Synopsis: Khan and the Elboreans form an alliance, but then Khan is faced with the death of McGivers.
This episode can be seen as providing an explanation to the importance of mythology in society.
In “I am Marla,” on the U. S. S. Excelsior, after Ensign Tuvok spoke with Dr. Rosalind Lear, he informed her that he believed some of what she was telling him, but knew that she was concealing other things, and that he would report this back to Captain Hikaru Sulu.
In Marla McGivers’s Logs, she revealed how important the handling of the situation concerning Ivan’s killing of an Elborean was to their survival. McGivers also noted in a conversation between herself and Khan about why he wanted to name their daughter Kali, “the goddess of time, death, love, violence, and absolute empowerment” (CITE, 2025, 8:09). Later, Khan met with Delmonda and they discussed Ivan. Khan told Delmonda that his laws would have Ivan killed for his actions and Delmonda proposed instead that Ivan could be rehabilitated. Khan then went to see Ivan and informed him that he had formed an alliance with the Elboreans. Ivan tried to poison Khan. Khan told Ivan that his compromise with the Elboreans was a cloak. Khan told Ivan that he forgave him, but that he would not be allowed to accompany the rest of his people to the caves. Meanwhile McGivers was bitten by a Ceti-eel. She returned to the settlement where an Elborean examined her and determined that the parasite had damaged her too much. McGivers begged Khan to save Kali, and then died.
In this episode when Khan told McGivers his reason for naming their daughter Kali, he also described his understanding of myth:
Humans give gods names and faces as a means to grapple with the simple truth. All that is eternal. Every grain of dust, every sunrise and sunset, all things alive and not are forms eternity takes as it continues to evolve. Always striving to become the purest expression of itself. (CITE, 2025, 8:23)
Myth has multiple meanings depending on the historical context and the point of view of the individual who provided the definition (Doty, 2000, pp. 28-30). I prefer the explanation of myth given by American forklorist, Alan Dundes as a “sacred narrative” (1984, p. 1). In his seminal work, A Hero with a Thousand Faces, American mythologist, Joseph Campbell, defined myth as “the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into the human cultural manifestation” (1949/2008, p. 1). Myth has been conceptualized as stories drawn from a shared cultural history that through persistent usage have acquired the power of symbolizing that society’s ideology in a way that is metaphoric and suggestive, rather than logical and analytical (Slotkin, 1992, pp. 5-6). Myth has also been described more simply as “something that is true on the inside but not true on the outside” (Kidd, 1996/2016, p. 128). Carl (C. G.) Jung himself identified myths as being the “first and foremost psychic phenomena that reveal the nature of the soul” (1954/1969b, p. 6 [CW 9i, para. 7]). For his part, James Hillman taught that “myths talk to psyche in its own language” (1976, p. 154). Myth can be used to make unconscious material more easily perceivable to the ego. My blogs are written from the perspective that contemporary myths, such as Star Trek can disclose to viewers the nature of the psyche through images, events, and scenarios in ways that provide a modern medium for telling the story of analytical psychology, or as Jung wrote, “to dream the myth onwards” (1951/1969a, p. 160 [CW 9i, para. 271]).
References:
Beyer, K. (Writer), Mack, D. (Writer), & Greenhalgh, F. (Director). (2025, October 20). I am Marla (Season 1, Episode 7) [podcast episode]. In A. Baiers, M. Barton, K. Beyer, F. Greenhalgh, A. Kurtzman, C. Migliori, E. Roddenberry, & T. Roth (Executive Producers), Star trek: Khan. Eye Podcast Productions, Inc., Secret Hideout, Roddenberry Entertainment.
Campbell, J. (2008). The hero with a thousand faces. New World Library. (Original work published in 1949)
Doty, W. G. (2000). Mythography: the study of myth and rituals. The University of Alabama Press.
Dundes, A. (1984). Introduction. In. A. Dundes (Ed.), Sacred narrative: Readings in the theory of myth (pp. 1-3). University of California Press.
Hillman, J. (1976). Re-visioning psychology. Harper.
Jung, C. G. (1969a). The psychology of the child archetype (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). In H. Read et al. (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung: Vol. 9 pt. 1. Archetypes and the collective unconscious (2nd ed., pp. 151-181). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1951) https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400850969.151
Jung, C. G. (1969b). Archetypes of the collective unconscious (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). In H. Read et al. (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung: Vol. 9 pt. 1. Archetypes and the collective unconscious (2nd ed., pp. 3-41). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1954) https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400850969.3
Kidd, S. M. (2016). The dance of the dissident daughter: A woman’s journey from Christian tradition to the sacred feminine. HarperOne. (Original work published in 1996)
Slotkin, R. (1992). Gunfighter nation: The myth of the frontier in twentieth-century America. Atheneum.
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