPLE lure it into a Trap with a Being who is in tuned with there shadow, like Raven Daughter of Trigon, just to Consume the Shadow, gain power, and put the Shadow to Rest ending its rampage!

Weakness #2:

It just wants to Sleep within what i call the Null (aka: "The Empty")

This means if you FOR EXAMPLE get a Abstract of Nothing OR Death... Like Death of the Endless OR Death of Marvel you can stop it's reign pretty quickly by Putting it back to Sleep. You can do the Same with Oblivion of Marvel, and Empty Hand of DC aka Abstracts of Nothingness, but it is UNLIKELY that they will agree to this and instead use "The Shadow" as a Weapon Egging it On and Empowering it.

Weakness #3:

Anyone who is in tuned with there Shadow...

Anyone who is In Tuned with There Shadow can put "The Shadow" to Sleep, and in turn gains a amp

Weakness #4 (It's Largest Weakness):

Any God who is In Tuned with there Shadow...

Any God who is in tuned with there Shadow, gains Complete Dominion over the Alpha of there Verse... Since, As i explained in the Powers Section, "The Shadow" acts more as the Rift Between the Alpha of said verse, and the Omega aka the God tuned in with there Jungian Archetypal "Shadow".

In this situation... "The Shadow" Can Be Consumed giving said amp...

This REALLY Pisses off the Shadow though...

And, Forces "The Shadow" to work within the Collective Unconscious through Avatar most often (and in turn be a "Good" being for said time period)...

This ALSO Amps "The Shadow" above said God no matter what via this FALL as i explain in the Powers Section... Sooo, Even though this is his "Biggest Weakness" PARADOXICALLY this is ALSO his Biggest Strength!!!

Ironic isn't it???