Oh yeah, and there's tons of spoilers ahead, so...prepare yourself.
It would be an understatement to say I went into The Man of Steel with incredibly low expectations. First of all, I'm a Marvel girl. Though I do enjoy a good Batman movie or Teen Titans cartoon, I feel that DC characters tend to lack the amount of depth and diversity found in their Marvel counterparts. Secondly, DC's last attempt at a Superman movie, Superman Returns, was enormous flop (as was their attempt at a Green Lantern movie, and their sad, sad attempt at Alan Moore's Watchmen.) And thirdly, the critics' reviews of the movie were pretty harsh. BOY, WAS I WRONG.
This movie was fantastic...in EVERY WAY. Great casting, brilliant writing, dynamic film style, mind-blowing special effects. Henry Cavill is a perfect Clark Kent, by far surpassing even Christopher Reeves. Every aspect of the old Superman that seemed ridiculous or cheesy is replaced with the same sort of seriousness found in The Dark Knight trilogy (thanks, Chris Nolan!) By far the greatest DC movie ever made. Maybe even rivaling The Avengers for greatest superhero movie ever made (coming from me, that's a huge freakin' deal.) What's most surprising though, is that it's DROWNING in allegorical symbolism.
For one thing, it's mentioned twice that Clark is 33 years old, the same age that Jesus was when he was crucified. When Zod demands that he surrender himself, or else Zod will destroy the Earth, Clark goes willingly and allows himself to be handcuffed, even though it would be super easy for him to escape. There's even a scene where he goes to see a pastor and there's a stain-glassed window of Jesus on the Mount of Olives conveniently located behind Clark's head. He and the stain-glassed window Jesus are even facing the same direction and have the same expression. It was overwhelmingly symbolic. This got me thinking about how many stories in popular fiction are based on the story of Jesus and how common it is for fantasy heroes to make decisions that parallel his death on the cross. I think this is indicative of how powerful the story of the gospel is, since writers have pulled from it time and time again to make their characters deep and selfless; representing the ultimate good. I've pinpointed some qualities that seem pretty commonplace in characters who take on a Christ-like role in their stories.
For one thing, it's mentioned twice that Clark is 33 years old, the same age that Jesus was when he was crucified. When Zod demands that he surrender himself, or else Zod will destroy the Earth, Clark goes willingly and allows himself to be handcuffed, even though it would be super easy for him to escape. There's even a scene where he goes to see a pastor and there's a stain-glassed window of Jesus on the Mount of Olives conveniently located behind Clark's head. He and the stain-glassed window Jesus are even facing the same direction and have the same expression. It was overwhelmingly symbolic. This got me thinking about how many stories in popular fiction are based on the story of Jesus and how common it is for fantasy heroes to make decisions that parallel his death on the cross. I think this is indicative of how powerful the story of the gospel is, since writers have pulled from it time and time again to make their characters deep and selfless; representing the ultimate good. I've pinpointed some qualities that seem pretty commonplace in characters who take on a Christ-like role in their stories.
- The character is in the role of a leader or a mentor
- The character is from another world, but doesn't stick out as alien (human-looking alien)
- The character has supernatural abilities
- Despite having supernatural abilities, they keep it roughly hidden or refuse to flaunt it (humility)
- The character voluntarily sacrifices himself to save others
- The character miraculously returns to life
- The character's sacrifice saves the entire world
- The character confronts a Satan-like enemy
Thousands of characters exemplify at least one of these qualities, but occasionally there are characters that have nearly every single one! This doesn't necessarily mean that the character is supposed to be a straight-up allegorical representation of Jesus (such as Aslan,) but that the character's situation borrows from the story of Jesus, usually for the purpose of revealing the character's goodness and emotionally charging the audience. Here's a small sampling of popular characters who are put in Christ's self-sacrifice situation.
Harry Potter
Christ-like qualities:
- Supernatural Abilities
- Humility
- Self-Sacrifice
- Resurrection
- Saves the world
- Satan-like enemy
Yes, I know that tons of Christians think that Harry Potter is all black magic and divination. C'mon, people, it's a fantasy story! It's also by far the best selling book series to date, so it's influence in out culture is impossible to ignore. Anyways. In the final installment of the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Harry is forced with the decision to face his life-long enemy, Lord Voldemort. He knows that this final encounter will end with either his death or Voldemort's, so of course he's terrified. However, Harry knows that Voldemort will destroy both his world and the non-wizarding world if he's allowed to rise to power, so Harry offers to face him alone, and allows himself to be tortured and killed. Because of the innocence and selflessness of his sacrifice, Harry is able to overcome the dark magic, return to life, and destroy Voldemort. If that's not a rehashing of the gospel story, I don't know what is. Oh, and he's regularly called "The Chosen One" throughout the series, so there's that too.
Gandalf (The Lord of the Rings)
- Leader/ Mentor
- Supernatural abilities
- Humility
- Self-sacrifice
- Resurrection
- Satan-like enemy
Gandalf is an interesting character because although he is present in several of Tolkien's books, he is never cast as the main character. He tends to hang in the background, pulling off fantastic feats that few of his companions even get to witness. Although his friends know he is a wizard, none of them really know how powerful he actually is because he's so dang humble about everything. He 's easy-going; a lover of animals, pipe-smoking and happy little hobbits. So when Gandalf does bust out, everyone is shocked. The most Christ-like set of scenes we see Gandalf in are in The Fellowship of the Ring, when Gandalf volunteers to fight the Satanic-looking Balrog in Moria to save the lives of the fellowship. It appears to the fellowship that Gandalf falls to his death in order to destroy the monster, but in reality he survived and the two battled on, eventually resulting in Gandalf's victory. Later in The Two Towers, Gandalf's return is heavily reminiscent of Christ's reveal to his disciples. Not only is Gandalf alive again, he is the new-and-improved Gandalf the White whom Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli fail to recognize.Other characters in Tolkien's works play allegorical roles such as Aragorn (the unassuming ranger who turns out to be the king of Gondor) and Eru (the creator of Middle Earth featured in The Silmarillion.) It should be noted that J.R.R. Tolkien was a Catholic and encouraged his friend and fellow fantasy writer, C.S. Lewis, to return to Christianity. Speaking of C.S. Lewis....
Aslan (The Chronicles of Narnia)
- Leader/Mentor
- Human-looking alien (well...Narnian-looking Non-Narnian)
- Supernatural Abilities
- Humility
- Self-sacrifice
- Resurrection
- Satan-like enemy
This one's pretty obvious because C.S. Lewis actually intended Aslan to be the Narnian incarnation of Jesus, so the similarities between Aslan and Jesus kinda go on and on. First of all, Aslan made Narnia in the The Magician's Nephew, so he's even Old Testament Jesus as well. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is by far the most gospel-like book in the series, where we see Aslan offer himself to be mocked and killed by the White Witch in Edmund Pevensie's place. When Aslan comes back to life the next morning, the Stone Table to which he was bound breaks (which could represent the ripping of the tabernacle curtain.) Also, Susan and Lucy are there to witness Aslan's resurrection in the same way that Mary and Mary Magdalene were there at Jesus' empty tomb. In The Last Battle, Aslan leads the children into a "New Narnia" at the end of the age which essentially mimics the New Heaven and New Earth mentioned in the book of Revelation. Yeah...
The Doctor (Doctor Who)
- Leader/Mentor
- Human-looking alien
- Supernatural abilities
- Humility
- Self-sacrifice
- Resurrection
- Saves the world
- Satan-like enemy
Anyone who watches Doctor Who knows that the Doctor is far from a perfect hero. He's had to make some tough choices, some of which involve abandoning his companions in parallel universes, destroying whole races and planets, lying, cheating, stealing and running away from responsibility. For a character that's done so much bad to be considered a hero, he's got to have a remarkable character that makes up for it all. The writers of Doctor Who have used Christ-like situations to redeem the Doctor's character countless times since the show first aired in 1963. He's constantly standing up to insidious villains, offering to sacrifice himself for his friends, and, of course, doing whatever it takes to save the universe. And of course, he's come back to life countless times through regeneration. In the episode, "The Satan Pit," he even meets a beast that looks and behaves like the devil himself.
Not to mention this little get-up he donned in "The Wedding of River Song."
He dresses like Jesus now. Jesus is cool.---->
What I find most interesting about the Doctor's Christ-like nature is that Doctor Who is very much not a Christian television show. For the most part, the universe in which the Doctor lives is one chiefly governed by science and every trace of supernatural phenomena always turns out to be some weird alien or a futuristic technology that we don't yet understand. In short, it's a God-free universe. However, it's hard to ignore the Christian influence that makes the show so attractive, whether the writers intended to put it there or not. We humans long for a hero who can do the impossible, who knows nearly everything, and can rescue us from things too big and scary to want to think about
Other popular characters who follow this trend include: *deep breath* Spock (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock,) The Silver Surfer (primarily in The Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer,) Captain America, Iron Man (in both The Avengers and Iron Man 3,) Jean Grey (Uncanny X-Men,) Sora (Kingdom Hearts), Spider-Man, Gurgie (Disney's The Black Cauldron,) Kida (Atlantis: The Lost Empire,) Buffy (Buffy, the Vampire Slayer,) Flynn Rider (Tangled,) Rory (Doctor Who,) and Captain Jack Harkness (Doctor Who and Torchwood.)
If you take a good look at the original list, these aren't situations that most of us face in real life. In fact, throughout all of human history we've seen VERY few people whose self-sacrifice is followed by a return to life and VERY few people whose actions have saved the ENTIRE world (I can only think of Jesus, actually...) So, for so many fictional characters to share these qualities and situations could only mean one thing: we, as humans, are obsessed with story of Christ's resurrection. It's a natural human reaction to be moved by that story. Even people who aren't Christians or claim to be uninterested in religion are obsessed with that story, or else it wouldn't be recycled over and over again.
