I wish we could still solve our problems with swordfights.
You know what I’m talking about. The olden days, like what they sing of in song and speak of in story. From the greatest of epics to the smallest of folktales, a character’s problems can be solved or discarded by an appropriately dramatic sword fight with an appropriately antagonistic adversary.
No, no, do not cynically think of the classic villain who kidnaps the princess, the one with the sinister beard and the evil glint in his eye. An adversary can take any and all forms. From the troll that guards the bridge, to the dragon that guards his hoard, to the wolf that hunts in the night, human kind has endless stories of its ceaseless struggle against the world around it. Yet, does not such an adversary pale in comparison to a fellow person? When I think of the most memorable antagonists in story, I do not think of monsters or beasts. I think of people. For while humanity’s struggle against nature, against the world is truly an epic one, it is humanity’s struggles with itself that are the most emotional, the most bitter.
It is the enemy soldier who bitterly hates you and your nation for all you have done. It is the wide-eyed idealist who has been pushed to extremism. It is the protective father who will stop at nothing to protect his child. It is the mother who does not realize how her words sting. It is the dearest friend who cannot let you do this. It is the close companion who wants something you both cannot have. It is the noble youth who truly believes that his methods are just and right. It is the cynical elder who believes that no one is just and right.
The clash of two human adversaries is a clash of beliefs, a clash of emotion, a clash of intimacy. I identify with it, I empathize with it, I become enamored with it because, on some level, it reflects the clashes in my own life. My life very rarely entertains the struggle of man versus nature. There are very few inhuman beasts to inspire conflict in my life. No, the greatest source of conflict, the greatest of antagonists in reality comes from the same source that the great antagonists of story come from: other people.
I become most enamored by stories of human conflict because it is the closest to my own experience. In this world, where I am protected from monster and nature, my primary source of antagonists is people. So to watch, to listen, to read about human conflict is far more familiar to me than fighting monsters. I hang on the edge of my seat, wondering how this conflict will be resolved, while still wondering in the back of my mind how my own conflicts will be resolved. Yet, I am almost always guaranteed an ending. I am almost always promised a resolution. There is almost always the dramatic swordfight, the climax of conflict, which will somehow, someway be followed by a resolution. An understanding. An end to the fighting.
But there are no swordfights for me.
In this world where the majority of the conflict I face comes from my interactions with others, there is no definitive winner of the duel. There is no clean victory. There is no easy resolution. If someone is hurting myself or someone I care for, I cannot simply fight them to make it better. If I am hurting someone or being harmful in some way, no one can simply swing a fist at me and hope to resolve the issue. If people are being hurt, there is not even a promise that there is an antagonist somewhere that is the cause. If people are being harmed, there is no assurance of a right way to fix things.
No comments:
Post a Comment