360- Acoustic
Existential angst and conflict with the unconscious seem to be the prevailing themes in this strip. Notice Chappy's covered eyes: he relies purely on intuition to guide him, and is so in touch with his unconscious that he can communicate with those symbols of the underworld, bats. Also, notice the dangers he encounters in his descent: most importantly, a vampire, a symbolic denizen of the unconscious mind, ready at all times to strip one's ego of its trappings and leave the individual a being that may only act purely on instinct and collective archetypal images. Tatanya, in the final frame, is an example of one who follows the wrong path, standing as a foil to Chappy. She has given in to what Nietzsche termed "ressentiment," devoting her attention to envy of others' positions at the cost of living her own life. Bereia is the voice of reason, the archetypal feminine goddess figure who presides over this debacle.

361- Windows of the Soul
This storyline follows the last, retaining the same characteristics. Tatanya has given in to her urge to hurt others so as to better herself in a way becoming no better than the vampire himself. Bereia notices all, and does what she can to make Chappy "see": she gives him something better than eyes. By drawing eyes upon the tool of his ego dissolution, she offers him the proverbial "third eye," the eye with which one sees without needing to physically see. In fact, often the two are mutually exclusive, so we see here Chappy beginning a quest of actual self-improvement and self-fulfillment. Himself the fool archetype, one could compare these beginning strips with the rich symbols that begin the tarot: a fool, a high priestess, a trickster (Exoth), and a force working against the progression of the fool.

362- AAA
The car, always a significant symbol in dreams and works of art, is almost always representative of an individual's personal power and control. Chappy's car's having broken down is a sign of his lack of initiative; he is hitting obstacles on his goal to "become what he is," if you will. He calls his friend to help, but instead of rectifying his situation as his friend suggests, he takes the opportunity given to him for some excitement. He indirectly blows up an airplane, showing that he, like Tatanya, carries resentment towards those who "fly' above him without feeling the need to "descend" to better themselves. The airplane, one symbol of ego power, is destroyed, and Chappy's car, another symbol of ego power, is broken. But he doesn't care about his predicament, and in another nod to the fool archetype, we assume that he continues his journey on foot.

363- Monster Translator
The symbolism in this one is so obvious that I hesitate to interpret it, at the risk of insulting the learned audience. However, I will make a superficial overview nonetheless. The "monster translator" is, of course, an attempt to understand the non-understandable, namely, the "monstrous" impulses of the human mind that can posses even the "best" people from time to time. Exoth and his subordinate are clearly attempting to understand what, if any, sentience lies behind these internal affects. Of course, the conclusion is that there is nothing but sayings parroted from television ads, a typical attribute of any animus figure.

364- Vagrant Story rip off I
In comes another animus figure, this one a bit more civilized but still ambivalent in its moral caliber. These two figures reflect Tatanya's inner struggles; this seems especially true in light of the fact that animus figures almost always come as groups, representing the multiple male figures residing in the female's unconscious. We have seen before the resentment, animosity, and general negative emotion that can grip Tatanya from time to time. Now, we here have two personifications of those emotions before her, in her "gym class," no less. It is "tough love," indeed, as is always the process towards individuation, or "becoming," to use Sartre's terminology. Many of the children, or other psychological affects within her mind, will probably be destroyed, as Tatanya notes, but this is not necessarily a bad thing.

365- Vagrant Story rip off II
Coach Riot, embodying the "Taskmaster" archetype, resists all of Tatanya's pleas for mercy. Although a general "cleaning out" of her unconscious is in order, this strip portrays the very real risk of such an act. Tatanya nearly loses her conception of her femininity in her identification with Coach Riot. She parallels his violence by using the banana beam, losing touch with her feminine side which is embodied by her hurt friend. She is so far removed that she does not even realize how easily she could regain this part of her, as is shown quite explicitly by the exchange in the final panel.

366- Vagrant Story rip off III
To balance out the destructive forces in her psyche, Tatanya calls upon yet another animus figure, Chappy. Chappy, although also often playing the archetypal fool, here embodies the mythical trickster, whose great power can be used for either good or evil, depending upon his whim. Here, Tatanya learns how to harness his power, by enticing him into helping her gain control over her negative animus of Ashley Riot. The final two panels portray one of the most stunning, startling truths in all of Irritability: indeed, no one wants to see the negative animus in its "naked" glory, shown as a purely instinctive urge to destroy. Such a sight is something from which no one could recover, and Chappy spares his charges the horror.

367- Vagrant Story rip off IV
Chappy realizes how to overcome the negative animus. Although it can never be destroyed, as no part of a person can ever truly be destroyed, it can be kept in check by placating it with its greatest wish. In this case, the treasure is a symbol of Tatanya's Self, the inner governing body that Jung likened to an internal God, the center of everything. Tempted by this treasure, the negative animus loses sight of its previous goal and leaves Tatanya be, for the moment. The victory is tenuous, however, as at any moment Coach Riot could regain his senses and come back to haunt her, as the negative animus so often does.

368- The Latin Lover
Really, the only true symbolic and deep meaning of this strip is that, symbolically and deeply, Mike's a jerk.

369- Ping Pong
I find it interesting that one of the techniques described here is the "phantom ball technique," as that's quite telling of the tone of the entire strip. Exoth, working within the context of the Devil archetype (Devil in the more tarot-based and mysticism-based sense than a Christian one), portrays once again unbridled, almost primordial power that is not just amoral but seemingly pre-moral. He uses his great power even in something as base as ping pong; but really, thatās entirely appropriate as the Devil is the master of all material, base things. The phantom ball is interesting in that it shows one of his forms; whatever everyman, here portrayed by Robot, strives for in this world is necessarily an illusion, maya as it is called in Eastern tradition. One of the trickster Devil's illusions is that there is some set goal to the "game." The more a person strives for that goal, that victory, that power, the more they fall into his grasp.

370- Dissidents
This is a humorous portrayal of a very real interaction: that of the "innocent" female with whom the individual can identify and the shadowy "other" female that is her necessary opposite. Gasoline Girl is routinely sacrificed, and although Tatanya tries to save her occasionally, she is rather ambivalent about her fate when it comes time to accept her as her own or even as similar to her. To do so would be too dangerous to the fragile sense of self Tatanya as persona has created. Of course, as often happens, the also-neglected animus decides that the best course of action is violence. He is not always wrong; metaphorical violence, a violent upheaval in the mind, is the only thing that can startle innocence from its stagnation and force it into the cycle of life.

371- Random Monsters
Bereia illustrates the point of the last comic well - shadow figures and neglected masculine impulses within a female's mind tend to show up violently without warning. They can disrupt one's normal routine and irrevocably alter one's opinion of oneself and the world. The "ogre" is all that one cannot accept about oneself and about creation, and alongside it is another, even more evocative example of a denizen of the mythological underworld. The snail is a classic representative of underwordly, cthonic power, a drone-like servant of the dark feminine. Bereia, like most women, can do nothing but run from these chance encounters, as they are in reality quite dangerous. One must confront the demons in good time - because although they can be beaten, they are never destroyed. They are a latent part of her and will return inevitably to be dealt with again. The Sheriff idly watches, in his normal position as background observer, a representative of the Self, an unformed-idea, something like the embryo of a personality - a sign of the progress of the characters on their way to Selfhood (which, as one can guess by his unformed nature, is not the best progress).

372- A Headleg Valentine
Another of the "monster" figures appears. Headleg is the malformed masculine, an utterly powerless creature who only has the capacity to talk and move. He is the weak shadow of Exoth, absolutely without power, endlessly tormented by his master. Headleg, of course, is a part of Exoth: the part he cannot accept, the less-than-human, the powerless, the emotional. Like many people, Exoth tortures this part of himself without mercy, trying to pretend that it never existed, calling it a horrible mistake. The emotional side Exoth wishes to destroy is shown here in the context of the traditional "day of love" gone very wrong. Of course Headleg has no female counterpart: he is the weak male, a reality that cannot be accepted. He cannot even be pictured by Exoth as worthy of a woman, because he values the dark male, the "weak" male, so little.

373- Big Wrench
Exoth's inability to see other forms of masculinity as equal to his narrow view is shown once again. This time, instead of the weak male, he confronts the "savage" male. As an intellectual, his pride is also hurt by the idea that he, too, contains within him a masculine impulse whose language cannot be understood because of its extreme simple-mindedness. That these aborigines fix cars shows that this is his view of the modern man: he is the equivalent of a berry-eating, nonsense-grunting primordial man incapable of advanced thought on par with his. By razing the village to the ground and taking a symbol of their very real power, he has asserted his dominance. Of course, this again is just dominance over projected fears about himself that end up taking him further and further away from his own individuation.

374- In which Exoth severs his arm
A new take on the myth of the uroborous snake, the immutable symbol of eternity through transience, death and rebirth in an endless cycle. Exoth, however, exists in this state via stolen power, not via any natural occurrence. He must make a sacrifice to attain this status, a sacrifice of his own arm. Arms, as vehicles to dominance, as a symbol of power over the earthly world, are quite significant in the context of being severed: his power is removed from his body. This renewal could be a good sign; this removed power that has gone too far from the natural is returned to the earth in an ages-old ritual of rebirth. We must wait to see whether or not this affects his detached attitude towards his power, now that his lack of autonomy has been shown.

375- In which Exoth gets a new body
Rather like Shelley's original monster of Frankenstein, Exoth gains a new body, one without soul or initiative of its own. It is merely a vessel to carry his Self, another empty persona to obscure the truth of his personality. Some kind of rebirth has taken place, with no little significance, but it appears that Exoth has yet to realize this. He goes about his normal ways, oblivious to the archetypal and mythological significance of death and rebirth, the changing of bodies.

376- The Forest of Peril
Here we get to see Tatanya in a role she has yet to play - the anima woman, the reflective female who allows men to project their anima (the inner, seemingly sentient feminine within their psyche) upon her for her own gain. Having had an infatuation with her for some time, as most men do with their dangerous anima women, Robot goes to her for help. We see here that the anima woman can be both helpful or dangerous - and even both at the same time. By instructing him to go to the Forest of Peril, she is really telling him to introspect further, to delve deeper into his unconscious. Much like the howling wolves on either side of the path one traverses in "The Moon" tradition, ogres and madsnails will be lurking, waiting to confront him. But perhaps this is what he needs - this kind of challenge is indicative of what is meant by calling the Devil tempter and redeemer. Dangerous and evil places are a fact of life, a real part of every person's psyche, and if Robot plans to reach individuation, to be one with his Self, he must confront all that dwells within said forest.

377- Cheese
This strip is so obvious that I shouldn't even waste much time on it. Chappy, of course, witnesses the tricks that can be played upon one by "treasure" or, in this case, "cheese." As ancient Sufi mystic Jelal al-din Rumi has said, going into the fire takes you to water, and going into the water takes you to fire. These simple words belie a difficult-to-realize truth about reaching one's own version of salvation. The path cannot be easy, and easy paths ought to be shunned as one might be caught in a "trap." Luckily, here, it is a weak one, and does Chappy no harm.

378- Bonk
It is no accident that the material in this strip is human bones. Exoth is searching for answers via an avatar of primordial, cthonic humanity. Bones and skulls are symbols of the consuming power of the earth mother, who creates but who also takes away. The fear of being consumed back into her underwordly ocean is very real, as all have a natural fear of their individuality being dissolved. This fear is shown as the skull of Azmodred, the one sentient being left from the stripped-clean bones. He, however, is merely an angry spirit, something meant to cause terror in those who approach the answers Exoth wants. Exoth, of course, is unfazed.

379- The Crow 3: All that Glitters
The real importance of this strip lies in Bereia's estimation of the treasure: "A worthless shiny rock." A crow, the mythological companion of the dark female and denizen of the underworld, attempts to show her and Tatanya how wrong they are, that seemingly worthless dirt, rocks, sludge are in fact very significant, very important concepts. The crow cries the hopeless and bitter tears of the long-repressed, long-suffering dark feminine, never understood and never accepted. Tatanya tries to understand by holding the bird, trying to give it the property of it and the proverbial dark mother, but the fact that they have dug this mystery out of the ground (I needn't expound upon that symbolism, I'm sure) has already changed things irrevocably.

380- Obsession: For Treasure
Treasure can symbolize many things, but most often it seems indicative of either the Self, the summum bonum of all existence, or a false illusion of such out to torment and trick the questor. Bereia and Exoth, like many others in Irritability, are obsessed with their quest to find their personal holy grail; however, theirs is a tainted desire, as their conception of the greatest treasure is a material one. The upside-down pentagram is considered blasphemous, dangerous, and wrong because it upends the proper hierarchy of the universe: instead of the one star point of spirit being at the top, the two points of material matters take precedence. Hence the pentagram itself being a highly spiritual symbol taken by many nature religions, and the upside-down one being a favorite symbol of Satanists. The Devil, after all, is great unconscious and primordial power without connection to the spirit. Only via the spirit may that power be channeled properly. Exoth and Bereia betray their inner thoughts in this strip: their all-consuming desire for material treasure blinds them to the illusory nature of that "treasure." The ring may as well be Exoth's crow's shiny rock.

381- Auto Inspection
Chappy reappears in his role as mercurius, the trickster. Here he is a charlatan, pretending to inspect the cars of others. One can easily see the parallels, most likely intended, to the industry of psychology and any appearance of knowledge on the part of humans. We "inspect" the "cars" of others - cars, of course, being a widely recognized symbol of a person's power, their personality, their psyche. The definition of "inspection" is never questioned, however, so long as the proper stamp of approval is placed upon it. And, when someone threatens this system or attempts to question the indisputable facts unearthed by psychology or science or religion, the industry seeks to beat the person into submission. That the sticker itself is an immature one a teacher might give to a schoolboy is also quite appropriate. Indeed, this strip is most definitely a statement on the straight lines and categories we arbitrarily create and defend, and the trickery and illusion that keeps them alive.

382- Killer Halfpipe
Again, Irritability tackles an extremely important and deep philosophical question in the guise of humor. Here, a typical young man approaches Chappy/mercurius for help in slaying a "killer halfpipe." By using a common parlance of skater culture, this strip shows the dangers of conformity and the killing blow to one's Self that comes with accepting the moniker given one by society. There is another meaning, however, latent in the use of "halfpipe." The giant, bloodthirsty pipe is mechanistic, without humanity. It quite possibly also serves the function of a symbol of technology run wild, without the reigning-in factor of human conscience. Both of these interpretations seem correct in the light of the third panel, in which Chappy vows general revenge, but cannot even remember the name of the individual killed - precisely because that individual ceased to exist. His speech, mimicking that of thousands of others, showed that he was only seconds away from complete annihilation by the "killer halfpipe."

383- The Great Betrayal I
This strip is fairly straightforward: a shadow figure of Exoth, one of the many that he constantly is trying to destroy or ignore, comes out of his hiding place in the psyche to tempt Robot into destroying his master. This is an ages-old theme, that of the young prince killing the old king in a cycle of nature that never ends. However, it is not yet Exoth's time to go: the death of the ego is something to strive for, as it allows for the rebirth via the unconscious of the full psyche, but the death of the ego is also extremely dangerous. If it dies and the shadow parts of the psyche take over, a person could be lost to utter madness. Notice that the instrument of his death is a ticking bomb - a ticking bomb in the form of his refusal to integrate his errant psychological affects!

384- The Great Betrayal II
Exoth discovers an effective way to ward off the dangers of an out-of-control shadow figure: the release of the drowning waters of the unconscious. Unfortunately, the unconscious washes into everything when its dams are let loose, and thus Exoth's ego cannot be conscious at the time, either. Of course, one can never destroy psychological affects, one may only integrate them - and thus, Exoth only foils them for so long. They vow to return, and they will, indeed.

385- That Ain't What I Axed You
I hear that someone tried to usurp my position as Jungian analyst by sending in their own pathetic attempt at an analysis of That Ain't What I Axed You. I would just like to note here and now that I spit upon their weak efforts. The real interpretation of the strip, of course, is inextricably intertwined with the myth of the handless maiden. In this case, it is Chappy - Axe Boy - who has been stripped of his hands, which are always symbolic of power, material and worldly power. As I have always reminded the reader, that is also the domain of the Devil, in the more pagan sense of the term. As opposed to the maiden, who is given hands of iron to allow her to have power over herself and to achieve a modicum of self-actualization, Axe Boy overcompensates by having axes for hands. Infuriated at his inability to manipulate objects, he decides to destroy them. This, of course, is an obvious metaphor for many angry individuals in the real world. Perhaps it is even something of a statement on the likes of Colombine, Jonesboro, etc.: what happens when masculine hyper-aggression is the answer to a thwarted and humiliated, powerless ego. And, of course, what happens is that thousands of jars of proverbial mayonnaise are broken. Mike is also showing his own insecure uber-modesty, as he is far hotter than this in real life.

386- Ant Man Strikes Again
This strip appears to be obsessed with food and death. In fact, the entire thing is very surreally Nietzschean. The correlation between type of food intake and health or attitude is classic Nietzsche, and Ant Man's death could have been taken directly from Jung's interpretation of Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Ant Man first claims to be nourished by his victuals, and would fain have meat - his psychological and spiritual food lies within himself, and he need not seek nourishment elsewhere. However, he is telling this to a skull, and we begin to see through his illusion of completeness when he admits himself to be, in fact, a great eater of beef, and to believe that it does great harm to his wit. Not just his wit, in fact, but his entire psyche - for beef in this instance is the extroverted search for fulfillment, as opposed to introspection and the realization that the true answers lie within the Self, not outside in the world. The fate of one who climbs too high into consciousness, which is what Ant Man has done, is simple and usually irrevocable. Note the Shakespearean quotes, the dress, the skull: he is a walking ego, unable to delve into or even deal with the depths of his unconscious. Having ignored all other ego effects, he climbs the mountain of logic and extroverted quests into the sun of consciousness only to be burned to a crisp by his over-inflated ego. Zarathustra had the wisdom to return from the mountain, but Ant Man, apparently, did not.

387- Enter: The Axe, in greater detail
Note the parents in their thrones, their inflexible and rigid cages that trap and hold masculine and feminine conceptions in Axe Boy's head. He leaves to find his own way: one cannot stay in the house of one's "parents," as the house is a symbol of the psyche, and to remain in the compartments created by another is to forgo forging one's own identity. Axe Boy attempts to return to his parents' "house" and is horrified to see emptiness: he will be forced to make an identity for himself. Although his parents are not dead, they are to him, insofar as the mother and father archetype no longer rule his behavior. Gender roles and authority will be confused for him until he can make his own "rooms," decide upon his own viewpoints. This, of course, is extremely difficult, and from what we've already seen of Axe Boy's personality, he will deal with this in violent reaction.

388- George Washington's Dad
This strip appears to have the sole purpose of further driving the wedge between Axe Boy and the rest of humanity. Although he "cannot tell a lie," his morals are in disarray because he has deemed it acceptable to destroy and kill with impunity. The tree, a symbol of the earthy masculine, of grounded male-ness that understands its place in the world and in relation to creation itself, has been cut down by Axe Boy in his rampage. He is entirely cut off with any true connection to tools with which he could create a happy, well-adjusted psyche.