The Old Code: His heart knows only Virtue
The Long Awaited Return to Dragonheart's Great Chivalric Code
His heart knows only virtue,
This is the next line in the Old Code, and it is thematically the most important in the whole of Dragonheart. The idea of virtue and one’s heart and whether you feel it with ego and malice or goodness, is of extreme importance throughout the film.
It is why the movie has remained popular in spite of the critics. Compare it to any big block-buster film of to-day and you’ll find the movie to be a masterpiece. A tight, philosophical piece with many themes of loss, failure and honour, along with that of duty and even to an extent piety, it is a movie that cuts deep to any man who has tasted failure.
And that is why this line is so very important, and yet hard to uphold. The reason it is so seemingly impossible to do so, is because of the nature of life. Especially for those of us of Celtic descent (that is to say those who are Irish, Scottish and French), because ours is still a somewhat martial/passion based society. The Enlightenment movement did much to repress some of our instincts, but largely it was unsuccessful (look to recent developments in Europe to-day), anger comes easily to a lot of Celts. It is a vice we struggle with more than any other.
Arguably the image of the proud Frenchman is false, pride isn’t the biggest French flaw, but wrath. Just as it is for the Scots & Irish.
There are other cultures and countries were men struggle with their temper, but men of every country struggles in some capacity with internal vice and for balance. Balance is crucial in all our lives, because passion for example (to return to the Celtic example) is natural and good for us, but wrath is passion taken to the extreme. Indignant anger against injustices is a good example of positive passion, just as artistic achievements are (as they are a product of passion).
What is more is that this need for balance, this need to compensate for internal flaws whatever they may be, with positive attributes is necessary to succeed in life. It is for this reason that the notion of filling one’s heart with virtue, is important.
We men cannot succeed, cannot guarantee the justice of whatever cause we commit to without virtue.
It is easy to become poisoned by vice, to drink from the wrong philosophical chalice. This is especially the case in this modern era, when men are constantly struggling to find work, to find meaning especially with plunging economies, plunging statistics on every front and with increasing misery everywhere.
The hard part becomes filling one’s heart with virtue. In the movie of Dragonheart, this very issue dogs Bowen, who fills his heart with greed, lust and even despair. How does he re-ignite virtue in his heart? Well this is one that he doesn’t succeed in doing so almost until the complete end.
It is friendship that helps pull him out from the depths of despair. What can we learn from this? We can pull for one thing from it that we are never alone, all of us need friends, need family and need a sense of belonging.
We can never truly belong, have a place to call home, and can never come into our own by trying to prove ourselves a ‘lone wolf’ we all need someone. All need others, and those who say they can make it on their own are lying. No house of stone was ever built alone, or in a vacuum. All things require give and take, require a group, require human beings to come together.
You might try on your own, but what sort of life would that be? You’d be left alone, with nowhere to go to except the interior of your own mind, which is a very lonely place to be. It has been said that conflict shows the true nature of people, but I would argue that interaction with others is also a good revelatory tool for showing just who and what an individual is.
The easy path is to fill oneself with addictions or with melancholia or anger, this is the filling of one’s heart with non-virtuous things.
In a way it is like the Last Samurai scene of ‘too many mind’, where Algren is told he is distracted. This is kind of the same idea, except you’re distracted from righteousness, and kindness as these traits we commonly look to and think of when we think of virtue.
To fill one’s heart with only virtue is very, very difficult. This is why the movie places so much important on the idea of being the ideal knight. In a way, the movie is pushing men to aspire after the example of the likes of Gawain, or the mythical King Arthur, or the likes of say Aragorn Elessar. All characters who’s hearts only knew virtue, and who never took the easy road in most myths and chose hardship at times, if it meant sparing others sorrow and grief.
But this does not necessarily mean that the ‘ideal knight’ always takes the hard road, but rather that he is prepared to do so, and is prepared to suffer for the sake of another. He must be prepared to endure what no others, what few others could possibly endure.
Life is work as it has been said, and is hardship, therefore if one’s heart knows only virtue it stands to reason that one is in a constant state of perfect self-discipline. In a constant state of balance and of honour, and of enduring.
Another thing to fill one’s heart with is hope, because in hope all things are made possible. True, you shouldn’t use it like a carrot to keep the work-horse ploughing but give yourself or allow yourself enough to survive, because man needs hope, needs light and faith to keep on living, to give himself a reason to go to bed and wake up in the morning.
A man without hope, without friends and love is a man without virtue. As virtue at its core is born from these things, and virtue nourishes not only the soul but all nations. Because it is only when they are filled with truly virtuous men and women that they prosper.
So that as it has been said in one piece of Japanese media; ‘All for one, and one for all and heaven bless the land. If the individual works for the needs of the many, and the many for the sake of the individual, the land will prosper.’
Striving for the sake of others is important, as without others one is nothing, or less than nothing. It is only through others that we have a society. Just as it is the efforts of a small group of men that society has always achieved greatness. It is when in tandem with one another that greatness is achieved, and great men such as the likes of Trajanus, Marcus Aurelius and many others that nations prosper or reach their apogee as it is said.
But when the ‘Great Man’ is corrupted he brings nothing but destruction, let us look to the likes of Genghis Khan for example. But that said, for an example of someone who embodied the ‘one for all and all for one’ and his actions leading to a prosperous land, the Duke of Wellington or le Marquis de Lafayette both come to mind. One helped Britain prosper and the other the US.
Both of them were crucial and while their hearts weren’t always perfect, they did do much good for their nations and peoples. So they deserve much praise for that, and are examples of what happens when one places virtue above personal gain in a lot of cases.
So that one must strive for others, and in turn they will strive for you, and the first step towards this is to fill your heart with Virtue. From there, it’ll become easier to care for others, and to prosper as Virtue, when borne from hope and love makes all things possible.
This reminded me of a part in Homer's Odyssey. Odysseus, having learned the cost of pride and wrath through twenty years of absence, and having arrived back in the tattered garb of a beggar, tries to impart some of his wisdom to Amphinomus:
"I too seemed destined to be a man of fortune once,
"and a wild wicked swath I cut, indulged my lust for violence,
"staking all on my father and my brothers. Look at me now.
"And so, I say, let no man ever be lawless all his life,
"just take in peace what gifts the gods will send."
"The easy path is to fill oneself with addictions or with melancholia or anger, this is the filling of one’s heart with non-virtuous things."
This is so very true.