You guys are making the same mistake the 90s Green Lantern writers made. Fear and Love open the doors. Facing the Lodge with "imperfect courage" annihilates your soul. Courage isn't the absence of fear or the presence of love, it's the ability no matter what the motives to overcome your fear. If you have no fear, it's not courage it's just stupidity. Windom Earle had no fear, he needed Annie's. What he had wasn't courage, it was overconfidence and it was his downfall.TPDpz wrote:Yeah, in a sense Coopers downfall were his feelings for Annie that put him to jeopardy. He seemed like a man without fear prior to that. Love however overcomes fear when it matters the most. Fear is the mindkiller and forces you to freeze at the worst point, but with love you can overcome that and make the ultimate sacrifice if necessary. In a sense Cooper had those both when entering the lodge, perhaps that is why he was not consumed. Windom surely had no love and his soul was consumed.TheGum wrote:Fear and Love open the doors to the black and white lodges, yes, the owl cave map was a time, but Windom Earle needed Annie to gain entry because he needed her fear. Cooper was filled with fear when he entered, fear for Annie, possibly of what was inside that place. Cooper was only able to access the lodge because of his own fear, and that may have been the key to his undoing from the start.
In the end I guess love will prevail. I don't know how it will go, I do not know what will happen, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Cooper waking up in the end in the bed at great Northern 25 years in the past and old never shown footage with Harry and many others greeting Coop when he wakes up, his mind had experienced 25 years in the struggle over himself, perhaps after he hit his head to the mirror or whatever. :]
It's also worth noting that the Black Lodge is a place "every soul passes through on the way to perfection", meaning you have to go through the Black Lodge to get to the White Lodge. You need the fear and the love to open both doors one after the other.
Dale's soul was split, but not annihilated. He did have courage, he was willing to be destroyed or enslaved to save someone. He just couldn't beat his OWN dark side. And he couldn't open the second door, implying he didn't truly love Annie like he thought. He was trapped there. He did get close to the White Lodge, though, he made it to the purple sea that surrounds it. After 25 years being trapped, and after seeing Laura again.
I don't know if that means he's in love with Laura (which is definitely something you can argue for, given the deep spiritual connection they share) or if 25 years with only these abstract spirits and thoughtforms around him have opened his heart to all humanity (which would be in keeping with his behavior as Dougie), but I am still convinced it means he wasn't as in love with Annie as he thought and that was what he was lacking in the test and what allowed his shadowself to slip past him.