The Power of Innocence

The 2012 movie Snow White and the Huntsman unexpectedly asserted many ancient themes, and first among them was the power of innocence. Within the film, innocence brings with it faith, hope, and charity. Two other Christian themes include the power of evil coming from subversion of good and the redemption of the fallen. Although there is almost no visual Christian presence in the movie, no crosses or other symbols, Snow White does recite the Lord's Prayer early on, which I think shows the writer and / or director were aware of some or all of these themes.

Medieval themes include birds as messengers, the power of blood, the dark and dangerous forest, the importance of a virtuous ruler for the natural phenomenon of a kingdom, and chaste love. That last is also a Christian theme, but here it seemed more medieval in expression to me.

And, of course, the story of Snow White is about the nature of Beauty.

The images of Snow White-as-war-leader in the movie are reminiscent of Joan of Arc. With a quick search, this was the best I could find of Snow White:

https://girls-gone-geek.com/2012/06/04/g3-review-snow-white-and-the-huntsman/

Here are two images of Joan of Arc from the website Catholic Saint Medals.

http://www.catholicsaintmedals.com/about-st-joan-of-arc.aspx 
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_of_Arc

Another aspect of the movie is that, while she does wear armor and fight, she is not shown as a great warrior. Rather, she is portrayed as a natural leader: Broken, hopeless warriors who have turned to drunkenness, outlawry, or despair, are redeemed by her innocence and her sense of the mission of redeeming their land and people. With her, they are given new hope and faith. She leads, and with the tremendous power of hope and faithfulness she brings, they fight and die to restore their land and themselves.

8 comments:

Tom said...

And you can skip the sequel, unless you just like a good action flick with swords and armor. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Tom said...

Ymar, I seem to remember someone at Neo's mentioning a post you did on Joan of Arc. If you did, could you link it, please? I'd like to read it.

Grim said...

I suppose Joan of Arc is a natural thing for Hollywood to steal, but I've never seen a good treatment of her life in the several I've seen. Maybe trying to turn Snow White into a warrior princess is the best version of Joan of Arc they can bring themselves to do -- fully pagan, of course, but that gives her the standing to be a sacred maiden without invoking any of that nasty Christianity.

Tom said...

I don't know; the use of the Lord's Prayer was telling, I think, and there were bishops in two brief scenes. Of course, you had to recognize them by their clothing, at a distance, but they sanctify the monarchs. It is more a mixed pagan-Christian milieu, I think.

But yeah, maybe this is the best they can do.

Ymar Sakar said...

https://ymarsakar.wordpress.com/2016/07/06/jean-de-arc/

Since I was researching Islam and European Viking/Christianity, I sort of slipped and went off somewhere else as a result.

As a minor summary and teaser, Jean De Arc was educated by the Holy Spirit for 4 years, as demonstrated by the account of her companions who said she routinely beat knights that had trained for life for 1-3 decades, in sparring. As I mentioned to Richard Saunders, when arguing about the roots of Judaism and Christianity (he's on the Judaism side), divine miracles are things which humans cannot achieve in war.

Grim might want to check out the video link at my post, for a better historical take on her life.

As for Snow White and Jean De Arc, the Japanese have kind of already did an adaptation on those themes and characters, although they do it in a way which it isn't obvious what they are looking at.

For me religion is mostly a crutch to fix human social problems and weaknesses. That's why many state religions are married to the state and protected by the state, and why many people today want to resurrect State Christianity, what they call White Nationalist Christianity. Which is sort of like the Zealots talking about Judaism back before Nero. I know how that turned out before.

What matters to me are things which humans cannot accomplish, that's the only test I can validate for spiritual and divine powers above human technology. As for the question of whether God exists or not... that's pretty easy to figure out using quantum and 4-5th dimensional mechanics.

Ymar Sakar said...

It just came to me that Hollywood might be doing the WoW clone behavior model. They look to popular visions and shows, such as Game of Thrones, then they attempt to copy the look and theme and feel of the show, using whatever licenses or imprints they bought up. Since I don't watch Hollywood MPAA trash, gathering the evidence or "dots" for that will be rather improbable.

Snow White is thus their mirror attempt at Game of Thrones "winter combat".

Ymar Sakar said...

Btw, Tom, you should consider replying to questions in a sincere manner, rather than the one you posted here, as a distraught child who is angry because one of his teachers criticized his answers.

http://grimbeorn.blogspot.com/2016/09/jonah-goldberg-on-core-alt-right.html

Ymar, I seem to remember someone at Neo's mentioning a post you did on Joan of Arc.

If I were to adopt your Attitude ThomasD, I would have said "why don't you Google it, do you want me to do everything for you?"

By the by, it's the height of arrogance to even believe for a second that I would answer your question, when you made up so many bitter excuses in order to avoid answering my own.

If you don't want to waste my time, and you don't want to answer a question, then the adult compromise would be to say you don't have time for it or just won't do it.

I don't forget people's emotional outbursts all that easily. Since it's one of the better ways to interrogate the core personality.

Tom said...

Ymar, thanks for the link.

As for your admonishment, I left it without a reply for some time (it's 10/9 today) because, one, I'm very busy right now, and two, I wanted to let things settle to get some perspective and review things to see if you might be right.

After getting some distance and re-reading the thread at Neo's, and after thinking about this for some time, I just have a very different perspective on what happened between us than you do.

My answer to your admonishment would be that, first and foremost, you don't know me. You don't know who I am or what I've done in my life, or really very much about me at all. You didn't before this disagreement, and you don't now. Nor do I know you.

It would be best for us to interact with that understanding.

Second, I think you are in the wrong; you think I am. More than accuse each other of being distraught or arrogant, the most adult thing to do would be to recognize that we don't know each other either. We don't know the immediate stresses the other is under or why, exactly, the other seem to be reacting in a particular way. The adult thing to do in this situation would be to give the other the benefit of the doubt and move on.

Finally, just to clarify one point, I don't think you are less knowledgeable or less worthy of respect than I am, but neither do I think you are more. We just have different areas of expertise and knowledge.