"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing themselves." - Leo Tolstoy

"For a man to conquer himself is the noblest of all victories." - Plato

Spoilers ahead, but read anyways!!! The movie is 1% of the article, the rest is about you.

If there's one thing I hear from everyone who's watched Black Panther, it's some variation of the idea that Killmonger was a, if not the hero of the movie. No doubt, he had heroic elements to him. As an orphan (presumably, after his father dies we are indicated in no way that there was a mother in the picture) he managed to graduate from MIT, have a successful career in the United States Army, live a law-breaking life of crime, and become the Wakandan king.

However, why did Marvel decide to finish the movie with T'Chala back in power? Furthermore, why was it that the critical decision to allow Wakandan resources to be accessed globally, which was Killmongers advocacy, is what T'Chala decided to do anyway? Was there a point to killing Killmonger? But most importantly, how did Michael B. Jordan slay a role so perfectly?

Perhaps there is a hero Black Panther wants us to realize that is both and neither of these two contestant characters; instead, the hero portrayed is symbolic, that of Wakanda (as a state) being a metaphor for each and every one of us as individuals and the transformations we must encounter.

Before we continue, we'll need a quick psychology lesson from our good friend Dr. Carl Gustav Jung. This is where things get interesting. In his books The Archetypes and The Collective Unconscious and Aion, Jung proposes that we have multiple dimensions, something like sub-personalities, that compose our psyche and deeper existence; he calls these the archetypes, which together make up portions of the collective unconscious, elements innate in humans handed down evolutionarily as ready-made paths of instinctual behavior.

They can also be defined as instinctual modes of being which form a messy amalgamation, or, you. One archetype to note is the "shadow," which, in very simple terms, is the archetype that connects you to evil. It can be your instinctual drive of aggression and malevolence, not just in terms of how frustrated you get when someone steals your last piece of cold pizza, but one's ability to willingly engage in malicious activity with articulated reason, motivation, and determination.

The reason for such activity is inevitable, however good we think we are. Who won't have cold pizza stolen from them at some point, and feel the internal tension as a result? Or like Killmonger, who among us, if we had equivalent means and circumstances, wouldn't have acted or at least thought to act as he did? This leads us to a proposition; Wakanda is the individual, and Killmonger is the shadow.

"But wait! Earlier you said that he was a hero! He was a victim, he stood for the oppressed, and he had a right to challenge the Wakandan throne!" All correct. The situation he was in provided, without a shadow of a doubt, cause for the way he acted.

Our anger can be ignited by circumstances that we deem unjust, and our reaction may be inclined towards violence. At the end of Aion Jung notes that the archetypes have a dual nature. They can be both good and bad, and with a balance, we find the integration of such a capacity that can be ultimately useful. Jung alludes to how Christ was crucified between two thieves, relating the idea of the archetype as something not to reject, not to blindly follow, not to deny, not to worship, but simply to integrate proportionally.

Aristotle makes a similar point in Nichomachean Ethics with the idea that virtue taken to an extreme becomes a vice, so it is found between the deficiency and excess of virtues; cowardice and rashness, indifference and controlling, naivety and cynicism, etc. Once we recognize that the archetypes lay a groundwork of opposites within us, we can map out the balance and learn to integrate their desired reality as best as possible.

Say, if you encountered your shadow, the opposites would lie between acknowledging how it's message applies to your life or outright denying it; and either way it doesn't cease to exist, so neither does it cease to create friction within you. Only with integration can we accept what it means for our fate, improving our life by voluntarily expanding the quantity of suffering we can bear, which (appropriately accepted) produces meaning! If things are of paramount use, at least, hopefully, they're used for such a purpose.

There will be times when it is appropriate, and other times when it is not, to get angry and aggressive, but the circumstance around you is not recognized by a sole archetype, such as the shadow, which is why the rest of the individual has to come into play.

What does this look like in Black Panther? Well, think about what Killmonger advocated for: to give Wakandan resources to oppressed peoples of color around the world, to have them kill their oppressors, and to have a new dominant race in power.

Why does he feel so vengeful? Perhaps it is due to the fact that he was abandoned as a kid, parentless, and has been an outsider to his home country almost all his life. When taken to an extreme, the road the shadow leads us down is one dimensional because it itself is one dimensional in its traits. However, that doesn't mean there isn't something to balance with.

Take what it is that other portions of the self will realize, true compassionate actions, and one will realize that they are completely capable of utilizing the shadow for purposes such as recognizing injustices reported by an internal anger, yet choosing to act on them not by dictation of the shadow but by all processes of thought available to them. What does this multiplicity look like? It is represented primarily by the fact that, just as we are not composed of a sole archetype, the Wakandan state does not have a homogenous population regarding the question of resource allocation.

Likewise, we don't always feel certainty between choices. Even when we do, it doesn't mean our actions are consistent across time. Some side with Killmonger, some side with T'Chala. In the end, Killmonger's message is broken down, and parts are integrated into Wakanda in a more humane, and appropriate way. Think about it like this: if Killmonger (or anyone with his advocacy, for that matter) had never existed or gained power or influence within Wakanda, would the state have remained isolated? The answer is yes.

So we see, it is due to Killmonger that Wakanda is a more humane state at the end, but it is also due to the fall and rebirth of T'Chala. Without him, there would've been the dictation of the archetype, virtue has taken to an extreme, and Wakandan instigation of global warfare. Therein lies the reason we cannot, and should not, feel compelled to rid ourselves of the shadow once we decide to encounter it but merely tame and integrate it.

T'Chala's role interpreted through the lens of psychological symbolism is that of a shaman, a true hero. To better understand his transformation, we must understand the elements one finds and comes to terms with (or doesn't) when encountering, say, the shadow. In Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter From A Birmingham Jail, King depicts his position within the black community; "I stand in the middle of two opposing forces in the Negro community.

One is a force of complacency... the other is one of bitterness and hatred." Internally, who doesn't feel a similar tension in response to things we might turn our back on or that we might decide to get angry about? You're not a computer! T'Chala's role in relation to Wakanda's potential to aid the entire world is one of complacency, while Killmonger's is one of bitterness and hatred.

To reconcile the two is not an easy or peaceful task. Confrontation with the shadow is not easy or peaceful either. This brings us to the shamanic initiation. In numerous indigenous cultures, young males of ability are taken from their homes and placed in a dark cave for days, or take psychedelic substances, to confront the deepest, most horrid and horrific parts of their selves, their torturous imagination and it's rooted in their malevolent potential and fear.

It's through a coming to terms with this endeavor that the shaman emerges with newfound knowledge. The reason rebirth is associated with a hero is because it is a death of the hero and what the hero stands for that occurs when T'Chala dies; so it is within his capacity to be reborn that the symbolism of one's ability to learn--recognize mistakes attributed to themselves through the belief system they've based their actions off of--that causes them to become better people .

This is why Killmonger must die; he will not alter his plan at all. T'Chala is a hero because he doesn't die completely, he transforms and continues to live as a better person. Likewise, Wakanda transforms and continues to thrive as a better nation. We can observe that if we allow internal parts of ourselves to dieand be reborn, all that means is that we're able to accept the beliefs we hold in our heart--what drives our actions--as potentially false.

If they reveal themselves to be false, say, by another internal part of ourselves recognizing them as such, we don't deny our newfound reality but decide to voluntarily transform. But who wants to encounter such a pain? Our belief systems are what make us secure, without them, we feel what behaviorists call "death anxiety."

I mean, if the notions you've used to operate in the world have revealed themselves to be false, would you feel like you're moving towards life or death? But if they definitely are moving you towards the latter, would it not be better to die and be reborn than to live in constant denial?

If you walk away from an argument knowing you've lost, but throughout the argument continued to argue your point simply because it was yours, what are you composing yourself of? What are you? Death, or a hero?

So what is T'Chala's initiation? Precisely his encounter with Killmonger, who not only proposes his ideas to him, but kills him, and claims his throne. Perhaps an encounter with the shadow can result in someone being completely overtaken. Why else do people kill, or even hate? Are those things without reason?

If there was no reason, however cruel and evil, why do those things exist? Why do people embody the will of malevolence? Is the reason for such things not given to us to act on by parts of ourselves we'd hate to confront?

Perhaps it's most necessary to confront them, then, to not be their slave. Or, to have Killmonger sit on the throne and almost deliver Wakandan goods out to the world with the purpose he intended them to be used for. However, it is with this brutal occurrence that T'Chala is able to re-emerge, as many mythological heroes do, as the shaman does, or as we can... in calming down when calling up Dominoes for some more 'za.. and with his re-emergence, he can again encounter the shadow and integrate it. In plain terms, defeat it. But not it's message entirely.

The shadow will kill all if acting on its own, we've established that. But we now also understand it's message might bear something worth acting on. Do the words of the character who uttered “bury me in the ocean with my ancestors who jumped from ships... they knew death was better than bondage” before dying himself not bear any credibility, reason, or even compassion? Yet did his plan not contain a brutal takeover of the world?

Russian philosopher and survivor of the Soviet Gulag prison system Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn alleviates our confusion with a line from his book The Gulag Archipelago; "The line dividing good and evil runs through the heart of every human, and who is willing to sacrifice a piece of their own heart?"

Everyone reading this article has both a shadow and the potential to be disgusted by it. What that indicates is that we have the latent capability to formulate new reasons to act in ways we haven't yet concluded are reasonable. It is in the fate of the future, a roll of the dice, that we calculate such a task responsibly and morally.

When T'Chala encounters his dead father when visiting the realm of the spiritual ancestors, his father tells him that as he is a good man, it will be hard for him to be king. This line may puzzle us. What more does someone need other than to be good? Perhaps it is in solely being good that there is only one function at play. I ask, can a good person be angry?

If the answer is yes, then I ask, can a good person have parts within themselves that, if extracted autonomously as agents that formulate both, and separately, responses and actions, would that be "good?" Perhaps the response would be of good nature, but perhaps the actions would not. Killmonger's response to worldwide oppression and poverty was good-natured, his actions were not.

T'Chala's response to worldwide oppression and poverty was not good-natured, and therefore, his actions also were not. He was missing the underlying dimensional diversity to realize the world as it is completely a place to act that needs all possible responses from all people, and for them to realize what to do after considering not just all options but all parts of themselves.

T'Chala did not have the internal anger, vulnerability, or disgust to be threatened by the things Killmonger felt to be unjust, but only after he lost his throne, battled his way back, and listened to Killmonger, does he integrate the message he has denied in order to act the way a king, a state, and an individual should.

What he does afterward is what a properly integrated, and the transformed individual does, utilize the message of the shadow for the best purpose it can serve. In the end, we see Wakanda open up its borders and resources--the better half of Killmongers argument--while also doing it in the name of intending no harm and providing a gateway to peace--the better half of T'Chalas argument--which resultantly is the best thing for such a state to do.

I, of course, am not qualified to speak on thespecific economic implications of such a move, that is left to the lawyers and economists and the truth that speaks to them. I want to make it very clear that I am advocating for nothing but positivity in the psychological interpretation of Black Panther, and that in doing so I am not simultaneously endorsing a political or economic plan, as Wakanda is a state and its final decision in the movie is one of economic, not psychological, matters.

I may have upset some readers with that notion. The reason I didn't watch Black Panther and write "oh wow, their isolationist policies certainly worked out well for them, X system is best," or "oh wow, look at how greedy they were, they definitely should share the wealth, X system is best" is because I think that people need not to care for the political system or group charge that is current unless it brings them immediate death, disease, and poverty.

Although, of course, activism is important. I am speaking for and to the individual. Your power comes from you. Those who strive to have the group provide the strength they feel they lack are simply those who do not realize strength comes from within. The state matters only secondarily to the individual. The construction of values and behavior is not generated by society but by an individual choice on part of every human to be what they'll be.

Your biggest responsibility, therefore, is a moral one to yourself. If a human looks low enough into themselves so that their feet touch the fiery pits of a dark, swallowed abyss, only then will they be able to stand tall enough so that their hands can reach the clouds and originate the wind. In the middle, where weakness and naivety lies, neither is experienced.

So, anxiety-ridden readers, composed of so many different people that you don't even know who you are, you've been told to reach for the sky, but first, set your feet on the ground.

And if all of that just upset you, turning this Black Panther review into something unexpected, may I remind you of why a rebirth is so painful. It is because to learn is to die. So to live optimally is to die--constantly. To be a hero, therefore, is to accept death as something you can return from. I can't promise that you will return, I only promise that you can.

The question then becomes "how often should I expose my knowledge and belief structures to that which might prove them wrong?" Well, there is a balance to be found for every individual tailored to their strength of character that reveals how often a continual re-birth they can bear.

All you'll encounter is either an affirmation to what you know, or something that will only eventually add to what you know at the expense that is losing something you believed. My message is to go out into the unknown when you can, and find your balance for such a way of life.