Ok! So, now we've fastforwarded exactly 1,500 years, from A.D. 507 to 2007. From Beowulf to Hitman. THAT movie, I loved! For those of you who have never played the game, you've missed out, and for those who have never played, but seen the movie, you missed a lot of interesting tidbits! I wish there was something I could tell without giving away the plot, but I'm really kind of tired, and I guess I just want to go and mess with music for a while, waiting for my girl to call!
I saw Beowulf again tonight, too. The second time was different. This time, since I had already looked at all the things that weren't right, I got to look closer at some of the things I did like. Beowulf is proud, yes, and he is easily susceptible to lust, and he lied many times over when he said he had killed Grendel's mother...but even so. He still loved his wife, even though he turned to another for physical release (I do not condone what he did, but I think I can understand his reasoning). He was human, after all, and not a god of battle.
"What makes a man a warrior is training. What makes a man a hero is courage. Those who have both training and courage are the ones who become true legends." Beowulf had both of these, and so he was all of these, and he always will be...
Beowulf...Roland...Achilles...Arthur... The greatest fighters who ever lived, the likes of which have never been matched...and we don't even know if all of them were real, or even if any of the legends have any truth whatsoever to them. During the movie, while Beowulf is king, his army badly defeats another. As he sits his horse watching, his best friend Wiglaf by his side, Beowulf laments the loss of heroism. He thinks Christianity killed it. I too, feel the loss of great and epic men, the likes of whom songs will be sung and stories told for generations, hundreds of years from now. I do not blame religion for these things, but rather...I don't know, really. I think technology has a large hand in it. General George Patton thought the same thing.
As I sat watching men draw their swords and charge a monster, never stopping to think that they might die, but trusting to the strength of the steel in their hands and longing for everlasting glory, I found myself missing terribly the days when men actually sung the praises of heroes, and the heroic virtues. Strength, Courage, Honor, and Chivalry. The legendary giants of History held these virtues closer to their hearts than their own lives. Miyamoto Musashi...Joan of Arc...William Marshal...Richard Lionheart...Alvin York...will there ever again be heroes like these? I doubt it. And I will never cease to mourn the loss of heroes such as these. Never again will Durendal or Excalibur shine and flash hope into the hearts of men, burning in the pure white sun.
They are lost to us.
(Sorry this is so late. I just found this post again. I wrote it, then saved it as a draft, then forgot about it completely!)
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