And one by one the brave men volunteer for the perilous task of absolving the forgotten lands from an ancient terror. The old King is dead, yet it is their new King Buliwyf who is the first of the men to volunteer. “The thirteenth warrior”, shrieks the oracle, “can not be one of us!” Good friend Eben freezes and realizes he has entered the wrong camp.

The next morning, the Vikings present him with a water bowl in which he is to wash himself, after they have all washed themselves with the same water. He is disgusted. He is a dainty man and does not appreciate the snot of his fellow brother. We discussed this scene in a film club I run on another community and I reminded them how important it is that a man gets to know his inner Wild Man. This man is not finicky about hygiene, but is more grounded in the earth and the getting it done. I remember in my previous relationship that I would often do things that were disgusting by her standards, though I felt that they empowered me. Men and women are different that way. Eben is a bit effeminate. Yet I too would refuse washing my face in water where another bloke just emptied his nostrils.

Eaters of the Dead

After having made a name for himself by riding his horse like a warrior and learning the North Men language, Eben is somewhat more accustomed to the company of the savage men by the time they arrive at their destination. Already, a bond has started forming between him and Buliwyf. The land which meets them is a gray and desolate place, bereft of most its men of fighting prowess. They are already dead, taken by the Eaters of the dead. We are reminded of the “women and children” first mantra. In times of war and danger, men always die first. It is part of our gender role – we are the expendable sex – something which is hardly acknowledged in today’s world, where women are always described as getting the worst end of the stick.

When the Eaters strike the first time, Eben is terrified. He is not a Warrior. “You will be soon!,” laughs Herger the joyous. He does survive, but a scratch on his face, and even gets one of them. But they return in force. The North Men suspect there is some supernatural force at play. The dead bodies of the Eaters disappeared after battle and when fire appears up on the hill from whence they came first time around, they shout “they have roused the fire serpent”. These truly are mythical lands.

The Eaters return in force and Eben enters a battle frenzy, loses himself and his old ways to bloodlust in the moment. He is not a Warrior and so does not remain grounded and focused in the moment of battle, though he is an able arm in battle already, especially after he got his Arabian scimitar cut at the smithy. Herger laughs at him “You got one? Don’t worry. There’s more!”.

Taking the battle to them

The brave king Buliwyf rouses his men – those who remain – to a counter-attack. Eben has turned into an important part of the group, for he is the man with talents of his own – as well as a big brain. There is a nice scene in which Eben rides out of the Viking village and the beautiful lass that he has bonded with strokes her arm against his leg as he rides out. We know from earlier that Eben is fond of beautiful women, and we see his temptation to turn around and spend time with the fair-haired beauty. But he has discovered something new and perhaps even more important now: Brotherhood. He knows he cannot let his brothers down, leave them to their fates while he is frolicking with a woman. It’s simply not the way of a mature man.

They successfully raid the encampment of the enemy– who are a spooky and primitive sort of group – and Buliwyf slays their female spiritual leader. But he is poisoned by her before he gets her head. As his last hours are upon him, Buliwyf calls on Eben to write down the stories of his life, that it might be remembered. Eben is moved and recognizes, once and for all, the greatness of these fearless warriors. He agrees that such would be a worthy thing.

The final battle comes to pass – the male leader of the enemy must also be crushed for the enemy to be broken, and in the dark moments before battle, Eben kneels on the ground to pray: “God, Merciful Father, I have squandered my days with plans of many things . . . this was not among them . . . but at this moment, I beg only to live the next few minutes well”. Beautiful. He is asking his God for help in staying grounded and present in the moment. Male spirituality at its finest.

And so, with the calling on the forefathers and a homage to the Halls of Valhalla (which Eben beautifully partakes in), Buliwyf kills the general of the enemy with what remains of his waning life force. And so, more or less, it ends.

Conclusion

13th Warrior is a pretty light-hearted movie, but what strikes me about it is that it’s a good story for studying the Wild Man archetype, but perhaps more importantly the integration of the Lover and the Warrior archetypes in the KWML system.

Ahmad Ibn Fadlan was exiled because he lusted for the woman of another man. He is also a poet. Ergo, he is a Lover archetype. And then he teams up with a tribe of savage Warriors, who turn out to be noble at their core. What happens in Eben through this adventure is an integration of the Lover and the Warrior, particularly demonstrated through the relationship he shares with Buliwyf (a character who is a king, but whose archetypal function in the movie is of a Warrior King). It is a noteworthy theme and makes the movie a worthy watch.

Set in the latter part of the 12th century, the movie focuses on the main character Balian–a peasant blacksmith in the south of France. From a life of relative tranquility, his existence is turned upside down when his wife gives birth to a stillborn child, and then proceeds to take her own life, stricken by grief. Soon after these tragic events, a knight of Jerusalem visits Balian, claiming to be Godfrey of Ibelin and Balian’s father. He offers the blacksmith to come with him to Jerusalem, and fight in the Crusades, but Balian–still paralyzed by grief–turns down the offer.

However, as chance would have it, the village priest turns out to be a less than empathetic man, provoking Balian by stating that his wife will burn in hell for killing herself. Overcome by rage, Balian is unable to control his emotions and kills the priest on the spot. Well aware that he will be sentenced to death for this crime, he flees the village on his horse, and joins his father’s party.

Balian is now a man who has hit rock bottom. His wife and child are dead, and he’s a wanted criminal in his native village. Furthermore, he’s proven to be unable to control his emotions and unable to adhere to his own moral code. In this state of internal confusion and emptiness he travels to Jerusalem, in hope of redemption and forgiveness, and perhaps just as importantly: in search of a new purpose in life, a purpose that can also serve as his redemption.

The question of what maketh a man is perhaps just as old as humanity itself. I do not pretend to have anything that even approaches a complete answer, but I think Balian’s story can give us an important hint. What is it that he loses to become a broken man? His wife and his child may be what comes to mind at first, but as tragic as these losses are, they do not necessarily represent our hero losing touch with his manhood or masculinity. Instead, the telltale signs that Balian is out of touch with his own core, is that he acts impulsively (i.e. cannot control his emotions), and that he breaks his own basic moral code. How can he trust himself, or expect the world to trust him, when falling short in these regards?

But even the fact that Balian loses touch with a couple of core masculine qualities, is nothing but the end result of a deeper dynamic. Healthy masculinity is first and foremost associated with a clear direction in life, and the fact that our hero’s family has been wiped out, has likely led to an absence of purpose or direction in his life. This lack of direction can in itself be enough for a man to let go of the other values that he cherishes in his life, such as his moral code and his composure.

Moving on in the story, Godfrey (the father) is lethally wounded in a battle with a group of soldiers that want to capture Balian and have him punished for killing the priest. As sad as this event is, it also represents a much needed turning point for our main character. The impending death of his father, leads Balian to experience something that is rare in our modern times: an initiation from his father. The word-by-word oath goes like this:

Godfrey of Ibelin: Be without fear in the face of your enemies. Be brave and upright that God may love thee. Speak the truth always, even if it leads to your death. Safeguard the helpless and do no wrong. That is your oath. Godfrey of Ibelin: [strikes Balian with the back of his hand] And that’s so you remember it. Hopitalier: Arise a knight and Baron of Ibelin.

Now, not everyone can be turned into a knight in a modern society, but every man could be formally or informally initiated into manhood, as well as have his father pass on some crucial insights or words of inspiration to him. Spiritual traditions have lineages and transmissions, and in many ways I believe that healthy masculinity and manhood are variables that can and should be transmitted from father to son, if at all possible. Needless to say, some fathers are dead, drunk or absent, but in that case a mentor can fill the shoes of the father in this respect.

Once in place in Jerusalem, Balian travels to the Ibelin estate, which turns out to be a less than glamorous remote desert oasis. Instead of cursing his fate, the newly instated Baron starts irrigating and cultivating the lands, side by side with his people. This humility, and this obvious connection to the earth that we all spring from, inform us that Balian is reconnecting to his core, and to a very healthy masculinity. All too often in our modern times do we associate men and men’s projects with a disregard for mother earth and the interconnectedness of all things. However, as far as I’m concerned this is a pathological expression of masculinity, whereas a more constructive expression of manhood wants to serve as a steward of the earth, and as a servant and steward of the feminine principle.

Step by step we thus see Balian coming into his own, and paying off his karmic debt of being a murderer. This personal growth that he goes through, turns out to be crucial in the huge challenge that awaits him.

After the newly crowned King of Jerusalem makes a fatal tactical error and marches his whole army into the desert, only to be overcome by heat and dehydration, and then slaughtered by the muslims–Balian is left with the overwhelming task of defending Jerusalem with few troops and a large civilian population. The reasonable response may seem to be to immediatly surrender, however, that may lead to the slaughtering of every last man, woman and child. Furthermore, Balian has been initiated into manhood, and he now has the opportunity to transmit this initiation to a large group of people.

In one of the strongest scenes in the movie, Balian orders a large group of civilians to kneel before him. He then proceeds to initiate them in a similar fashion to how he was initiated, and then orders them to rise as Knights of Jerusalem. The change in body language and facial expression is palpable in these men, after someone they admire has seen the potential in them, and expressed a conviction that they can be bigger men than they have ever imagined.

Using nothing but intelligent warfare and a small army of civilians, Balian is able to defend Jerusalem until the attackers agree to give all of them safe passage out of Jerusalem, none of which could have been achieved had he not been initiated himself.

If you are interested in a movie about pain, redemption, masculinity, initiation and humility, then I highly recommend you check out Kingdom of Heaven.

Mr X – that's what I will name our protagonist – is not a happy man. He is numb, empty, and the sensations of life are but a distant shimmer beyond the veils of his pointless existence. He is a shadow, mist moving silently through the wastelands of existence. But it has gone too far, and Mr. X has now gone looking for release from bondage in myriad support groups for victims of life-threatening diseases. His disease is not of the body, but of the soul. It seems to carry across it a huge phantom scar of the life that was never lived.

He becomes a support group junkie, addicted to the human bonding and emotional release he finds there. Letting go into his pain seems to be a significant part of his personal journey. Finally he sleeps again. But his plan goes awry when he discovers a similarly inclined mysterious woman – Marla – who starts appearing at workshops. She is another lost soul who uses the pain of others to leech on to what remains of herself. Mr. X (or «Jack» as the movie also suggest) finds in her a perfect mirror of his own dishonest, apathetic, and life-destructive ways and his life is turned upside down once more. «If I had a tumor, I would name it Marla.» He is angry now, and the grieving is over.

Introducing Tyler Durden

Tyler Durden first appears on an airplane. Tyler is a free spirit – rebellious, full of vitality, and with some deep insight into what Jack longs for (death itself). In fact, he seems to know Jack's inner world very well. «That's clever,» he responds to one of Jack's carefully crafted comments. «How's that working out for you? Being clever.» Tyler sees that Jack, like so many men, uses irony and cleverness to keep his deep feelings of emptiness at bay, and challenges him on it. Jack hardly notices.

Jack returns from his business trip to a blown up flat and finds all his Ikea crap, including his prized Yin-Yang table, scattered smouldering on the ground. So the two of them move in together, settling in a derelict building on Paper Street on the outskirts of town. It starts out innocent enough, Tyler and Jack punching each other among the dumpsters behind a bar. But soon enough, Tyler pulls Jack deeper into his red emotion, and he discovers there a plentiful cache of repressed anger that has been eating away at him from the inside. Every Saturday, they go to fight on the tarmac behind the bar in that particularly desolate part of town, and new recruits arrive every week.

Jack has lost everything, but now that he's stopped dulling his senses, he is connecting with a deeper part in himself. He finds greater freedom in embracing a life featuring only the bare necessities. «By the end of the first month, I didn't miss TV.» (ditch your TV guys, it's killing you slowly)

Reclaiming the inner wild man

Inside every man is a seat of power, with deep roots extending from it, penetrating the rich, nutritious soil of the dark collective subconscious of our male ancestry that is its foundation. Upon it sits a wild man, a creature moist and hairy, asleep. He dreams hopeful dreams of the day when his lost son returns to the kingdom to reawaken him – the one who waits in shadows – so that the painful separation can finally end.

Tyler is such a wild man. But he is not asleep, he is quite awake. And now he stands in front of his devoted brothers – or are they disciples? – proclaiming to them the terms of participation in his private arena. «The first rule of Fight Club is you do not speak about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is you do not speak about Fight Club.» Tyler demands from his men total secrecy. They move in shadows, like creatures of the night who find in darkness that which the light of day kept hidden. The source of their newly acquired vitality must be forever kept hidden.

This right here is incredibly profound. What is pointed to here is that this wild man has been pushed into oblivion, forced into damp cellars of the mind, so that the vessels of his essence – men across the planet – can be nice and servile little puppets of consumerism. He was first forced into hiding with the onset of the industrial revolution – when man was removed from his inner and outer nature – and now he is kept hidden in order to make possible the perpetuation of the widespread illusion that there is happiness to find in the pursuit of things, comfort and security. It suggests that men who want to reclaim their power must do so in secret, because masculine power has been deemed evil by society.

But for many men, fighting a friend can be an expression of love, a challenge for them to tap deeper into their power. This is something many women will never understand. When we men engage in such fighting, we are not being violent as much as we are challenging each other to be all we can be, to move from being trapped inside the head to being liberated into nature through the gateway of the body. Because society has become overfeminized and oversensitive, masculine love and masculine violence are lumped into the same category.

This turns the world into a spiritual wasteland for many men, for they can no longer access the seat of their power in a way that is condoned by society, and so become forever trapped in mental motions. The emptiness of this wasteland is the emptiness that Jack intuits, and its widespread damage on men's psyche is the cue for Tyler's invitation to go deeper into the shit of existence.

Tyler's wisdom

The true genius of Tyler is threefold: He exposes the complete dysfunction of our culture's basic assumptions about happiness, he shows the tremendous damage this delusion causes in the psyche of men, and he points to how inadequate existing feminine structures of bonding are in healing the wounds of a man who has lost contact with his wild ancestral roots.

In one scene, Tyler pours highly corrosive chemicals on Jack's hand and forces him to journey through the pain, as a means to access the power that comes from embracing death. Jack wants to escape, through methods he learned from women in the support groups.

- I'm going to my cave to find my power animal.
- No! Don't deal with this the way those dead people do!Come on!
- I get the point!
- No! You're feeling premature enlightenment. It's the greatest moment of your life, and you're off somewhere else!

In this scene, Tyler makes me contemplate the fact that much modern spirituality is about escaping life, not embracing it. It is about seeing the oneness of all things, seeing everything as love, everyone as beautiful. That is all fine, but lest the wild man is contained therein, lest we can see that shit of existence that Tyler Durden almost worships, it is castrated, escapist, and devoid of true potential to liberate any man. When people gather to talk about all that is happy, bright, and wonderful in the world, without being willing to embrace the inherent suffering of it all, the wild man falls into deeper sleep.

That wild man is the force within you that considers talk of flowers, meadows and butterflies (as long as it's part of an escapist philosophy) to be total bullshit. Nobody appreciates these things more than the wild man, but he does so from a grounded place of pure connection, and not from a dissociated ascension trip while trying to escape pain. The wild man knows that only on the other side of embracing the pangs of existence can nature's true appreciation occur. And when man does not appreciate nature, and gets stuck in living life as a constant evasive maneuver, bad things occur.

Society's disconnection from nature

We should now look at one of the most important statements this movie makes. Jack is working as a recall coordinator for a major car manufacturer. He investigates the damage caused when a car malfunctions, and calculates whether his employer will be better served financially by keeping dangerous cars driving on roads or if they should recall them to avoid standing responsible to plaintiffs in the courts. He turns the deaths of real people into numbers in financial estimates.

This is the society we have made. This is what happens when people turn complacent and docile as long as their private little bubbles are intact. This is what happens when people become so thoroughly hypnotized by consumerism and the overstimulation of media that we disconnect from the reality of others. And the very same people, people like you and me, who are willing to let people die to avoid having to pull our heads out of the sand, have the nerve to condemn people who engage in fist fights as medieval savages.

This is somewhat paradoxical. When we hypnotize ourselves out of our own misery, we let others die without batting an eyelid. We destroy the planet and think nothing of it. And to retain some sense of righteousness, we condemn others who are guilty of crime with fierceness.

That condemnation, unfortunately, is our personal guarantee that we are no different than they are, for if there's anything Jung has taught us, it is that those who you condemn are nothing but shadows of repressed parts of your own psyche. Wars are made in these ways. «You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake,» Tyler tells his army.

There is something here for you. The illusion that we are special is a huge problem in modern, narcissistic society, and keeps us men apart from our true potential. For when we are "special", we live for recognition. Only when we embrace that we are just another human being is the humility in place to make us truly special. Only when we embrace that we are not special are we ready for true masculine power, true masculine spirituality. Embrace that you are not special and your eyes will open to nature's transcendent beauty. You become able to, like Katsumoto in The Last Samurai, realize the perfection in a cherry blossom. I propose that before we get our hands dirty, any recognition of that perfection is likely to be part of the carefully crafted escape route many of us lay out in order to avoid growing up.

Conclusion

There aren't only good things to be said about the view of our world that Fight Club presents. Far from it. And reality is perhaps not as bleak as it suggests. It should also be noted that too much goes wrong towards the end of the story to embrace the path these men walk. More than offering a solution, Fight Club describes the problem. And it does so extremely well. What happens to the man who disconnects from his true nature in order to serve the petty interests of his comfort-seeking ego and a dysfunctional society? The answer is for you to find.

Beowulf is the computer animated heroic epic based on the famous and lengthy thousand-year-old Anglo-Saxon poem by the same name. It is a classic story, set in Sweden and Denmark, of heroes and kings, brave warriors, terrible monsters, and beautiful women.

I have not read this poem, but while preparing this piece, I have read about it. The poem dates from between the 8th and the 11th century. It is penned by two scribes, probably from a Christian scriptorium, and it is therefore thought that it may have been adapted for decency in the transcribation process. It is clear that the story is part fact, part fiction: Hrothgar, the king of the Danes whom Beowulf comes in aid of, really lived in the region of current-day Denmark in the early 6th century and the mead hall Heorot which is attacked by the terrible monster Grendel has been found in an archeological dig. Indeed the poem has been very helpful for historians in understanding the world from whence it originates.

So it is with Beowulf as it is with most myths and legends, the boundaries between fact and fiction are fluid, and create a field of uncertainty that entice us to start speculation about the lore of this ancient world, the age of heroes and monsters.

An ancient classic is adapted for modern audiences

If you haven’t previous encounters with the story, it is the heroic saga of Beowulf’s liberation of the Danes from the terrible grip of the monster Grendel and his demon mother. Script writers Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary have with director Robert Zemeckis taken liberties in their adaptation of the poem, tightening and adapting the plot for the big screen. It is this adaptation I will deal with from here on out.

The film portrays Beowulf as a mighty and fearless warrior, with a group of loyal men at his command, the thanes, who are prepared to follow him to the gates of hell. Beowulf is a powerful warrior, and an inspiring leader, but he has a weakness – he hungers for glory. Now, this is a theme we will recognize from a movie previously featured on Masculinity Movies, namely Patton. We recognized then that one of General Patton’s main downfalls was exactly this hunger for glory, and that movie ended on the note that “all glory is fleeting”. We also remember that the hunger for glory is a feature of the hero archetype, which is the last rung on the ladder of boyhood in the KWML system.

While Beowulf is clearly a man’s man, he is according to the KWML archetypes still a boy. When the mighty Beowulf lands on the shores of Denmark and is approached by a Dane who foresees no less than their death in their pursuit of Grendel and the gold which Hrothgar has put on Grendel’s head, Beowulf pompously states “If we die, it will be for glory and not for gold.” Boys die for glory (which is nothing other than the desire to be loved and admired by many people), while men die (if they must) in service of those they love. I think this is something that should be contemplated, as we so often do things to manipulate others to like us, which is exactly what we shouldn’t do if we seek true happiness and power. We make others truly love us by loyally serving them.

The spell of the dark Feminine

While Beowulf’s lust for glory is dangerous, it is his weakness in relation to the Feminine that is his downfall. We see the first signs of the spell the Feminine weaves on Beowulf when he first encounters the beautiful Wealthow, Hrothgar’s enthralling wife. Wealthow, as the movie portrays her, is a deep and mature woman, way ahead of the rest of the Danes in her own personal evolution. We see this in the sorrow and resignation she feels as she witnesses the hedonistic debauchery in Herodot in the movie’s opening scene.

This is a deep woman who wants to be seen and felt for her depth, not for her surface beauty. Imagine how painful it is that not a single person in her life can provide her with that recognition of her deep feminine core. Then imagine what it would feel like for a deep woman in today’s world to always encounter shallow men who desire her only for surface appearance, and imagine her infinite suffering. Would you not like to offer her more?

Wealthow is a fascinating woman at the light end of the spectrum of the Feminine. Beowulf is enthralled, on his knees in worship when she sings her song of heroes:

Just wait though wide he may roam
Always a hero comes home
He goes where no one has gone
But always a hero comes home

Wealthow communicates through the song that she will be at home waiting patiently for the man who deserves her. There is no weakness in her words, just love and a desire to serve the Masculine. She is just the woman Beowulf desires, but does he deserve her? Is he, in a sense, man enough? King Hrothgar wasn’t, evidenced through his seduction by Grendel’s mother. Grendel, we will find, is Hrothgar’s son.

Now Wealthow cannot live with the fact that this female demon creature, which can be seen as representative of the dark side of the Feminine, has such power over her husband. Hrothgar “entered” a demon, so how can he enter her? Will that put her on the same standing as a creature of hell? As I read the film, I think there is more to her refusal to grant Hrothgar a human heir than his infidelity, there is also the fact the Wealthow is uncomfortable with the dark side of her Feminine. This is the case with most women – they are more comfortable on one end of the spectrum than the other.

But it is also the case with men, and both Hrothgar and Beowulf are more comfortable with the light side of the Feminine. That side they can handle, because it is fair, loving, beautiful and radiant, whereas the dark Feminine is unpredictable and dangerous and leaves them helpless. This, I believe, is what Wealthow recognizes in Hrothgar, and eventually also Beowulf – faced with the dark Feminine, they become unreliable and untrustworthy, completely spellbound and seduced beyond their mind, into the murky waters of their subconscious.

If they were men enough, they would come to recognize the positive side of the dark side of the Feminine in Wealthow, and coax it out of here with love, so as to release much of her inner pain. Understand that most women who are more comfortable on the light end of the spectrum often internalizes a lot of hurt (the darkness projects inwards as opposed to outwards), and it is a man’s job to help her externalize it through taking her lovingly into the dark side of the spectrum. This is scary and challenging, and requires a man to be in integrity with himself, lest the chaos of the dark feminine capture him and convince him that he has done wrong. After his seducation, Hrothgar has lost integrity – that is part of his curse – and there is the understated sadness on the part of Wealthow at discovering that even her dragonslaying husband loses himself completely when faced with the dark Feminine. It’s even more challenging because this darkness is something Wealthow herself doesn’t possess to a large extent, which is her curse, and it cannot be lifted due to her man’s lack of integrity.

Grendel and his mother

Beowulf, of course, kills Grendel in a display a macho manliness and with typical immodesty. The monster Grendel, a scared and pathetic creature, is a mama’s boy who seems to carry resentment at not having had a father in his life. As the monster tries to flee, Beowulf traps it and screams in bloodlust, as the monster inquires about his identity:

I’m ripper, tearer, slasher, gouger. I’m the teeth in the darkness, the talons in the night. Mine is strength and lust and power. I am Beowulf!!

In David Deida terms, this is clearly a display of 1st stage machoism, and in KWML terms, it is closely aligned with displays of heroism. If you’re not familiar with these terms yet, know that they mean there is immaturity here. Now, it is possible that Beowulf “becomes the devil of Heorot” to serve his men in a mature way, like Remington became the “devil of Tsavo” in the Ghost and the Darkness, but it seems unlikely. So it seems here that Beowulf yet again shows vulnerability to desires for glory and excessive displays of power, even bloodlust. The primal aggression that we see Beowulf channel on occasion is, however, mandatory in the life of any mature man that wishes to serve the world fully. There is great power here, power necessary for escaping the grasp of the Feminine, which is the spell that captures the boy. For the man who has moved on from heroism into the realms of the mature man, this aggression exists as a dormant but ever-present potential, and makes him shine with natural authority, for he can back up his values with power in the unlikely even that he must. It is what we call “connecting with our balls”, and brings solidity to a man who is otherwise like a leaf on the wind, changing direction to whatever captures his attention in the moment.

Grendel’s mother responds with grief and anger at her son’s death by killing off all of Beowulf’s brave thanes in the dark of night. Wiglaf is spared, because he is away checking on their ship. Now, Hrothgar must face up to his stain of shame from many years ago, when he conceived Grendel with the demon mother, and Beowulf must go a-monster hunting yet again.

He fails. Grendel’s mother is a shapeshifter and can take human form. Beowulf arrives at her lair only to find a deeply sexy and seductive creature, given life by Angelina Jolie, and she knows how to get a hero to his knees: Tempt him with ideas of grandeur, with royal aspirations, power and glory, and then feminine sexuality, the greatest threat against any Hero. She is striking at all of the weak points of the Hero archetype, and Beowulf loses himself, just as he did with the dark mermaid that appeared after he slaid several sea monsters in a flashback scene earlier. The Feminine is not a problem to be solved or a monster to be killed, so the tools of the Hero fail him, and the unexplored parts of his psyche envelop him and pull him down into dark and unchartered waters.

The sins of the fathers

Beowulf returns to Heorot and Hrothgar realizes what fate has befallen him. He presses Beowulf for the truth, yet doesn’t get it – Beowulf is still too shocked from what has happened and the way in which he responded to it. Beowulf has lost his honor to his main weakness – the dark Feminine – and now the curse of Hrothgar has been passed to him. Hrothgar throws himself from the battlements and Beowulf is crowned king, and gets his Wealthow. His wish of royal aspirations and a lovely queen have come true, but at a tremendous price.

Many years later, Beowulf is an old an broken king. He is one who, he says with despair, “died many years ago, when I was young”. The mature Masculine lives to serve. The hero, on the other hand, lives to serve himself. This reality has caught up with Beowulf, and there is great mourning in him for his past ways. Still, he has not found a way to lift the curse, and not anyone with whom he can confide. Not Wiglaf (who won’t listen to the truth) and not his wife (because their relationship is built on secrets).

But any curse that goes unconfronted will eventually catch up with you, in life or in death. For Beowulf, the time is ripe, and a dragon shows up in his kingdom. Beowulf understands what has happened when Ulferth, once Hrothgar’s main advisor, now the kingdom’s priest, arrives scorched within the castle ramparts and tells him how his family has been slain and the last thing he heard was “the sins of the fathers”. The fathers, we understand, are Hrothgar and Beowulf, brave warriors, but fallible in their inability to confront the truth of what they’ve done.

Slaying the dragon

We may have noted the strong presence of dragon symbology in the film up to this point, particularly in the royal dragon horn and the art on the royal crown. Hrothgar claims that the horn became his after he killed the dragon Fafnir, and much of his personal mythos and power base is founded on this story. Now there is the eerie sense that everything is as it was and a circle has been completed – Beowulf is a disillusioned and weary king, once a great hero, whose power base is built on half-truths. He is king, but for all the wrong reasons, much like was probably the case with Hrothgar. There is a lineage extending from Hrothgar to Beowulf, a lineage of brave yet flawed warriors, broken by their own inability to break free of their own personal story, their curse.

So now that a dragon shows up to torment Beowulf, there is the strong sense that his and Hrothgar’s stories are somehow connected, in their shared strengths and weaknesses, and at both having conceived a bastard son with the same demon mother.

The dragon is the most powerful creature human legends have created, and the fight between dragon and human symbolizes the fight between man and nature, which is the fight between the Masculine and the Feminine. The Hero who slays the dragon is symbolic of the boy who lifts the spell of the Feminine from his life through taking the Hero archetype to its ultimate conclusion. Free from attachment to Mother, he is finally enable to serve the Feminine in a mature way. And then, the Feminine, even the darkest of it, holds no more power over him.

Beowulf has finally reached maturity, some years too late. As he prepares for the showdown with the dragon, this time in service of those he loves, he looks at Wealthow, suspecting it is the last time he is to be graced by her wise and gentle eyes. She knows everything of course, but still has a softness for him. Beowulf admits before he leaves:

I have always loved you. Keep a memory of me, not as a king or a hero….but as a man…fallible and flawed.

His aspiratons to grandeur are now gone, truth and love now on his mind. He rides to confront the demon mother, and finds that she is out for blood. She sends their dragon son after him and after a ferocious battle, he slays the creature, his own son and guilt, and they both plummet to the ground. Beowulf lies mortally wounded next to the dead body of his son (shapeshifted post mortem back to humanoid form) while waves are lapping their legs. He says goodbye to his son, who shines with the colour of gold like his mother, and as the glowing body is washed out to sea, there is genuine sorrow in Beowulf’s eyes. He has lost his only child. There is the sense here that when a father has too much guilt weighing on his conscience, relationship with his son becomes impossible, and the heart-rending truth of such separation comes clear only on the doorsteps of death.

“There’s no time for lies,” Beowulf pleads as Wiglaf arrives but stops him yet again from revealing the truth after so many years of secrecy. “Do you hear her? Grendel’s mother? My son’s mother!,” Beowulf begs of him. “You killed Grendel’s mother, many years ago. They sing of it,” Wiglaf responds. But a deathbed is no time for lies as Beowulf points out. And since the time of death is uncertain, there is never a time for lies. When the lie that has haunted him for a lifetime is shed, Beowulf dies, on the beach where his son lay, as the last of the heroes.

Beowulf’s body sails out to sea, and the she-demon descends on him. She is victorious, yet she mourns him in her own way. There is the question here, as she looks deeply and seductively into Wiglaf’s eyes, whether he, now King, is strong enough to withstand the threat of her deep, dark feminine sexuality. As I examine Wiglaf, I see much to indicate that he is. There is evidence of this prior to the battle with Grendel when he admonishes his fellow thanes to not blur their head with women and fornication before a major battle. Beowulf may have been a greater Hero, but Wiglaf was the greater man, and should have been king in the first place.

Conclusion

Beowulf is the story about heroes who would be kings, and the challenges they face when they realize that the duties as King are of an entirely different calibre to those of the ego-driven hero. It is also a story about male companionship and loyalty among warriors, which is the very positive aspect Beowulf brings to the table. But more than anything, it is a story about the tremendous power the Feminine, mainly the dark Feminine, wields over the man who doesn’t maintain perfect integrity and who hasn’t yet dedicated himself fully to serving others. When Beowulf finally realized that this was what his life should have been about, it was too late. But now that Beowulf has helped us realize this for us, we can make sure not to make the same mistakes.

That means, in real life terms, no more lies, maintain perfect integrity, work through and transcend the desire for glory and heroics, and then set up base on the throne of mature masculinity, in service of the kingdom – the people whom you love.

The light and dark of Tom and Joey

What I want to know as I stand face to face with Tom Stall is: does he know about Joey? Or did he actually “die” out in the desert as Tom suggests to his wife Edie. Director David Cronenberg suggests the former in the DVD commentary, but Viggo Mortensen’s downplayed portrayal of the personality conflict shows it as being more of an unconscious sliding in and out of two different personalities, oblivious to each other.

If Tom really knew about Joey, he would’ve been playing games of hide and seek with his own and his family’s lives on the line throughout the entire story. This interpretation has him robbing his family of the truth for fear that it may confront him with his past and break the family apart, all the while knowing he is a sinister murderer behind the veils of rural loveliness. The human mind doesn’t work that way. Tom couldn’t be living such a sweet and loving family life if he was constantly totally aware of his past as a gangster and murderer. He could have if he had first accepted society’s, and particularly his family’s, judgment for his actions. But as it is, he would never be in integrity with himself and his role as a family man would be undermined. There is just no way he could look into the eyes of his fragile, darling daughter without fearing his dark side. No way he could serve as an authority figure to his son without being worried that he would tip over into his days of uncontrolled violence. It would create enormous inner conflict in him, and Tom doesn’t seem like a conflicted man.

As I see it, the only sensible interpretation is that Joey is part of Tom, but only subconsciously. Joey is buried deep in his psyche, and is only a faint whisper on the desert winds that he thinks he left behind. We can only wonder what kind of strange magic he must’ve gone through out there for those years. Maybe he went to stay with indians, being healed by shamans, sweat lodging, vision questing etc. Regardless of how total the transformation in the desert was, karma doesn’t forget, and this is a key learning of the movie.

There can be no question that Joey is a wicked DD1 man. Tom, however, is a gentle and loving DD2 man and together with Edie, they have a sweet, sexy, loving relationship. Tom is quite the family man, nurturing and in touch with both his masculine and feminine sides. Edie is strong and directed, yet still very feminine. But the political correctness and reversal of gender roles common for modern relationships seems refreshingly absent, which is probably why they still seem so much in love with each other. So this is a good relationship, perhaps even flirting with great on rare occasions.

There’s an artfully done sex scene where Tom and Edit roleplay teenagers trying to make love without being caught. Edie is quite the goddess, but Tom seems to be holding back just a little bit, not quite ready to take it all the way. And the sinister, unromantic lighting suggests something – or someone – is lurking under the surface. This holding back of Joey is symbolic for what many modern men do. We hold back our fierceness while making love to our partner, and leave her unravished. Satisfied, but not yet completely opened to bliss.

Longing for Cro Magnon

The unveiling of Joey starts when Tom ends up the local hero after defending his diner and the people who work for him from two heartless, fearful outcasts looking for money. Men with no purpose, no conscience and no balls to face up to themselves. Some would describe them as masculine, and they are – but it’s the lowest form of masculine available to mankind, and not the only form which is what feminism seems to think.

It’s very interesting to note that Tom seems pretty ashamed about what he has done. Yet his wife and son Jack are inspired by it: «Are you as sick about hearing about me as I am?,» Tom asks Edie. «In a way, I kind of like it,» she replies, clearly demonstrating that her husband’s capacity to defend her family against bad men is incredibly sexy to her. Jack, on the other hand, feels inspired by the raw power of his father’s masculine capacity to kill in service of those he loves.

Jack and Edie display very primal responses to our Darwinian past, and we must embrace this as part of our humanity lest we suppress it and be controlled by it. There is a darkness in the human psyche that, if harnessed, can be used for much good in the world. Modern men are often characterized by a sort of castration from this power, which makes them less trustworthy in the eyes of both men and women. It is every man’s responsibility to step into the intensity of his own aggressive potential and learn to master it, be it through martial arts, extreme sports, relationship aikido or a skilfully navigated career. No killing necessary! Society’s fear of authentic masculine aggression – which is both grounded, heartfelt and spiritual (a true gift!) – has forced modern men’s authentic self-expression into hiding. From the dark corners of our mind it festers and grows, eating us up from the inside – unless activated in positive and useful ways. We don’t serve anyone by denying our true nature. Psychosis, REAL violence and depression are created in such ways. In fact, I believe it’s a main cause of crime.

The gifts and sins of Joey

As the story develops and mobsters from Joey’s past arrive from Philadelphia, hellbent on setting things straight, Tom starts changing. More and more, we can see Joey come through – by virtue of necessity. Tom can’t defend his family, but Joey can. As Tom yields more and more to Joey, his son Jack starts questioning if he has any idea who his father really is, and becomes extremely conflicted in his perception of him. There is the matter of his identity, perhaps even his soul, to consider. And the safe father who he knew and loved has become someone else – a man who fascinates him deeply, on a primal level, but who also scares him out of his wit. Their developing dynamic has direct implications on Jack’s relationship to high-school bully Bobby who is a pain in Jack’s ass. Bobby is clearly fearful of Jack’s superior intelligence, and when a baseball game fluke has him temporarily outmatch Bobby’s sporting skills as well, Bobby has nothing setting him above Jack in the masculine power-hierarchy anymore – except for the intimidation factor. So he uses that for all that it’s worth. But with Jack’s family now fighting for survival and his father’s evident capacity to splatter people’s brains all over the floor, things are looking a bit different for him. The extreme circumstances free up Jack’s latent masculine power and in the end, he lets Bobby have it and pummels him and his friend. This is obviously not a mature way of dealing with conflict, but given Jack’s situation and Bobby’s character, it gives rise to a very valid question – is it really the worst thing that could happen? This scene gives us the opportunity to pinpoint two key themes of the movie: 1. At what point does violence become a necessity and 2: What amount of violence is within a man’s rights in defense of his honor and his loved ones.

In the first confrontation between Edie and Joey, Edie – having stepped up to protect a family in which Joey rather than Tom is the father of the house – slaps him with all her might and screams “damn you, Joey”. Joey proceeds to assault her, and holds her towards the wall with obvious aggression. It first looks like it’s going to be a rape scene, but it quickly evolves into something much deeper and more nuanced. What becomes clear is that Edie is willing to open up to even the darkness of Joey, and she even likes it. This shames her, but it brings up the question – could any of Joey’s qualities be transformed into gifts, in service of both his family and his wife?

Forgive me Father, for I have sinned

In the end, Tom, who is now equally Joey, returns with his hands tainted by family blood, having whacked both his brother and his useless henchmen back in Philly. The family awaits him, fully aware of their fathers Joey-ness. Tom has resurrected Joey, without losing himself in the process. By whacking all his former mobster compadres, he his fulfilled part of Joey’s karma, and created a truckload new karma for his ever more integrated Tom-Joey identity. He has been found out, the past has caught up with him, and his face reveals he knows the consequences. He has nothing now; no honor, no integrity, no life to speak of. The entire town knows who he is. All that is left is the truth and the faint glimmer of hope that his family won’t reject him.

He enters the kitchen as the alpha man of the flock, but completely broken in every way that matters. The treachery he has committed is so vast that it’s almost inconceivable to his wife. This scene is brilliantly acted out, and has Tom-Joey show extreme vulnerability. Sarah, his precious little daughter steps off her chair, picks up his plate and signals she wants her daddy back.

Conclusion

The History of Violence, the way I’ve chosen to interpret it, is a testament to the importance of integrating our dark side. Tom’s question is how he should integrate Joey in his life and still live as love in the world. By extension, the larger question becomes how we as a society should integrate the dark masculine in our lives, in service of all.

It cuts to the image of a man standing solemnly in a landscape scorched by fire. He is listening, feeling into his surroundings, and there is an air of inevitability about him. The lines on his face show that something big is brewing. As he turns around, a red robin catches his eye, flutters its wings innocently, and shoots off. A subtle, contented smile spreads on the man’s face as his nostrils widen subtly. And then he walks off.

These few, short opening minutes paint a picture of a man at peace with himself, erect with purpose and masculine direction, yet intuitive and sensitive, in tune with the mystery of the vast feminine that surrounds him. He seems to exude qualities just by his presence alone: Trustworthiness, integrity, strength and honour, coupled with a deep love – for what as yet undetermined. This is no ordinary man. He is General Maximus, foremost of Roman generals, father, husband, favoured by the emperor and leader of men.

We find ourselves in the cool lands of northern Europe. It is winter and darkness is near. Rome is on a campaign of war, facing its last battle against the remaining Germanic tribes of the North. As the battlefield unfolds under the watchful gaze of the aging emperor Marcus Aurelius, we bear witness to a testimonial of the superiority of the Roman war machine. This empire, despite its shortcomings, was the “light” of European antiquity, and its unmatched level of civilization gave rise to a war machine that no amount of barbarism, no matter how ferocious, could match.

But something’s afoot behind the drawn carpets of Rome’s marbled halls of power. The senate is fraught with corruption and the emperor is dying. Eager to restore Rome to its past glory, Marcus Aurelius names Maximus protector of Rome until the senate is fit to reign over Rome yet again – as a born again republic.

“Your failings as a son are my failings as a father”

But the emperor’s son Commodus, a scheming and broken man, will have nothing of it. Commodus is suffering intense inner turmoil from what he feels is a lack of acceptance and love from his own father. “Commodus is not a moral man. He cannot rule!,” Aurealius exclaims to Maximus as he tries to convince him of why he must accept “The honor that has been bestowed upon him.” Maximus declines, at which Aurelius insists “that is exactly why you must rule!” Maximus reminds us that  any man who desires power for power’’s sake alone – and not for the sake of a greater calling – will become corrupted and hurt both himself and his surroundings. With heavy heart, Maximus accepts his destiny, and realizes that his reunification with his family – his wife and son for whom he desperately longs – is still far off.

Commodus is living on the hope that he will be named emperor upon his father’’s death. Yet in a key scene, matter of factly, as if it was never in question, he tells him “You will not be emperor.” The long overdue confrontation with his father that he was never brave enough to intitiate thus finally unfolds. Commodus is a Lover archetype, not quite the Emperor-material as Maximus’ King archetype, and has spent all his life hungering for his father’s love and his “warm embrace”. The poor way in which he has handled the lack of it has become the source of his corruption. The emperor, noble as he may be, is as much to blame for what unfolds as his son. He softly acknowledges this, on his knees and with tears in his eyes. Aurelius has heeded that primordial calling that says that any masculine man will have to prioritize his calling over his relationships, lest he will suffer, and by extension those around him will suffer. Aurelius has not managed to balance this well enough, however, and his son’’s resentments are the result. “Why do you hate me so much!”, Commodus wails, with tears in his eyes, before he embraces his father – and kills him, before he had the opportuniy to announce Maximus’ protectorship.

The learning from this scene is that, as Commodus finally gets the love he wants from his father, he has become incapable of receiving it. The love feels so painful and so tainted with bitterness that it becomes the motive for murder. ANY man must be willing to enter a confrontation with his father, lest the corruption of their relationship will remain and not yield to the nobility and immensity of father-son love. Yet Commodus couldn”t, because he was from the outset an emotionally fragile person, wishing just to be held, to be loved. By disconnecting from his true self as a Lover, wishing he could instead be the polar opposite Warrior, he has gone to war with himself, and is no more a free man.

Commodus immediately starts his scheming and plotting, and as Maximus swears no allegiance to the new Emperor, in Commodus’ mind, he is a dead man. Maximus’ second in command Quintus puts loyalty to the concept of Rome higher than his own heart, a sign of his dubious honor, and accepts the burden of executing his friend.

Bread and games

Maximus escapes, only to find his family slaughtered by the vengeful forces of Rome. Emptied of all desire to live, feeling the tempting echoes of eternity, he is picked up by a slave caravan and brought to Zucchabar, where the next part of his journey unfolds. He is to be Gladiator, most unwilling of all. He is after all Maximus, Rome’’s first general, and no mere sewer-dog. Yet fight he must, if live he wishes, and his honor both inside and outside the arena quickly wins him the support and allegiance of his gladiator friends. This reminds us that a man is not at the mercy of his surroundings – he shapes them through his own inner strength and call for expanding love and honor in the world.

Maximus is part of Proximo’s Gladiatorial crew. Proximo is a former slave, who was granted his freedom by Marcus Aurelius himself. He now makes his living from that which he was freed from, but the days of the roaring crowds at the Colosseum have ended, and Gladiator games are not what they used to be.

With Commodus now emperor, bread and games are back, and Maximus soon finds himself the golden boy of the crowds in the mighty Colosseum. Commodus descends deeper and deeper into his own corruption, and his sexual desire for his sister Lucilla grows ever greater as she is the last person in the world with any glimmer of love for him. Any person, man or woman, wishes for love more than anything. Yet for a man with a masculine essence, which Commodus does have, the desire for freedom is greater still. His lack of being loved has become his prison cell, the key for which he rejected when he killed his father. Now the incestuous desire for his own sister and the promise of being loved by his people, are the only things left to live for.

Maximus is an honorable man, erect with purpose, driven by his unshakable love and honor. Even though that has become tainted with thoughts of revenge, his core remains unshaken. He will never become a dishonorable man. This honor soon becomes the very reason why the crowds of the Colosseum love him so. They are a primitive group of people, there only to feed their primal lower-chakra desires of seeing death and rebirth unfold before them. Incidentally, this is much the same as the modern fascination with gory films such as Saw. Just as we are, they are there to vent, taking a break from a life of civility and politeness, and worshiping that masculine fascination with the release of death. Maximus doesn’t fear death (he almost longs for it)  and is stronger than any man or woman cheering him on. In the end, his towering presence and masculine strength of honor cuts through that primal bloodthirstiness of the crowd, and reminds them yet again of what we can aspire for as human beings. He inspires them, spreading echoes of that which could have been – greatness – in the hearts of those who watch. As a Gladiator, Maximus has come to epitomize that which the Roman Empire stands for – glory, strength, honor and love. He cannot die, because the promise of Rome dies with him. This is what brings him such power, as a mere slave. This is the strength of one man’s heart.

“Now we are free”

This strength inevitably brings him his freedom, although at the cost of his life. The masculine always longs for release, be it through victory, fulfilling a calling or dying. The ending provides Maximus with all, and the nobility of his death carries such great emotional weight and the promise of being greater that it has tears roll down the faces of grown men – if they dare stay open – and their hearts expand with purpose. He has proven that the power of one human heart is greater than an empire counting millions, if it is aligned with truth and love. Nobody takes any note of Commodus, lying dead at his side in the arena. Commodus could have been a good man, but he chose not to be, through making one bad decision after another. The only thing separating the two – their moment to moment decisions, truth over lies, love over unlove.

General Maximus – Gladiator, is the ultimate masculine icon, living only to serve, dedicated to his family, making no compromises with his own heart and caring for his people like a father. He represents qualities that aren’t given weight in the raising of young men in today’s world. Yet, just like with the crowds of the Colosseum, he reaches us in such a way that we are reminded that deep inside us, those primordial qualities still exist, desperately longing to be freed from the bondage of modern life, free as forces conducting the future of humanity. This is the destiny of any man. And Commodus reminds us that we ignore it at our own peril.