Dark, the cryptic and thrilling Netflix series, ended last week, leaving us filled with curiosity and questions. The third and final season has answered all the questions left open in the previous two, but not before adding new characters, twists and additions of links to the huge and intricate family tree. Raise your hand if you felt confused while watching Dark: don't worry, it's normal.
We are facing a series of one complexity unprecedented, supported by a solid and almost unassailable script and a layered one image system, that is (in cinematographic jargon) the set of all the symbols to which the authors have given a deeper meaning, more or less in conformity with that universally known. The director frequently showed us a multitude of symbols: the triquetra, the Saint Christopher medal, the ouroboros, the red threads… But what do they really mean?
Take this article as a complete guide to storytelling hidden in images, colors and names that we have seen and heard throughout the series. Now make yourself comfortable and get ready for a journey full of surprises: nothing is what it seems.
ATTENTION: the entire article contains spoilers on the series, so we advise you to go into the reading only if you have already finished the vision.
The triquetra: three is the perfect number
We've seen it everywhere, even in the series logo: the Trinity knot is triquetra, is the main symbol of the entire narrative of Dark. The triquetra (from the Latin triquetrus, from the three angles) looks like a triangular knot in which the ovals overlap, making it impossible to determine what its starting and ending point is, and has meanings that vary from culture to culture. In alchemical tradition, the triquetra appears in the Emerald table, the text attributed to Hermes Trimegisto that Noah tattooed on his back as a symbol of devotion to the secret association founded by Adam Sic mundus creatus est. This last sentence, moreover, is precisely taken from the Table and gives the name to the society of the elder Jonas.
In its Christian interpretation, the triquetra indicates the Holy Trinity (father, son and Holy Spirit), but its very ancient origins can be attributed to the Celtic and Germanic peoples. In these cultures, the Trinity knot indicates the triad present in nature like the elemental one (air, earth and water), or it is used as one metaphor of the three stages of life: birth, death and rebirth.
The latter is the closest interpretation the use of the triquetra in Dark, in which the themes of life and death chase each other endlessly, giving particular relevance to number 3 and its multiples. There are 3 main temporal planes; 33 the years of difference from one temporal plane to another; 3 the deaths of an individual, as Martha reminds Jonas (loss of naivety, loss of innocence and actual death)… But what does the number 3 mean?
Second Pythagoras, the 3 is the perfect number, since it contains both the even (2) and the odd (1) and endowed with mystical properties. For numerology, in fact, 3 is theunion of the trinity, able to synthesize the two opposites into one (as theorized and expanded by the philosopher Hegel), as well as the number that symbolizes vitality, creativity, but also dispersion, cynicism and, last of this list not exhaustive but not least, fate.
Given its nature, multiple religions have made use of 3 and its meanings, but in this article we will only cover the Judeo-Christian tradition, which is more useful for the purposes of the analysis of Dark, in which 3 is frequently used:
- In the New Testament, 3 is the symbol of the Trinity, made up of Father (God), Son (Christ) and Holy Spirit;
- Jesus resurrects after 3 days and after being denied 3 times by Peter;
- Jesus fulfills the threefold function of prophet, priest and king;
- 33 is the age of Jesus at the moment of the crucifixion;
- In the Bible, there are 3 children of Adam and Eve: Cain, Abel and Seth;
- There are 3 sons of Noah: Ham, Shem and Japhet;
- There are 3 patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob;
- There are 3 deadly sins for which a Jew must die: idolatry, murder and sexual immorality.
St. Christopher and the coins
The characters of Dark repeatedly remember that San Cristoforo is the protector of travelers, almost every time the iconic appears pendant originally given by Egon Tiedemann to Hannah Kahnwald in 1954. On the other hand, over the seasons we have frequently seen another type of pendant, namely the one obtained from a pfennig of 1986.
The pfennig and the medal they are not the same pendant, but it is curious to note how, despite a pfennig depicting St. Christopher never really existed, the saint is in any case very present in German numismatics. But who is San Cristoforo? And why is he the protector of travelers?
They exist around San Cristoforo many legends: in some, the saint is a soldier, in others a giant, or a man with an animal-like appearance or even a ferryman on a river. In the latter version, the story tells that man has ferried a thin boy from one bank of the aforementioned river to the other, feeling heavier and heavier with each step. At the end of the passage the revelation: the child was baby Jesus, which would place not only his weight on his shoulders, but also that of the whole world.
In the East, in numerous Orthodox churches, St. Christopher is represented as a Cynocephalus, or a mythical being with the body of a man and the head of a canid. This depiction would refer to the version of the legend he would see Christopher as a follower of Anubis, the Egyptian god of death as well as the link between the kingdom of the living and the kingdom of the dead, later converted to Christianity.
Almost in accordance with this latest version of the legend, the pendant with the pfennig from 1986instead, it could refer to the mythological figure of Charon, the ferryman of souls into the afterlife. The price for his services would be two coins, hence the tradition of the Greeks and Romans of placing coins on the eyes or under the tongue of the deceased.
In Dark, the pfennig pendant is the symbol of Noah's guinea pigs who have traveled in time, sometimes encountering death, as in the case of Mads Nielsen, Yasin Friese and Erik Obendorf, while the Saint Christopher medal appears to be the symbol that binds travelers over time, a constant that accompanies them along their space-time journey.
References to the Bible and Christianity in Dark
As mentioned earlier, Dark is full of references to Judeo-Christian tradition, both in symbols and in names that have been chosen for the protagonists of the series:
Jonas: the name of the protagonist of Dark refers to the prophet Jonah who, after disobeying God, was swallowed by a whale. After 3 days and 3 nights of praying in the whale's belly, God grants Jonah salvation and the whale vomits the prophet onto a beach. This could be stressed as Jonas does not always have a clear path and that he tries to deviate from it, nevertheless getting closer and closer to his older self, Adam;
Martha: in the New Testament, Martha is Lazarus's sister, who was raised from the dead by Jesus, and of Maria maddalena. A point of contact between the Gospel Martha and that of the Netflix series can be found in John 11, 1:46:
"Yes, oh Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God who is to come into the world"
This could indicate Martha's will in Dark's protect his son's life, which must come to light to preserve the Node and allow life to continue to exist;
Adam and Eva: according to Genesis, Adam and Eve are the first humans to have been created by God and from which all the subsequent population would descend. Similarly, in Dark, Adam and Eve are the ones who generate the Node between their two different worlds, generating life as well as a multitude of births resulting from time travel;
Noah: in the Bible, Noè is the patriarch appointed by God to save two species of every animal in theArk to be able to save the creation from Great Flood. In Dark, there are two versions of the self, one for each world. In addition, Eva gives Noah the task of bring love from one part of the triquetra to the other, in analogy to the biblical Noah, destined by God to create a humanity without corruption;
Michael: it is a probable reference toArchangel Michael, the angel who fights on the front line against demonic forces and also referred to as the angel of death. This choice could underline the triggering incident of the series, that is the double disappearance of Mikkel and Michael, which begins the cycle of suffering and disturbing discoveries;
Elisabeth: in the Bible, Elizabeth she is the cousin of the Virgin Mary as well as the mother of John the Baptist and wife of Zacharias, Jewish priest. The latter was deprived of the use of the word as punishment for his infidelity by the Archangel Gabriel, only to have him back after the birth of John the Baptist. The name therefore remembers so much its consort Noah, which is often shown in cassock, as much as the silence that plagues her in Adam's world.
Arianna's red canvas
Also the myth of Ariadne appears to be omnipresent in Dark, since the first episode. To play the Greek princess is just Martha, on the occasion of a theatrical performance at school. The play book is also often seen during the third season, from Martha's bench in Eve's world to Gustav Tannhaus, which he calls his mother's favorite book.
According to Greek mythology, Ariadne is the daughter of Queen Pasiphae and King Minos who fell in love with Teseo, the young son of the Athenian king Aegean arrived in Knossos to kill the Minotauro, the monstrous bull-headed creature locked in the island labyrinth. Once the Minotaur is killed, Ariadne and Theseus manage to escape from the maze thanks to the thread of a ball of wool that the princess had tied at the entrance.
In Dark, references to Ariadne's thread are tinged with red, both in Martha's stage costume and in the lanyard present in the Winden caves: this could be a reference to the red thread of destiny, the Japanese legend that tells that every human being is linked by this red thread to their soul mate.
As we are told several times throughout the series, everything is connected: speaking of threads and destiny, of guides and bewilderment, it is impossible not to think about notice boards that we find here and there in Dark, where the photographs of the characters are joined by a string, to form a canvas in which they are all irremediably entangled.
The ouroboros: the end is the beginning and the beginning is the end
In Dark we saw him in the Winden caves, linked to Red thread we talked about in the previous section, but also in the form of a bracelet, first owned by Agnes Nielsen, then by her son Tronte and his wife Jana. The ouroboros is represented as a snake swallowing its own tail. As in the case of the triquetra, the ouroboros is also an ancient symbol present in different cultures.
Appeared for the first time in Egypt, the ouroboros symbolizes theeternal return, infinity and time as a cyclical dimension. The snake swallows itself to represent the cyclic nature of nature, which is reborn after reaching its end. Does it remind you of anything?
Like the triquetra, the ouroboros is also a symbol present in the alchemical tradition as a metaphor for the cycle that perfects alchemical compounds through cooling, heating, condensation and evaporation. Furthermore, it is also used to represent the philosopher's Stone which generates the elixir of immortality e the union of the whole (One is all and the whole is one).
Dark: references to literature and philosophy
We have already mentioned the mythological and biblical references that we find in Dark, but in the series we can trace references to different literary works, including the tragedies of Shakespeare he philosophical writings by Nicola Cusano, Hegel and Nietzsche.
Among the tributes to Shakespeare we can find:
- I poster in Martha's room, depicting the posters of Macbeth and Romeo e Giulietta;
- The legend of the woman in the lake: although Katharina has already been dragged dead into the lake (after a fight that is incredibly reminiscent of Cain's against Abel), her death recalls the unfortunate end of Ophelia, Hamlet's lover in the homonymous tragedy, who drowns in a river
- The reference to the famous phrase «We are made of the same substance as dreams; and in the space and time of a dream our short life is enclosed. ”, taken from the drama The tempesta, in the words of Jonas and Martha in the last episode:
Martha: Do you think something of us will remain? Or are we just that? A dream? Have we never existed?
Jonas: I don't know. We are made to be together, never believe that this is not the case.
As for the philosophy, the triadic conception of the world of Hegel, the eternal return of Nietzsche and the coincidence of opposites of Nicola Cusano:
- Second Hegel, the triad is a conceptual progression that includes the thesis, that is an idea, the antithesis (the opposite of the idea) and the synthesis (the solution between thesis and antithesis). The antithesis is considered a necessary element to arrive at the synthesis, otherwise impossible to achieve: exactly what happens to Jonas and Martha, who must prove the loss of partner to become respectively Adam and Eve;
- THEeternal return, often represented by ouroboros, is a theory of Nietzsche which establishes that time is cyclical and that the universe regenerates itself following fixed time cycles:
This life, as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live it again and again countless times, and there will never be anything new in it, but every pain and every pleasure and every thought and sigh, and every unspeakably little and big thing in your life will have to return to you, and all in the same sequence and succession - and so also this spider and this moonlight among the branches and so also this moment and myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is always turned upside down and you with it, speck of dust! (The Gay Science, 1882)
- For Nicola Cusano, God is the coincidentia oppositorum, the union of opposites. Thus God can be at the same time dark and light, black and white, man and woman, true and false, elevating himself on the pairs of opposites, synthesizing them:
It is evident that the minimum coincides with the maximum. And this will be clearer to you if you bring the maximum and the minimum back into the realm of quantity. The maximum quantity is in fact maximally great; the minimum quantity is maximally small. Free therefore from the maximum and minimum quantity, by intellectually subtracting being large and being small, and you will clearly see that maximum and minimum coincide. [...] The oppositions therefore agree to those things that admit terms that exceed and terms exceeded, and to these things various oppositions agree, but in no way do they agree to the absolute maximum, since it is above all opposition. (De docta ignorantia, I, chap. IV)
The kaleidoscope and the initials of Dark
We become aware of the world of Eve only in the last episode of the second season, to then explore it in the third. The presence of this alternate dimension, however, is shown to us in our very first moments of vision of Dark thanks to thedirectorial expedient of the kaleidoscope used in the theme songs.
Il kaleidoscope it is an optical instrument that generates a multiplicity of symmetrical figures thanks to the mirrors and colored materials inside. Its peculiarity is that the images created by it never repeat and are always different: this is reminiscent of the very nature of the world of Adam and that of Eve, where everything is similar but nothing is exactly the same.
The refracting of kaleidoscopic images or the choice to use a symmetrical split-screen are frequent directorial elements also during the third season, in which highlighting the similarities and differences between the two worlds becomes a supporting narrative element.
Winden: a village in the balance between reality and fiction
Winches is the town that is the setting for all three seasons of Dark, between one temporal plan and another, but the question arises: does Winden really exist?
As the Goethe-Institut clarifies, a Winden really exists: in the Land of Baden-Württemberg we find in fact Winden im Elztal, a tiny village of less than 3000 inhabitants located in the heart of the Black Forest, the same one that is said to have inspired the popular stories of the Brothers Grimm.
However, the real-world Winden is not the one depicted in Dark. The town of the series is not attributable to any German city nor is it similar to it, with the aim of creating a city that can exist in any place and, at the same time, in no one.
However, it is interesting to reflect on meaning of the word Winden: in German, the verb winden means twist, twist, or writhe in pain, which is strictly attributable on the one hand to the sense of suffering felt by the characters in the series, and on the other to the different dimensions intertwined in the Node of Origin. Given Dark's international vocation, one could hypothesize a deliberate assonance with the English word wind (wind) that you remember the gusts of caves during time travel or with the English verb to rewind (go back, rewind) to symbolize the cyclical nature of time.
The name of the series: why Dark?
If you have come this far, chances are you are a very attentive and curious fan of the series and have already asked yourself this question: why is the series called Dark? Why does the name not allude to time travel, as one would expect?
To date we do not have an official explanation of the title, but the series finale would let us know thanks to words of Hannah:
The light went out, there was a loud thunder and suddenly darkness fell and I knew the world was over. […] It was dark and the light would not return. I had this weird feeling, like it was good, that it was all over. As if I were suddenly free. Neither will nor duties, a boundless darkness. No yesterday, no today, no tomorrow. Nothing.
Through Hannah's dream story, we listen to the Adam's intentions, vowed to find and destroy the Node and to end the cycle forever and, with it, their world. So here's the dark, the nothing, which is opposed to the light represented by Eve, voted to allow the cycle to repeat itself to allow the child to live.
Thanks to Benedetta Saccoccio and Claudio Baldacci for finding the images and ideas.
