Chronos eating his children is one of the most disturbing myths from the ancients greeks. A prophecy frightened the titan Chronos by letting him know that one of his children would dethrone and destroy him. Wherefore, this ruler ate all his children as they born. His wife Rhea, when she was giving birth to Zeus, switched the child by a huge rock and Chronos swallowed it believing he was devouring the last child. Zeus, became stronger enough to defeat his father and made him to vomit all the children in his stomach. As punishment, Chronos was chained in the depths of the underworld.
This dark and strong image of a parent cannibalising his own children was symbolically adopted by us a lot of times – Probably as a catharsis from our own private experiences and domestic conflicts.
The manga style of this (emotionless) robot, bring us back to our childhood …. We can watch this grotesque creature to decompose and fall apart while he eats the newborn, that represents his self-destruction, attributing the fault of his own problems to someone else and making himself the role of victim.
Psychologically speaking, the “Chronos Complex” reflects the “father’s unconscious hostility and rivalry in relation to his sons, and in his unconscious wish to castrate, humiliate, and annihilate them.” – The Psychoanalysis of War.
The act of devouring is a symbolic way to inflict the patriarchal authority over the children. This tyrannical behaviour creates many traumas and lack of self-estime.
Speaking of Chronos we are conditioned to think in the male parent but is not always like that. Our main objective is to speak about the pressure of family values over us and how they try to control us.
“l’m not asking you, l’m ordering…my hands…and my arms…to kill her. (…) She wants me to kill you with my hands.” – Santa Sangre, dir. A. Jodorowsky
Now It’s time to stop the bleeding, reconstruct ourselves, and change the wheel’s direction.
