Am I obsessing? Once again I’m talking about that moment late in a story when battle weary heroes are forced into a ‘die or wake up’ situation. The waking up is called an ‘epiphany’. People are never the same after that. The protagonist is now equipped with the knowledge and power to bring the story to its conclusion.

Previously (”Fight for the right to see”, Dec, 7, 2009), I described this climax in terms of climbing a mountain, from which heights the hero is presented with a more expansive view of their world. They see more; they’re wiser now; outmoded principles can fall away. The lesson would appear to be that discovering ‘truth’ is a product of struggle. Better yet, all-consuming struggle.

Otherwise there’s no story worth telling. (This is what I’m obsessing about.)

Imagine if, in the opening scene of a movie, someone accosted the protagonist in the street and told them the truth. Instructed them clearly and forcibly. That should be the end of the story, right? Wrong. We don’t expect the hero to take anything on faith. If that happened, we’d groan. We’d demand our money back. Instinctively, we know that’s not how life’s most profound lessons are learned.

Truth told to us, however sincerely, and taken on faith, isn’t satisfying at all. Let’s see how this thesis plays out in Avatar.

Sully, the film’s hero, is dropped (literally) into a situation (Planet Pandora) where we just know he’s going to have a change of heart. Once a Marine, Sully is going to soften up, fall in love, and challenge authority. We know that. Yet we stick around for another two hours of film time to experience vicariously the painfully human process of breaking down old habits so that a new understanding can take root. We know it’s going to happen, but still, this is where we get our money’s worth. In the living through hell. As they say, ‘it’s easier to die than change.’

Sully’s ultimate transformation is total. The conventional wisdom pounded into him by his military training is abandoned. Coming from a world where ‘knowledge is power’ (and where power is synonymous with gain at the expense of others), Sully learns a more profound type of ‘knowing’. Pandoran knowledge empowers the person to understand where they fit in the cosmic scheme of things, a perspective from which all good things flow.

So, what’s my point? That the power of a story to nourish us depends on a struggle to uncover the truth. And that truth is always some kind of ‘knowing’. And, finally, that ever-expanding knowing (not knowledge) would appear to be our noble destiny.