Since Jim's animal spirit is a Panther, and Blair's is a Wolf, I wondered just what characteristics they shared with their respective animal spirits. I also wondered why they should combine, and what made them so compatible.
Panthers
Not all cats are loners. Females spend a great deal of time with their young. After they leave their mothers, young cats often stay together for protection, and to make hunting easier. Lions, of course, live in prides.
However, cat associations are less structured than those of wolves and their cousins, dogs. Cats are much less social than wolves, and less enamored of the idea of hierarchy. Many cats do live and hunt alone, whereas a lone wolf, or a lone dog, is actually a very rare thing.
Cats are fastidious, and take offense easily. When they are disgusted, they make their disgust very clear, and often sulk in isolation for a time, before deciding to forgive the offender.
Wolves
Wolves and dogs are social creatures. In fact it is very difficult for a wolf or dog to live and hunt alone. Pack hierarchy is structured and absolute. The alpha male and female rule, and the others submit to their authority without question.
Inside that structure, pack cohesion is strong. There is a great deal of affection among pack members, most of the time. Everyone helps to take care of the young. Injured or sick members are fed. Once you belong to the pack, you are usually a member for life.
Jim as Panther
Jim is, to some extent, a loner. He preferred to live and work alone before he met Blair. Jim's fastidiousness is well known, as is his tendency to stalk off when offended. He has probably felt like an outsider most of his life, and believes that this is his fate in life.
Blair as Wolf
Blair certainly appears to be a more social creature than Jim . At least he possesses a greater ability to create workable social relationships. He is able to get in under Jim's defenses, and win the respect and even love of Simon and everyone else in Major Crimes, at the same time as he is working on his Doctorate and teaching at Ranier University. When something goes wrong in Blair's world, he tends to stick around and fight it out.
The Panther and Wolf Together
At the beginning of the saga of The Sentinel, Jim is the very picture of a cat disgusted with everything in the world around him. He is divorced, working and living alone, and withdrawing more from the world every day. Then Blair enters his life.
Blair is a wolf in search of just the right pack to enter. He thinks his pack is Ranier University, but as will be discovered in future episodes, they don't really appreciate him, and eventually expel him. His home is invaded by drug dealers, and is destroyed.
When Jim and Blair join forces, they have much to offer each other. Blair is not scared off by Jim's air of icy isolation. Jim is not really the loner he, and everyone else, thinks he is. With Blair leading the way he can join the pack, or pride of lions. Jim offers Blair his real home, pack, and territory.
Blair teaches Jim how to compromise and settle disputes, and how to trust. Jim gives Blair the power of his animal spirit. Gradually their differences begin to wear away, and they become more like two halves of the same soul. This is revealed in the way they dress. Their clothes begin to correspond in style and colour, as do those of well-matched couples.
At the end, it seems that they will be permanent partners, sharing the same career and fate, possibly until death.
Since June 13, 2000, people have read this essay.
