“No, Syndi, I’m not ‘riffing.’ Look…you’re both icons to women. You’re both symbols of femininity and feminine power. From the 1940s through the 1980s, Hnossi inspired women superheroes and ordinary women to break into male-dominated professions and stand up for themselves, and now you’re inspiring a generation of young straight and nonhetero-sexual women and girls to believe in themselves, to be proud. Surely you can see the connection.”
“We’re like totally different! She’s all like ‘Do it zis vay’ and ‘Diknity! Honor! Sacrifice!’ It’s all about trying to get everyone to be just like her!”
“But Syndi, what about your HEAT Ray?”
She gaped indignantly. “That’s like totally not the same!”
“You used it in the Id-Smasher® simulation. You’ve used it in the small number of melees you’ve been in during your brief crimefighting career, and you even use it in your concerts. Your…what’s it called, now? Hyper-Emulation—”
“Acquisition Transmission Ray, yeah, yeah—”
“Syndi, you turn people into duplicates of yourself. Literally. And literally under your control. Not to mention your highly successful line of Power Grrrl’s Grrrl Guides™…Power Grrrl’s Grrrl Guide™ to Yoga, Power Grrrl’s Grrrl Guide™ to Diamond-Hard Abs, Power Grrrl’s Grrrl Guide™ to Buddhism, the Grrrl Guide™ to Yoga Writing the LSAT—”
“So I know something about marketing. With all your books and videos, Eva, I’d think you of all people could appreciate that!” Suddenly the discotheque reformatted itself into what must have been a Barnes & Noble, to judge by the wafting smell of lattés.
Syndi wandered off, disappearing amid all the shelves of her own CDs, DVDs, PG! magazines, and books. Just before I located her again, I finally found copies of something other than her work: a battered hardcover of Professor Icegaard’s Toward a Practical Götterdämmerung: A Logistical Analysis, and a few copies of my own self-help series. They were on the remainders table.
“Well, despite what you think, Syndi,” I said, “I am impressed by how much you’ve accomplished—and not just for someone your age, but for anybody of any age. Your LSAT manual is apparently the most effective one on the market, and my own agent said your editor swears you wrote every word of it, even though you’re only nineteen and you’ve never been to law school—”
“Of course I wrote it! I wrote all my books!” she said, climbing onto a display case next to a standee of herself. “Why’s that so hard to believe? People are, like, always underestimating me just because I express myself on my own terms!”
“So you don’t see your manuals as an attempt to make other people live like you do?”
“I’m, like, helping them?” she said, vaulting from the display case onto the top of a decorative pillar. Miraculously, despite her heels she did not fall. She stood up straight. “That’s not controlling them!”
“Yes, but don’t you think Iron Lass sees her actions the same way?”
“I don’t care what she thinks, Eva! Whose side are you on, anyway? I don’t exactly feel supported here!”
“Syndi, my job isn’t to be on anybody’s side. It’s to be on everybody’s side.”
“Gawd, what good are you then?”
“Syndi, did you ever think that using your HEAT Ray on others might be a violation of their rights?”
She chewed her gum furiously for several seconds, as if hoping her mastication might provide clarification. “Their rights?” she said finally. “What are you talking about? Because I included them in my meness?”
“People have a right to freedom, to individuality—”
“Eva,” she said from atop her pedestal, “why wouldn’t anybody want to be me?”
Iconquest: Id-dentity Crisis and the Power of Narcissism
Part of the id’s purpose is to assert its host personality onto the world to ensure its host’s continued existence. If I get enough, says the id, I will exist another day.
But unlike the narrator from the classic disco song “I Will Survive,” the id isn’t satisfied with “enough,” because enough is never enough. The id always needs more, or specifically, more than anybody else. So “enough” becomes “more than” which becomes “all.” And even then, the id fears that all can be taken away; therefore crushing the capacity of others to resist becomes paramount.
Narcissism is the id’s assertion of itself, not just over its host but over others as well. It is the illusion that one’s own needs are not only more important than other people’s needs, but that one’s own needs are other people’s needs.
Because Power Grrrl was a highly narcissistic personality, she could not understand that my role as therapist was to aid everyone from her team and not to be her own personal ally or avenger. Nor could she understand that her paranormally overdeveloped id was the true power source of her HEAT Ray and that her use of it fundamentally abused the people whom she dominated.
Most of all, perhaps, narcissism blinded Syndi to her true reason for disliking Iron Lass: their similarity. Both iconic heroines sought to control others, believing such control was a boon rather than a bane.
But while Iron Lass was overbearing, her attempts at control were manifested through blame, guilting, and manipulation, all of which still provided some chance for resistance. Power Grrrl’s HEAT Ray provided no such chance for escape…a reality that led, indirectly but inescapably, to the July 16 massacres.
Clash of the Icons
You come from a large family, isn’t that correct, Hnossi?
And royalty, too?”
Iron Lass’s gaze flickered over to Power Grrrl before she looked back to answer me. She’d done that several times since we’d reconvened inside a neutral Id-Smasher® mindscape both their brains had selected, a badlands grove of buttes at sunrise.
“Ja-a-a-a…?” she said slowly.
Power Grrrl coughed into her hand, except it wasn’t a cough—she’d barked the word phony, eliciting a glare from Hnossi.
“Syndi? Is there something you think we need to attend to?”
“Like, aren’t we supposed to be honest here, Eva? Because I happen to know one or two things about this ‘icon’ over here. And they don’t square with what she’s been saying?”
Staring back at the young woman, Hnossi’s face looked as coldly cutting and metallic
