I'm re-watching the Lord of the Rings movies. Tolkien himself is so good, I'd forgotten how irritating the movies' king-angst is. Aragorn just isn't sure he can take the kingship; he's not sure he can get out of Isildur's karma; he loves Arwen but he kind of thinks she should go to Valinor; he's not sure about anything until finally Elrond, who doesn't like him much anyway, tracks him down in the middle of the wilderness to give him the re-forged sword. Theoden has king-angst once he discovers his son died, and then again at the battle of Helm's Deep. Even Faramir has a version of angst, though his is the unloved-younger-prince angst. They gave Peter Pevensie king-angst in Narnia, too.
Meanwhile, my sermon this morning was on covetousness, idolatry, contentment, and complaining. The general connection is that if your first love is God, you won't covet things, and you'll be content and not complain. If you're not content, it probably means God is not first. Conviction!!
Whiny kings are just...despicable, actually. So are whiny saints. I think we're supposed to sympathize with them as "human." Who wants to be that kind of human? We've been mocking the Israelites in the wilderness a long time. Give me a good thane, an Athanasius who "stood firm when the fashion shifted all around him, and as his reward he remains when the fashion has shifted away" (Lewis).
I'll try not to be a whiny saint, either. Forth Eorlingas, and let us make an end as will be worth a song.
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3 comments:
*nods*
The Peter-angst thing especially got to me. In fact, quite a bit of Adamson' Narnia bugged me. I thought Theoden's angst fairly appropriate. Faramir's brought out his relationship with Boromir, but it still didn't feel right.
Aragorn's little king-problem was... annoying! Like you said, it made him more human, it made sense within the story, yadda-yadda. Who cares?
One thinks the Dunedain probably exorcized such karma out of their systems after the first thousand years or so.
Indeed. Angst is not admirable in anyone, much less a king - or any leader. But our world has a democratic complex, such that the average movie-goer should be able to identify with a king. "You, too, if you only stuff down your fears and believe in yourself, can become a king." It's disgusting, to be sure.
Of course, on the other side of the spectrum are the revoltingly saccharine kings and heroes, written by people who don't understand what true goodness is. At least we don't have to deal with that too much :).
I hear you both. What *I* wish is that they'd make kings that were woth identifying with (i.e. morally superior to your average moviegoer) and also so excellently characterized and played that the moviegoers wanted to identify with them. :-D
Incidentally, I just read Cyrano for the first time; I'd seen a movie version, but the play is far better. Cyrano made me very, very happy.
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