The Archbishop is back

[alaric]

Oh I don't know about Spartan kings Archie, but with your Asian background and narcissistic tendencies, I would expect your kingship more in line with this fellow.....

I should make YouTube videos with my Xerxes impersonations.

"You Greeks take pride in your logic. I suggest you employ it. Consider the beautiful land you so vigorously defend. Picture it reduced to ash at my whim! Consider the fate of your women!"

Totally off topic here, but funny you just quoted that line from the movie which I recently watched again.

Shortly after making that quote to Leonidas which you just posted, I believe Xerxes states that he would gladly sacrifice half his  army for victory and to which Leonidas replied he would gladly sacrifice his own for one of his......


Is it just me or is it in the movie there is a shadow of symbolism to this nature;

Leonidas=Jesus

Xerxes=Satan

[The_Harlequin_King]

Is it just me or is it in the movie there is a shadow of symbolism to this nature;

Leonidas=Jesus

Xerxes=Satan

You bet. I remember writing a review about the movie and talking about that.

But the most disturbing thought of all is how similar Xerxes as portrayed in this movie is to the "prince of this world", the dragon, Satan. In one scene, Xerxes and Leonidas meet together to discuss a diplomatic way of ending the war. Xerxes continually offers Leonidas a chance to be warlord over all Greece and unlimited wealth if he just kneels and submits to Xerxes's "divine" power. Even his creepy voice makes one imagine it to be the same voice that tempted Christ in the wilderness after the forty days. In another scene, Xerxes convinces a Spartan who was born horribly deformed and denied a chance to fight by Leonidas (but not denied; he was allowed to serve Sparta by helping feed the men) to betray the 300 and lead the Persians to a hidden pass to surround the Spartans, by bombarding him with scantily clad women and gold. Leonidas said this man wasn't fit for battle because he wasn't tall enough to stand and match his fellows shield for shield in phalanx formation (a very fair disqualification). In what I consider the most powerful scene of the film, the rejected Spartan prostrates before the "god-king" in his harem as Xerxes says, in his trademark creepy voice, "cruel Leonidas demanded that you stand. I only require that you kneel."

It is only at the end, when the Spartans are surrounded and doomed to death does the rejected Spartan, in his new Persian uniform, turn away from Leonidas in tears and regret as Leonidas says to him in a very Christlike manner, "I hope you live a long life." And so, even in a Frank Miller movie, we can find a parable of Christ and the temptations that Satan gives to us: to kneel in submission to evil, or to stand against it.

[AgnusDei1989]

Post a link to the whole essay, my curiosity is piqued.

[The_Harlequin_King]

Post a link to the whole essay, my curiosity is piqued.

Haha, maybe after I revise it. That was the only part of the review that had anything profound. The rest gushes over the storytelling and camera effects and things like that.

[rbjmartin]

Oh I don't know about Spartan kings Archie, but with your Asian background and narcissistic tendencies, I would expect your kingship more in line with this fellow.....

I should make YouTube videos with my Xerxes impersonations.

"You Greeks take pride in your logic. I suggest you employ it. Consider the beautiful land you so vigorously defend. Picture it reduced to ash at my whim! Consider the fate of your women!"

I would pay to see that.