published on June 18, 2025

Twin Peaks and the Descent into Hades Motif

The descent into Hades or katabasis motif is prevalent in many cultures, generally involving a hero reaching the lowest point of their journey. This can be either figurative¡ªas in, an existential, psychological, or emotional nadir¡ªor literal, as in a topographical descent into subterranean regions of the earth often described interchangeably as the netherworld, the underworld, Tartarus, Hades, hell, etc. This article will use these terms both in context (where relevant) and interchangeably in its application of this motif to David Lynch and Mark Frost¡¯s Twin Peaks universe, comprising the original first two seasons (1990¨C1991), the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992), and Twin Peaks: The Return (2017), as well as supplementary novels written by Frost. It will argue that one of the show¡¯s main characters, Dale Cooper, is depicted in critical scenes as undertaking an equivalent descent into Hades. Lynch was notoriously cryptic in relation to disclosing the true meaning of the themes represented in his surrealist oeuvre. In a similar manner, Mark Frost has made only passing allusions to Cooper as a new Orpheus, who in Greek mythology also famously descended into the underworld. In the light of these few explicit references, this article must begin with a contextualisation of Twin Peaks and its protagonist within the broader gamut of religious and literary depictions of katabasis motifs. It will do this to demonstrate that this important nuance, when applied to Cooper¡ªas well as to others like Laura Palmer and Annie Blackburn¡ªis a hermeneutical key that can be used to interpret the series¡¯ many time and space altering scenes, which is something that has been altogether missed by recent Twin Peaks scholarship.