Trusting in Princes: A Defense of the Aragorn Complex

I have a respect for Steven D. Greydanus that I extend to few film critics. And I really like most of his Very, Very Little Movie Glossary. But seeing as, lo these many years ago, I wrote a script celebrating the Aragorn Complex, I have a couple of thoughts on the trend.

Mr. Greydanus defines the Aragorn Complex thus:

Contemporary Hollywood no longer believes in rock-ribbed, confident, heroic leaders, such as Charlton Heston’s Moses in The Ten Commandments. The Moses of DreamWorks’ excellent The Prince of Egypt — self-doubting, conflicted, reluctant — is much more in keeping with our more skeptical view of heroism and leadership.

The archetypal example, of course, is Peter Jackson’s Aragorn, whose virtue, complexity and all-around worthiness to lead the filmmakers telegraph by vastly punching up the themes of reluctance and self-doubt in Tolkien. (Moses in Exodus also initially resists God’s call, but the DreamWorks film goes way beyond Exodus in this regard.)

I would argue that the real tragedy here is not that “Hollywood” has stopped believing in such leaders as characters, but that “Hollywood” still does believe in them - as politicians. But I digress. (Not really.)

I’m not sure that an unwillingness, or even inability, to believe in such heroes necessarily bespeaks a “cultural poverty,” as Mr. Greydanus calls it in the comments. I admit that, if it does, it is a cultural poverty that I share. Or more precisely, I don’t find such heroes useful. A “rock-ribbed, confident, heroic leader” does me no good. He just leaves me hoping that if I’m ever in trouble, he’ll come along.

I am afraid. I believe that the world is a dark and broken place, and that man is a dark and broken creature. So in my fiction, I don’t want someone who is not broken to fix everything. I want someone to tell me that brokenness does not make heroism impossible. I want someone to tell me that even I still have a chance.

(Necessary caveat: Of course there are stories that pile on the doubts and the flaws until we are left with a hero who is not a hero at all. That’s not what I want, and I admit that drawing the distinction in individual cases is extremely difficult. All ll I want to do here is address the trend.)

And there is this: If we continue to deconstruct our heroes, to remind ourselves that they are not idols or demi-gods, perhaps we will be more likely to search for the source of their heroism as something outside themselves. Perhaps, if all of them are broken, we will more clearly want Someone who is not broken.

Or perhaps not. I realize that I am advocating the more dangerous road. But in a post named for Estel, I prefer to hope.