Collective Unconscious Standardization Project

[Wonder_of_Fantasy]

Hey everyone,

I wanted to start working on a long-term project to create a comprehensive blog standardizing how we interpret the Collective Unconscious (CU) in fiction (on this wiki at least), particularly regarding its Tier 1 applications. Given how nebulous this topic can be - especially with recent additions to the Beyond Dimensional Existence page (specifically in regards to Type 3) and its connections to Abstract Existence (particularly conceptual/archetypal manifestations), I think this could help clarify some ongoing discussions.

The current situation is that there are wildly varying portrayals across different verses, from purely psychological interpretations to full-blown 1-A structures. My goal is to create a sort of Q&A guideline blog that would establish baseline traits to distinguish between these. And maybe include notable examples and anti-feats to help identify where different portrayals of CU fall on this spectrum.

Staff insights would be particularly valuable here, but all knowledgeable members are welcome to contribute examples, counter-examples, or discussion points. I'll be compiling drafts in this thread as we go.

In the future, hopefully this will amount to an actual Staff Thread or a revision to an existing page that talks about the CU.

 

[FriendOfTheTeaParty]

IMO I don't see much of a reason to have official standards for very specific concepts like this. It just heavily depends on a how a verse portrays this stuff, it's like world of forms where you can have a truly accurate CU and be tier 0, have a non-composite conceptual realm beyond physical reality and be 1-A, or you can have some shitass version like Fire Force that's just tier 2.

If Archetypes are portrayed as some abstract entity shaping the unconscious thought and person while things are derived from it that'd be fine for AE/CM. If CU is just a mental plane where stuff like human thought exist then lol mental AE only.

 

[AlipheeseXIV]

I kinda share the same opinion as BestMGQScaler, it is somewhat of a niche and delicate concept overall. However, I am also curious and interested in seeing where this could go, I am being a bit bias since some verse's I know could benefit from a project like this but at the same time I do see the argument that it isn't as all encompassing enough on it's own at the moment to warrant such a massive project.

I guess alternatively, if there are a decent amount of tier 1 verse's that could benefit from a page like this that use a CU as an integral part of their tiering maybe it will be beneficial even if it doesn't pertain to lower tier verse's such as those below tier 1 out there. Regardless, I believe that if someone doesn't mind doing the heavy lifting, follows the standards, and works with knowledgeable members and staff that there is no demerit to contextualizing such abilities and concepts even if somewhat niche as I believe that to be apart of our purpose on the wiki, but those are simply my 2 cents.

 

[Wonder_of_Fantasy]

@BestMGQScalerEver I agree that overly prescriptive standards would be counterproductive, especially since the CU is already a niche concept with a lot of variation between verses.

That’s exactly why I think having some kind of case-based guidance would be helpful. It wouldn't be about forcing a universal standard or automatically elevating every CU to Tier 1. Instead, the goal would be to clarify when those thresholds are actually met, and help prevent common misapplications (like assuming all portrayals of Collective Unconsciouses in fiction are inherently 1-A, just because). Your Fire Force example is a perfect anti-feat. It shows how some verses treat the CU as little more than a mental plane, without any substance.

Compare that to Megaten, which not only directly references Jung’s CU, but also builds its entire metaphysical structure around it in a way that's an analogue to it. The series is very explicit in stating that reality is fundamentally psychic (in a Jungian sense) in nature, and that the material world is merely an expression (or even a subset) of the unconscious itself. That’s a far cry from something like Fire Force's CU.

@AlipheeseXIV I think your take is totally fair. It’s definitely a niche area, but I think that’s part of why it’s worth exploring. I do think that The CU is often misapplied or misunderstood (as it were, even due to it's relation to psychology), especially when a verse vaguely gestures toward deep metaphysics in that light, but doesn’t actually deliver the structural backing to justify it.

A blog, a page, or even a detailed excerpt embedded into an existing one wouldn’t be about trying to overhype the concept either. It would just give people a better toolkit for evaluating CU portrayals on a case-by-case basis. And even if it’s mostly relevant to Tier 2+ verses, that still gives it value. There are a handful of verses where the CU plays a major role in tiering discussions, and giving those interpretations more structure helps avoid stretching the term too far in weaker verses.

Honestly, if handled carefully and with input from knowledgeable members, I don’t see a downside at the present. I think just talking about it is what really matters at this point in time.

 

[FriendOfTheTeaParty]

@BestMGQScalerEver I agree that overly prescriptive standards would be counterproductive, especially since the CU is already a niche concept with a lot of variation between verses.

That’s exactly why I think having some kind of case-based guidance would be helpful. It wouldn't be about forcing a universal standard or automatically elevating every CU to Tier 1. Instead, the goal would be to clarify when those thresholds are actually met, and help prevent common misapplications (like assuming all portrayals of Collective Unconsciouses in fiction are inherently 1-A, just because). Your Fire Force example is a perfect anti-feat. It shows how some verses treat the CU as little more than a mental plane, without any substance.

Compare that to Megaten, which not only directly references Jung’s CU, but also builds its entire metaphysical structure around it in a way that's an analogue to it. The series is very explicit in stating that reality is fundamentally psychic (in a Jungian sense) in nature, and that the material world is merely an expression (or even a subset) of the unconscious itself. That’s a far cry from something like Fire Force's CU.

@AlipheeseXIV I think your take is totally fair. It’s definitely a niche area, but I think that’s part of why it’s worth exploring. I do think that The CU is often misapplied or misunderstood (as it were, even due to it's relation to psychology), especially when a verse vaguely gestures toward deep metaphysics in that light, but doesn’t actually deliver the structural backing to justify it.

A blog, a page, or even a detailed excerpt embedded into an existing one wouldn’t be about trying to overhype the concept either. It would just give people a better toolkit for evaluating CU portrayals on a case-by-case basis. And even if it’s mostly relevant to Tier 2+ verses, that still gives it value. There are a handful of verses where the CU plays a major role in tiering discussions, and giving those interpretations more structure helps avoid stretching the term too far in weaker verses.

Honestly, if handled carefully and with input from knowledgeable members, I don’t see a downside at the present. I think just talking about it is what really matters at this point in time.

SMTs isnt 1:1 faithful (close enough but still) but I think it falls under the tier 0 variety with stuff about pleroma and great reason.

 

[AlipheeseXIV]

@AlipheeseXIV I think your take is totally fair. It’s definitely a niche area, but I think that’s part of why it’s worth exploring. I do think that The CU is often misapplied or misunderstood (as it were, even due to it's relation to psychology), especially when a verse vaguely gestures toward deep metaphysics in that light, but doesn’t actually deliver the structural backing to justify it.

A blog, a page, or even a detailed excerpt embedded into an existing one wouldn’t be about trying to overhype the concept either. It would just give people a better toolkit for evaluating CU portrayals on a case-by-case basis. And even if it’s mostly relevant to Tier 2+ verses, that still gives it value. There are a handful of verses where the CU plays a major role in tiering discussions, and giving those interpretations more structure helps avoid stretching the term too far in weaker verses.

Honestly, if handled carefully and with input from knowledgeable members, I don’t see a downside at the present. I think just talking about it is what really matters at this point in time.

If the purpose is not to make a one size fits all guideline for a CU but to make a standard on why and how it can be applied without strictly limiting it to any particular tier then in that case, I agree.

 

[AlipheeseXIV]

While I may not be a staff or knowledgeable member, I think the first step should be outlining limitations on what strictly isn't possible depending on the types of CU you plan on adding. As I believe it to be the simplest way of then transitioning to outlining it's possible uses and examples, perhaps if you want to make multiple types based on how other verse's treat it similarly to CM or BDE.

 

[FriendOfTheTeaParty]

While I may not be a staff or knowledgeable member, I think the first step should be outlining limitations on what strictly isn't possible depending on the types of CU you plan on adding. As I believe it to be the simplest way of then transitioning to outlining it's possible uses and examples, perhaps if you want to make multiple types based on how other verse's treat it similarly to CM or BDE.

I dunno if something about CU would really do any good. Maybe just non-composite conceptual realms in general which I think there's a FAQ about it (maybe not but I think it's mentioned somewhere).

 

[AlipheeseXIV]

I dunno if something about CU would really do any good. Maybe just non-composite conceptual realms in general which I think there's a FAQ about it (maybe not but I think it's mentioned somewhere).

I don't see a reason why not, can you link this FAQ?

 

[FriendOfTheTeaParty]

I don't see a reason why not, can you link this FAQ?

Beyond-Dimensional Existence

Beyond-Dimensional Existence is the state of existing beyond dimensions. In the majority of cases, this will be referring to characters who are timeless and spaceless. That is to say: A "beyond-dimensional" character does not take up any volume whatsoever, nor does it occupy a position in...

vsbattles.fandom.com

I think this is it

 

[Executor_N0]

To explain in a broader way, unless a concept directly relates to Tiering as a necessity, there's no need to make specific rulings when those are just registered in the requirements for the tiers themselves.

All that something needs to be considered a "Collective Unconscious" is some system in which the minds of many people are unified as one thing shared by them. Such a system can be physical or non-physical, it can be limited spatial-temporarily or not, it's free to be used in multiple ways that can or not imply tiering, and that tiering can be 1-A or not.

It's the same thing for something like Plato's Hyperuranion; there are multiple ways one could describe a realm of forms (Which the CU can be considered an equivalent with it), but how that is tiered is dependent on the evidence from the work itself, not the use of something equivalent to the Hyperuranion.

Naturally, if one were to go over the original concepts and how they were developed, it's not unusual to find material that would fit with our requirements for 1-A, but we don't scale things to real world philosophical concepts unless the work itself addresses the material that fits with 1-A, as there is quite a lot of portrayals that don't go that far with them.

As usual, most of the tiering evidence should be from the work itself. If the concept is addressed as 1-A, it can be 1-A; if not, it doesn't need to be, because the real-world inspiration could be taken as that level.

The same goes for stuff like dimensions, just because a work mentions something like "a 4th dimension exists" it doesn't mean that it would be Low 2-C because there are also many examples of added dimensions not being equated to a tierable jump in works of fiction. Since then, those concepts are analyzed from the point of view of the work itself. Real world examples can serve as a guide to understand it, but if a work can't defend at least some of the evidence for the tier jump, then it's just not enough.

 

[Theglassman12]

I’m not sure what gets accomplished for trying to bring up a standard for the Collective Unconsciousness itself due to the weird abstract nature of this in fiction. How would a “standard page” for this even work?

 

[Wonder_of_Fantasy]

How would a “standard page” for this even work?

I've clarified that it doesn't necessarily need to be a dedicated page. Just a section, somewhere, on the wiki talking about the concept as it relates to Tier 2+.

Similar to how the R>F page talks about individual cases of R>F. I figure the concept would be somewhat of an avenue to Tier 2+ in that same way, as it is also in a similar niche.

 

[Wonder_of_Fantasy]

In any case, I think this can be closed.

It's not exactly what I set out to do, but I concede it may have been a frivolous goal in light of others' perspectives.

 

[Theglassman12]

alright, closing