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Sunday, September 20, 2009

Images of Manhood

This last weekend my beautiful wife and I sat down to watch the first of the Lord of the Rings movies: The Fellowship of the Ring. What always surprises me is just how good the story actually is. We soon found ourselves watching the second and third movies, nearly finishing the whole trilogy in just one weekend. While we were watching, I was struck by how the Lord of the Rings helps explain some ideas I’ve pondered recently.

Being newly married I have been reflecting on what it means to be a man. The character of Gandalf and his stand against the Balrog are a concrete image of manhood. Every man has a ripple of goose bumps run down his back each time he sees it. It begins with the approach of the Balrog. At first the viewer only hears it and sees a fiery mist in the hall. The fellowship is entirely surrounded by a legion of goblins that, at the monster’s approach, flee without looking back. The ground shakes under the Balrog’s weight. The demon ominously strides through the great Dwarven hall in chase of the fellowship. They flee to the bridge of Kaza’dum. Gandalf stops in the middle of the bridge and faces his foe. Standing between it and his dearest friends, he threatens it: “You shall not pass!” With this, he slams his staff down on the bridge.

A gray old man causes the fiery colossus to falter. His voice booms into the chasm, his command is as unbreakable as natural law. We do not doubt the accomplishment of his purpose: the dread creature does not pass. Many I would guess are confronted by a desire to possess what Gandalf possesses, to be a sage, to wield this awesome power.

C.S. Lewis argues for God’s existence based on the idea that all desires have an object that fulfills them. Take hunger for example, we desire food and food exists for us to eat. When men watch the scene I have just described they have a desire to be like Gandalf. This desire, Lewis might argue, must also have a real object to fulfill it. But what is this object and how do we get it?

The first impression of the desire is a wish to be as Gandalf. Men, however, do not stop at wishing. They pursue a likeness to him. The first point of difficulty comes here for many men because they cannot imagine how a likeness to Gandalf can really be possible. We often stop at anything that even remotely satisfies our wish and our pursuit. We then turn to things like video games. Video games offer us an attainable power, an attainable likeness to Gandalf. This is the reason we see overwhelming numbers of men who consume video games.

We need not remain stuck in this rut. We need only to look at what Gandalf does on Middle Earth to know how we can imitate him in our world. If we were to go to Middle Earth and take part in the adventures of the fellowship of the ring, if we were behold the actions of Gandalf standing twenty feet away from him, we would witness first hand the grandeur of this being. The skill and power we would see displayed are against a real foe. Gandalf’s ability to oppose this monster is not trivial as in a game. His hard work and honest striving were put towards preparing himself for moments such as these. When the time comes to fight, we find him ready and up to the challenge. Imagine allowing yourself to plummet into the darkness of a great chasm. You have let yourself fall, perhaps even to your death, with the sole purpose of destroying this blight on the world known as the Balrog of Morgoth. This use of power is sacrifice. He uses the most valuable thing a man can give: his life. Gandalf’s actions are an authentic representation of power exactly because they have required such sacrifice.

Sacrifice, then, is the currency of manhood. It is the same for us as it is for Gandalf. Our time, our energy, our pain and pleasure and even our life will necessarily be spent in the course of life. We notice that our wish to be as Gandalf springs from our awe for him. We are awe struck because we see a sage. This man is a sage because he spends his currency well.

But why does Gandalf spend well?

Gandalf knows how to spend because he knows what to spend on. He does not wield power for it own sake. Nor does he sacrifice for the sake of sacrificing. These things are oriented towards something higher. His stand against the Balrog is one of his many great deeds. All of these are done for the sake of the preservation of what he calls good. He values the peoples of Middle Earth, the mountains and streams, the green trees and open fields. These are considered good by Gandalf on a factual level, their goodness is not questioned. He risks his life against a foe he is not certain to overcome for the sake of delivering these goods from evil. The Balrog is one of the enemy’s greatest weapons; he is part of an arsenal meant to hold dominion over Middle Earth. This foul creature is hateful to life; his pleasure is to see it snuffed out. Gandalf does not question that his foe is evil. Gandalf sacrifices because he is rooted in these convictions. These convictions are the groundwork for the actions that inspire our awe. Gandalf’s worldview determines what actions ought to be done and so his worldview directs his power and sacrifice towards something higher.

The object of our desire is to act in the world as Gandalf acts in middle earth: to trade our time, our energy, our pain and pleasure and even our life for the good. Let men use the images of characters such as Gandalf. Let them draw great deeds out of the depths of their greatest longings for heroism. Let them make such a stamp on the world as a sage slaying a terrible and monstrous foe.

9 comments:

  1. Excellent. I would add that we must pay attention to what Gandalf does when he isn't at that great moment of sacrifice. As incredible and worthy of out attention as those moments are, it is often too easy to overlook the rest of a character's behavior. I always liked how, as a wizard of great reputation, who could easily reside with high honors in any great city in Middle-Earth, he spent a good deal of his free time making fireworks and hanging out with hobbits. Did he neglect his duties for the pleasures of leisure and hobby, like Radagast (as honest a wizard as he was)? No, but he did not shun merriment, either. Like you said, he would sacrifice himself for Middle-Earth because it was good. Not only will he sacrifice for it, he will enjoy it when he can. He smokes the tobacco, drinks the ale, sings the songs, and, most importantly, befriends the peoples of Middle-Earth. He didn't live for sacrifice or glory. He lived for that which is good.

    I look forward to reading more entries, Cap'n!

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  2. Captain Cognition:
    Gandalf is facing a known evil, but so much is a gray mixture of good, not-so-good, and kind-of-wrong. To complicate matters further, the "opponent" is usually not an overwhelming force, and that which we seek to defend is not ordinarily the lives of comrades. More frequently life seems full of small decisions that seemingly affect small things. Can Gandalf speak to this little stuff that seems to make up so much of life?

    Figg.

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  3. Captain Cognition:

    Welcome to the blog world, and thank you for an excellent contribution that rises above the noisy, frothy scrum of shouting bloggers. Long may you cognate!!

    Katherine Bellvue,
    Tacoma, Washington

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  4. Captain Cognition,

    I am quite impressed by your fist post! You give me hope during a time when it seems as though there are very few 'Gandalfs' out there. You are living proof that they still exist! You and your wonderful wife are lights to the rest of the world. I can't wait for your future posts!

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  5. awesome--very insightful. I'm sending this post to my fiancee, I think he'll love it!

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  6. Gandalf was one of the Maiar, the lesser Ainur, or Istari sent into ME with the charge to stop the destruction of Sauron (himself a disciple of the Valar, Melkor, or Morgoth). So too, though, was Curunir (later Saruman), an Ainur and keeper of the sacred fire. What happened to the one and not the other? Or more importantly, how does the individual man use his power to remain faithful to his mission rather than succumb to the lethal temptation that ensnares Curunir and makes him Saruman, the "dragon rider"? It is particularly interesting to note in Tolkien the number of dopplegangers throughout the work; Frodo and Gollum, Faramir and Boromir, Aragorn and Denethor, Gandalf and Saruman. In each instance we have a character who succeeds against the same temptation as a character who fails. What is the difference? The Balrogs themselves were lesser Valar, Valaraukar, who followed Melkor into ME - thus Gandalf is encountering a doppleganger there at Kazad Dum. Despite Jackson's portrayal of aerobatic derringdo on the part of Gandalf, I can't help but think that Tolkien's account is better b/c it reveals this encounter to be truly a meeting of Gandalf with himself and with his ultimate ruin. In the book (unlike the movie) he really does die and like every character must face the ultimate tragedy of his own failure and ruin. Is it this confrontation that separates him from Curunir?

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  7. ^Nice point. Like you said, every character must face their own failure and ruin, so what marks the difference between Frodo's failure and Gollum's? That's a tricky one, since Frodo, in the end, gave in. I can't help but think that Gollum and Frodo were closer that any of the other pairs of doppelgangers in the whole saga. Give Frodo another couple centuries, take away his friends (Sam especially), and he would have been just like Gollum. Frodo alone is doomed, destined for ruin. Can we not say the same thing of ourselves? Alone, we are hopeless. But for the Grace of God, we would surely be lost!

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  8. Captain my Captain,

    Your response is insightful and on the mark.

    Another clue is found in the marvelous post-Tolkien fantasy "Wizard of Earthsea" by Ursula le guen. There, the wizard Ged is absorbed in and impressed by his newly refined wizard powers and, in a burst of hubris, conjures a forbidden spell that calls forth a dark spirit. Inadvertantly, his spell produces a "crack in the world," through which the nameless dark spirit escapes. His master wizard, understanding the nameless spirit's threat to the world, expends all his energy warding off the spirit, and the old wizard dies as a result of the struggle. Ged must spend his life running from this horror. His only hope is to "name" the unnamed dark spirit. He spends years attempting to elude it, and it always seems just behind him. Finally, Ged understands that he, Ged, must be the pursuar, and goes to the ends of the earth to find the nameless, dark spirit, finally cornering it just as he understands its name. Its name is Ged.

    Everyone of Tolkein's characters has a double who failed. The ones who have succeeded have fought the ultimate battle and won--the battle for self-mastery.

    Katherine Bellvue,
    Tacoma, Washington

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  9. Captain Cognition:
    Thank You for this introducing me to the world of Blogs.
    I often think of Gandalf's demand when I face a obstacle in my life! To speak even if only in my mind “You shall not pass!” as a decision to discern or contemplate my next move, or just to keep hungry mouths out of the kitchen.
    Very interesting Blog My Dear Captain. You make me proud! Onward!

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