My spouse and I went to observe “The Dying of Robin Hood” on the native theater. It wasn’t a nasty film, however it wasn’t an excellent one both. It definitely wasn’t the one we wanted to observe. We would have liked one thing the place we may escape from the craziness of the world for just a little bit. As an alternative, we acquired a narrative that made us find yourself having conversations in regards to the tales we inform ourselves and others about who we’re.
Oh sure, we additionally cried.
The film offers with the titular Robin Hood in outdated age. He’s beset upon by a younger girl who makes an attempt to kill him. He kills her. Then Little John arrives and invitations Robin Hood to precise revenge on a gaggle of males who’ve taken his land and his spouse. In a really gory scene, Robin and Little John kill the boys, however they can’t save John’s spouse. As she dies, John (who now goes by “Edward”) prays for her. Standing close by is John’s daughter, Margaret.
Unbeknownst to them, a boy who ran off in the course of the assault and whom Robin had shot an arrow via his head survived the assault, warning his household. The boy’s household goes after John and Robin, however the assault is repelled. Then the boy’s grandfather arrives in his armor, and one other battle ensues through which Robin is badly wounded.
John then takes Robin to a priory, the place he’s nursed again to well being by a nun. Robin learns the methods of the priory and agrees to remain whereas he heals and helps the residents by trapping rabbits for meals. In the meantime, John is killed off-screen by the remainder of the kin of the boys whom he and Robin had killed. Margaret arrives again on the priory by herself, and he or she is traumatized by the dying of her father.
Days later, one other younger man arrives, somebody we had seen earlier within the film. He’s the cousin of the little boy who had the arrow via his head. (That child died, by the best way. No means somebody survives that in that period.) The cousin is lacking a watch, claiming he was set upon by robbers. Robin reads him like a e book and scares him off after determining the lacking eye was the results of John’s weapon of alternative. So it’s implied that the boy helped kill John and was no longer “on the lookout for his niece” as he stated, however that he was searching for revenge on Margaret.
In the long run, Robin confesses his true id to Brigid, the nun who nursed him again to well being with a collection of treatments and a few bloodletting. He does this at the same time as “The Leper” (a person with Hansen’s illness additionally dwelling on the priory) warns Robin not to take action. The Leper warns Robin that Brigid is one among Robin’s victims and that she will probably be destroyed if Robin reveals his id to her. The Leper then dies of his illness, however not earlier than revealing himself to be Man of Gisborne, one among Robin’s enemies. (The tales stated that Robin had beheaded Man, however Man reveals that he solely misplaced an ear [and that the infection probably came from that?].)
Riddled with guilt over all of the lives he had taken, Robin confesses his true id to Brigid, who form of takes it in stride. She tells him that she noticed her husband and kids die in a fireplace set by Robin years earlier than. She moved to the priory and has healed many individuals there, together with Robin. And now, she helps Margaret heal. So, in a means, Robin has helped others.
All through the film, we all know that Robin doesn’t see it that means. He’s not the hero others have made him out to be. He’s an outlaw, a person who has taken what he needed from others. These others weren’t the wealthy and highly effective, however nearly anybody who crossed his path. It’s simply that individuals have instructed the story of Robin Hood as a hero to allay the fears others had of him. Sort of a reverse Boogeyman scenario.
In the long run, Robin is drained, and he asks Brigid to heal him, so to talk. She begins a bloodletting, however he retains her from stopping the bleeding. As an alternative, as he bleeds to dying, he tells Margaret the story of how Robin and Little John met. He tells her that they took from the wealthy and gave to the poor, similar to all these tales stated. And he tells her that unhealthy males he and Little John crossed may need to come after her, so she needed to be taught to maintain the key. As Margaret shoots an arrow out the window, following Robin’s directions, he dies.
All of us cry. The tip.
As you’ll be able to think about, the story made me assume rather a lot about how the actual us is a piece of fiction within the minds of others. Nobody can learn our hearts or minds, however we are able to interpret what’s in our hearts and minds via our actions (and, as I do in my writing, via our phrases). And never simply our phrases, however the phrases of people that know us and individuals who’ve seen our work. All of it comes collectively to kind a story of our id, and that’s what endures after we’re gone.
If the film had been nonfiction, the concept of a villainous Robin Hood being a hero in posterity may stand to purpose due to the best way his life ended. He protected the priory, the little lady, and he apologized for his actions to Brigid. In return, Brigid and Margaret instructed a narrative of a heroic Robin Hood who took from the wealthy and gave to the poor. It was a narrative that might have needed to be instructed to guard the little lady, proper? And to clarify how and why Robin Hood was within the priory to start with.
Equally, after I’m gone, folks will learn what I’ve written and speak to the individuals who knew me, and a narrative will emerge. It’s not going to be 100% correct, in fact. There will probably be issues I’ve finished or stated that individuals will bear in mind in a different way, and there will probably be issues I’ve finished or stated that nobody will ever know. Not unhealthy issues, thoughts you. I’ve by no means killed anybody. Other than bugs (and an notorious frog), I don’t assume I’ve killed every other animal.
However even that story in regards to the frog just isn’t 100% correct as a result of I wrote it 40 years after the actual fact. I’m certain I both missed some particulars, or I weaved in some particulars from one other time in my life. Reminiscence is humorous that means.
And, in fact, I’ve severely pissed off some folks in my life. All of the anti-vaccine activists, for instance. Or the now-dead self-proclaimed millionaire. What tales about me have they instructed, and the way are these transferring round on the market, constructing a story of who I’m?
Exhausting to inform.
And the way do you, the reader, clarify me to others in the event that they ask? Don’t reply that. It’s extra of a rhetorical query than something.
On a scale of 1 to 10, I give the film a stable 8. It’s somber and darkish, with loads of gore and violence. However the violence is defined because the inevitable final result of a time in historical past while you didn’t have the rule of regulation that allowed you to go to the courts if somebody took your property. There was no organized system of justice to maintain outlaws from taking what they needed, together with life. And outdated scores had been settled with extra violence, propagating violence like a virus. In the long run, we’re left with a believable clarification for why our view of Robin Hood is what it’s: a hero who took from the wealthy and gave to the poor.
However man, it raised loads of questions for me. It makes me marvel what number of monsters are on the market who made it to outdated age and now are fathers and grandfathers whose households inform a distinct story from the reality. Or how many individuals are painted as villains once they had been really heroes? And whether or not we owe the advantage of the doubt to the tales folks inform us about themselves. As a result of, ultimately, until we had been there, we now have no method to know if the individual in entrance of us acts the identical means in non-public or when nobody is watching.
And don’t get me began on how this matches into the concept Bruce Wayne is the disguise and Batman is the actual individual. That’s an entire different weblog publish.
Now, if you happen to’ll excuse me, I’m going to go ask Mother and Dad a few canine that bit me. I’ve the scars, and I bear in mind the rabies photographs, however I need to get the origin story proper of how I turned an epidemiologist. It’s for a venture I’m engaged on.
