Stealing heroes
I know, I’m adding a post to blog. Amazing isn’t it!! Well, I finally stopped putting off typing some of my thoughts, so here are some of my thoughts…but only some.
I don’t think you could handle them all at once. :0)
Over Christmas I got to see The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe twice. I enjoyed it! Just seeing characters that I have come to love in a film is fun. But I would be lying to you if I told you I wasn’t disappointed. During my second viewing of the film the changes grated me more. I won’t detail each and every complaint that I have because I know that most of my problems come from having memorized the Focus on the Family Radio Theatre version and holding that version to be the gold standard.
Probably my biggest difficulty is the fixation that Peter had on getting back to our world. He even suggested that his siblings return without him, as long as they are safe. Safety was never a part of the book. There was even an exchange (that was excluded from the movie) between the children and Mr. and Mrs. Beaver about how meeting Aslan isn’t safe, but Aslan is good. There is this courage that Aslan seems to give the children in the book that is not in the movie. In the book they seem to take on this mantle of kings and queens, whereas in the movie they seem to resist this destiny.
It’s the same thing that was done to Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings films. Throughout the first two films and some of the third film Aragorn resists the destiny of becoming king. He even says, “I have never wanted it.” In the book, however, when we meet Aragorn as Strider there is also a letter from Gandalf that was meant to be sent to the hobbits before they set off on their journey that suggests Strider as a helper whose name is also Aragorn. This letter also includes a poem about “the blade that was broken, The crownless again shall be king.” Frodo asks if the verse applies to Strider and he admits that it does and produces the blade that was broken and tells how “the time is near when it will be forged anew.”
Aragorn has a quiet strength that comes from knowing who he is and who he is becoming. It comes from knowing his lineage, his heritage, his story. Peter and the children have a strength that comes from the confidence knowing that Aslan was with them. This strength was lost in the film versions of these great fantasy books, replaced by a veiled strength in self-confidence and the charge to do what they can. And maybe that’s what it is: fantasy. Or maybe our culture has forgotten what it means to believe in something with a confidence that can’t be shaken. Perhaps we have been so jaded that when someone, even a storybook character, comes along who carries him or herself with this unshakable strength we have to make that person more “believable”.
And then I read in the Bible about a man who was born to save his people from their sins. His destiny was known for centuries, and he took strength in that destiny and his obedience to the will of his Father. His name is Jesus, and though the world may steal some heroes, he is the king above all high kings. There is confidence in him that cannot be stolen.
