A MultiMuse Hellhole

This then feeds into the jump the shark! moment of movie 2 where she abandons Imhotep- because it’s not really her. You can’t bring back what’s still alive, so what Imhotep called forth when he killed Meela (who was a reincarnation only in body which the movie is never too clear on the meaning of? Doppelganger? Genetic memory? ) was whatever of her had been left behind from the first ressurection; namely her fear and rage and desperate need to survive, the worst aspects of the humanity she was forced to abandon to return to the upper world.  An emotional imprint operating as a rudimentary personality construct with the memories she held at the point of seperation and no more. 

Anck Su Namun has known for centuries /how/ to raise imhotep. The problem with that was that she wouldn’t merely raise Imhotep but a plague against the world- and that was never what she wanted. With her first death they were supposed to be able to flee; to never look back. She didn’t want to rule, she wanted to live her life with the man she loved. 

The temptation was there for millenia, dangling above her head- raise him, be with the man you love and damn the world that cursed you so- but she never gave in. Eventually, she made to leave Egypt entirely to avoid the lure, to search out a better way. 

Which is precisely when the O’Connells enter the picture. 

Technology and travel weren’t there yet to alert her to Imhotep’s raising- she felt the phantom pains of death when Imhotep tried to raise her from the Underworld, but her hatred claimed the husk of her humanity left behind and severed any connection. 

She didn’t make it back to Egypt before he was sent back to the underworld. 

The ‘second coming’ nearly broke her; not only for Imhotep to be risen, human and whole, the best chance the had to be together again and he falls for a shade- a construct of hatred and pain and the darkness of the underworld and he can’t tell its not her. 

She almost abandons him after that, almost throws in the towel on her entire lifes’ work and leaves him to rot but no, if nothing else she owes him his life and he owes her an explanation.