Oh, Deer! There's a Stag in My Living Room!

Written by: Kendra Spring Klasek

"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness." - Howl, Allen Ginsberg

There may not be a stag physically crashing into your living room, but over the course of the last three years, at some point,  there's been one on your television screen.

Mapleton's rogue stag comes as only the latest in a long line of stag appearances, though it's no wonder.  The deer has a wealth of mythological symbolism in everything from Celtic, Egyptian, Germanic, Hungarian and Greek cultures, as well as meaningful imagery and folklore in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, the Occult, Hinduism and many more.

Where might you have seen stag or antler imagery before? Oh, I don't know . . . everywhere?  First, we'll look at the stag's standing in mythology, then the appearances themselves, their context, and finally, what that means for our interpretation of the stag in season 1 of 'The Leftovers'.

Deer in Mythology

The Celts have several manifestations of deer symbolism in their folklore.  

In Scotland, deer were believed to be shape-shifters, most often women, turning into either a red or white deer and selecting the deer that would be killed in the next hunt.  

In Ireland, the shapeshifting theme occurs once more, but this time it is Cailleach Bhéara or "The Old Woman of Beare" who lives near County Cork. She takes the form of a deer to avoid capture and consequently, the Beare Peninsula is associated with the islands in the western sea, which are known as the Lands of the Dead.

In Christianity, there are several myths involving both hinds and stags.  In the story of St. Giles and the Hind, Giles was reported to have lived as a hermit all his life, with a hind being his sole companion, sharing her milk with him when food was scarce.  More importantly to our story in Mapleton is the story of St. Hubertus, the patron saint of hunters.  According to legend, prior to his Christian conversion, Hubertus set out on a hunt on Good Friday.  He was pursuing a magnificent stag and when the stag turned to face him, revealing a crucifix on it's forehead between the antlers, Hubertus saw this and was struck with the foolishness of his own path and was instantly converted to a saintly life.

Delving into the realm of spirit animals, here's how stags are viewed:

"The Stag stands at the gateway between dreams and waking. Also known as Hart, Buck or male Deer, the Stag represents vitality, confidence and pride. This animal is a sign of spiritual or cross-dimensional journeying. It can give protection in times of transition or beginning.  Conversely, the Stag can signify escapism from an unpleasant reality, castles in the sky, arrogance or unrealistic goals. It can warn of illusions or deception. The Stag can also portend a difficult or solitary journey; or, a spiritual awakening." - Helga von Funklestein

Granted, this is a psychic's website, but it can still give us insight as to through which particular prism we can and should view the stag appearances in The Leftovers.

Which brings us to the Gundestrup Cauldron.  Dating back, possibly, all the way to the Celts in 200 BC, this ornate silver vessel is engraved with many startling images, but for our purposes, this one is the most unsettling, not only because of the strange nature of the tableau, but also because it might look pretty familiar to you.

Photo courtesy: Wikipedia

Yeah, so it's creepy, but what the hell is it . . . other than a guy with antlers holding a garden hose? Okay, so it's most likely a snake, not a hose, but the guy with the antlers is Cernunnos, a Celtic "horned god" or "Herne the Hunter" and we know absolute zilch about him.  Not a thing, so it's easy for people to project their own mythology onto him, something Bryan Fuller has done REALLY well, but we'll get to that.

Moving right along, lets quickly touch on the stag sightings leading up to the premiere of The Leftovers.

Game of Thrones 

First in the current trending "cluster", if you will, Game of Thrones features a crowned stag as the sigil of the House of Baratheon.

Photo courtesy: HBO

The House of Baratheon, while setting off the Battle of the 7 Kingdoms, is not inherently corrupt in and of itself. Most of the evil being done in the name of the Baratheons has been carried out by Lannister offspring, therefore, we see a stark (heh) contrast between the House of Baratheon (Stag) and the House of Lannister (a roaring lion). 

Photo courtesy: HBO

At first glance, both creatures have solid standing as symbols of not just nobility, but of truth and justice . . . until we look deeper at the lion. There are two major and opposing Biblical references to a lion.  The first references Jesus as 'The Lion of Judah', giving an aura of strength and majesty.  The second, however, is a reference to Satan and pure evil:

"Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour." - 1 Peter 5:8, King James Version

If that doesn't describe the House of Lannister, then I don't know what does.  So, if we have a subverted reference to lion imagery as a sign of evil, we must look at the opposing house as a symbol for good . . . though, that too, may be subverted.  Deer, in the most general sense, are most often used as a symbol of purity.  Looking at Stannis Baratheon's claim to the Iron Throne, there is very much an element of purity there, strictly in regards to the legitimacy of his claim.  Without getting too spoilery, I'll simply say that the Baratheon's Stag took a hard left turn off the righteous path pretty early on in it's journey and the only salvation for it's return to the path of actual nobility may be in the form of a bastard.

True Detective

Photo courtesy: True Detective Wikia

In yet another HBO series, 'True Detective' opens their first season with a startling bit of stag imagery. The murder victim, Dora Lange, at the heart of the central mystery is found staged with hands bound and a crown of antlers placed on her head.  Initially, it doesn't make much sense when we look at the surface of it, knowing what we do about stags symbolizing purity. 

But lets take a deeper look at some of the details we learn about Dora. She is a former prostitute who has evidently found faith after calling it quits on the world's oldest profession. She had begun attending church just prior to her disappearance and when we look at the way she is displayed, it all starts to come together.  

Her hands are bound, palm to palm, in front of her, as if in prayer, in fact, her entire posture is one of prostrate prayer.  She is stripped of her clothes, exposing her past life of sinfulness and the crown of antlers placed on her head, symbolizing borrowed purity.  They are not organic to her as she lost her innocence long ago. The antlers had to be appropriated.  The stag, in this case, is ushering her into the afterlife, offering atonement.

Hannibal

Photo courtesy: LivingDeadGuy

Then we have 'Hannibal', which takes the stag mythology, turns it upside down and sticks raven feathers on it.  Throughout all three seasons of 'Hannibal', what came to be known as the Nightmare Stag was seen as a representation of Will Graham's descent into madness.  Taking a symbol of purity and covering it in raven feathers does something pretty nasty to our spirit guide.

There are many variations on the raven's meaning, spanning the various cultures and times throughout history. Most agree that a raven sighting is prophetic.  The Romans believed them to be a good omen, but this is 'Hannibal', so let's take a look at context. First, we're talking about a show named after literature's most notorious cannibal. Second, the actor who portrays him, Mads Mikkelsen, is Danish . . . tucked up right there next to Sweden, a culture which has it's own unsettling mythological beliefs about ravens. 

Photo courtesy: YouTube

What do they believe?  That they are the ghosts of murdered people.  Lovely. 

As if that weren't creepy enough, Bryan Fuller gives us this particularly horrifying bit of imagery:

Photo courtesy: NBC

Remember that Gundestrup Cauldron?  So did Bryan Fuller, apparently, and Hannibal literally becomes Cernunnos in Will's mind as the infamous Stag Man.  Hannibal is Will's spirit guide, but instead of guiding him towards the light, he is leading him into an impenetrable madness-filled dark.

Stag imagery is so ubiquitous in 'Hannibal', that Damon Lindelof felt the need to give Fuller the heads up in regards to the stag in 'The Leftovers'.

Speaking to James Hibberd for his article, 'Antlers in Murder Scenes: Why Is This a Thing?', Bryan Fuller is quoted as saying:

"Wait until you see 'The Leftovers'.  I think there's some stag action in that.  I had lunch with Damon. He was like, 'We didn't rip you off.  We have a stag.' Like, 'I just want to tell you up front.'"

The Leftovers

All of these references have been stepping stones for Lindelof's use of the stag in 'The Leftovers'.  We know from Fuller's own account that Lindelof acknowledged the stag imagery in Hannibal, so while he obviously didn't steal the idea (stag imagery is as old as mankind itself) he had to have been inspired by it.

And thank goodness he was!

Let's look at the stag appearances in a linear way in the timeline of our characters, rather than the show itself.  In which case, we'll start off with the penultimate episode, 'The Garveys at Their Best'.  It's important to note that we feature two separate stags.  The first stag Chief Garvey encounters is terrorizing children and innocent homeowners alike by bursting in on them like some crazed Kool-aid man on bath salts.  As Kevin astutely puts it, he doesn't belong here.

What is he really saying here?  Is he talking about the deer or himself? We get all flowers and sunshine and picket fences at the top of the episode when our brain is adjusting to the harsh contrast of a pre-departure reality.  It's as if we've been driving through an extremely long dark tunnel, finally emerging to find the light so glaring that our eyes can't adjust quick enough. But if everything was so perfect, how did it all go so wrong when none of their family vanished?  The answer comes fast and hard . . . it wasn't perfect.  It wasn't even close.  Everyone is lying to each other.  Everyone is asleep and Kevin is fighting pretty hard to stay that way.  He doesn't want a dog, but he can't tell his wife.  He sneaks cigarettes and covers up for Tom.  There is no communication happening and it's further confirmed through the revelation that Laurie is pregnant and considering a secret abortion.

Laurie and Kevin are already broken but desperately treading water to disguise this fact.  Jill confirms this by telling Tom that she thinks Kevin is going to leave.

So, in crashes this stag . . . trapped in suburbia, plowing through windows and worlds like a behemoth, desperately seeking escape.

Kevin has to fight the department to save the deer from being put down.  He understands its actions aren't malicious, but it isn't until his final standoff with the animal that he truly realizes how trapped he's become.

When the hot convenient scapegoat for all that is wrong with the Garvey's marriage hits the deer with her car, we are gifted with this amazing moment of spiritual bonding and true understanding between man and beast.  Kevin literally sees himself in the stag's desperate flight.  He puts the creature out of its misery and turns to the woman for his own release, crashing through all the closed doors in his relationship with Laurie.

Now that we have the establishment of that connection made clear, we can go back and look at the pilot.

Because he's already had a significant moment with a stag at this point in his chronology, Kevin is instantly ill at ease when he spies the deer in the front yard of 319 Walnut Rd.  Literally bringing Dudley's dog tags back to his grieved owner, only to find her not grieving and the stag looking on in contempt of this act of kindness.

The difference is startling in hindsight.  This stag is not running.  He knows he's out of place, but he is expectant.  He wants something from Kevin and seems content, for the time being, to wait for it.

The next time Kevin encounters the stag is in a dream.  He is driving at night and hits it with his car.

This is a subconscious warning, delivered by the stag, who is guiding Kevin between the realms of sleep and wakefulness.  Of course, we won't get the reference until almost the end of the season, as Lindelof is so fond of doing, but with foreknowledge of the events of Departure Day, we understand that in some fundamental way, Kevin must know that this is important.  

We hear the death screams of the animal and then he wakes up to find that a stag has crashed through his kitchen.  Yet another warning.  "Wake up, Kevin!"  Again, he is trapped, but this time by a false reality.

The third time Kevin encounters the stag, he comes face to face with it.  They stare quietly at each other and then, just before the dogs appear, the stag does something pretty subtle but quite interesting; he looks up, as if waiting for guidance.  What makes it especially interesting is that this can't be explained by the subsequent appearance of the dogs.  The stag is clearly looking up, not out and away in the direction of any noise which might have been made by the approaching pack.

Then, of course, the dogs appear and things go south in a hurry, but in that brief moment, the stag was clearly trying to tell him something.  Before anything can be made clear, the feral dogs devour the stag.  

Lindelof is speaking to us in metaphors, here, so if the stag is Kevin's spirit guide and also representative of the fragile purity of mankind, the dogs represent the madness that is encroaching, intent on devouring those left behind.

"They are not our dogs.  Not anymore."

Mankind is slowly descending into madness.  The Prius twins were not wrong.  It happened to the dogs first, but it will happen to the people in short order.

So, if we take the idea that the stag is Kevin's bridge between worlds, then when the stag is killed, that bridge is destroyed.  On which side of it does Kevin remain?  We can conclude from the efforts of Kevin, Sr. to get his son to wake up (consequently, this only happens once the deer is dead) that he's been trapped in the dream world.

Kevin, Sr. states that someone is coming to help Kevin and we can conclude that Dean, who appears at the door shortly thereafter is indeed that helper, but what if he was only sent because the deer was killed?  Was the deer initially sent by whatever force was behind the departure?  The mind reels! There are several formalities that lie deep in this conspiracy about our stag.

Was the stag sent to Kevin purposefully or was he simply seeing what he needed to see in those moments, drawing meaning from coincidence?

Do you want more chat about The Leftovers? Get your fix by listening to The Living Reminders Podcast with detailed show discussion and amazing interviews with cast, crew, writers and directors of The Leftovers on HBO.