Synopsis: Vice Admiral Janeway devises a plan to free the Protostar crew.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of the relationship between the puer, the eternal youth, archetype and the senex, the wise sage, archetype found in each individual’s psyche.
“A Touch of Grey” starts with Vice Admiral Kathryn Janeway telling Captain Chakotay that she is thinking of retiring while they both remark upon the bravery and resilience of the young Protostar crew. Janeway is hailed by Asencia, who bates her, challenging her to come down to Solum and rescue the Protostar crew. Janeway devises a plan to replicate a Vau N’Akat ship and take it to Solum. An away team of Janeway, Chakotay, The Doctor, and Wesley Crusher go down to Solum. The Protostar crew are freed and the citizens of Solum revolt against Asencia. The Protostar crew returns to Voyager and Gwyndala (Gwyn) and Dal R’El plead with Janeway to let them finish the mission to return the Protostar to Tars Lamora. Janeway agrees.
In this episode, the bravery and resilience of the Protostar crew, and their need to finish their mission, whether or not their superiors agree with them, can be analogized to the puer archetype in our psyches; while the knowledge and experience of Janeway and Chakotay can be compared to the senex archetype. James Hillman believed that the relationship between these two archetypes in our psyches could be used to understand the relationships among all the other archetypes in our psyches. The struggle of the puer to break free from the senex, while still needing the guidance and structure of the archetype, is a balance that occurs among other unconscious archetypes in the human psyche.
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