My Dark Knight of the Soul

Growing up, I was always terrified of villains in movies. Even the villains in Disney movies would give me nightmares. Like Ursula in The Little Mermaid or Cruella Devil in 101 Dalmatians.

Watching those movies as a kid was honestly just as scary as if I were to watch a terrifying horror movie today.

Perhaps the Disney movies as a kid were a tiny bit easier to stomach than a horror movie would be today though, because the heroes always triumphed in the end. The heroes always triumphed and it was always happily ever after.

I always deeply wished though that the movies didn’t even need to have villians in the first place. Why couldn’t the movie studios just make movies about people having fun the whole time? Why did so many challenging and scary things have to happen along the way?

That question has always haunted me, ever since I was very very young. “Why does pain even have to exist in the first place?”

One fateful day, when I was home sick in 2nd grade, my mom let me watch Braveheart.

It was my first R-rated movie. Despite it’s rating, it did not disturb me. It was violent, yes. But the violence was for a pure cause: freedom from tyranny. I was glued to the screen the entire time and completely forgot that I even had a fever. I never wanted the movie to end. But when it finally did, I was not not left with a deep existential fear of the villains. I was left with a deep and burning conviction to also have a brave heart.

My existential fear of villians was deeply protected now. The antidote to villians was gritty, relentless courage.

My path going forward in life might not always be an easy one, but I would always have my north star: gritty, relentless courage.

Gritty, relentless courage is three words not one, so maybe it was more like a “guiding constellation” rather than a north star.

This constellation never had a name back then, it was more of a dim hopeful feeling that existed somewhere deeply inside of myself.

But for the sake of this narrative, it probably deserves a proper name.

So we will name my guiding constellation…..hmmm……..how about………“steadfast protector?” Yeah, that sounds about right. But we’ll use the Germanic roots of those words to make it sound more official. (Since English is derived from ancient German.)

So the Germanic roots would be wil (“will, desire”), and helm (“helmet, protection.”) That seems good. “Wilhelm” sounds a lot cooler than “steadfast protector.”

And, come to think of it, Wilhelm was actually a real name that ancient German boys were named. Braveheart took place in Scotland though, so let’s find the Scottish version of Wilhelm. That would be………oh…..….wowwwww……..…the Scottish version of Wilhelm is………..

“William.”

That’s the name of the hero in Braveheart! The hero is actually named William Wallace. And William Wallace really was the real name of the real man who the story was actually based on.

So maybe William really is the absolutely perfect name to give to my guiding constellation of gritty, relentless courage.

So from that point onward, after that fateful day, whenever things got tough, I remembered my guiding stars. I remembered William.

I remembered William, and even if it wasn’t easy, I always knew what I needed. I needed courage.

Now that I’m writing this though, it makes me remember that I did have a similar, more innocent, role model long before I watched Braveheart in 2nd grade.

My earlier role model was Thomas the Tank Engine: “The little engine that could.”

Thomas the Tank Engine also exhibited gritty, relentless courage. He was a small engine but he was very persistent. When he put his mind to it, he always found a way through. He always pulled his loads up steep hills, even when the other trains thought it would be impossible.

The name “Thomas” actually comes from the Hebrew word “ta’om,” meaning “twin.”

So, to properly honor my earlier hero, maybe my guiding constellation should be called “William Thomas,” which would literally mean “steadfast protector twin.”

I’m happy I remembered my Thomas the Tank Engine days, because that makes my guiding stars name much more accurate. My courage was my mental twin brother.

My courage could always only be my twin brother. It could never be the real me. Because the real me was a very sensitive and delicate innocent little boy.

My inherently sensitive innocent nature combined with my desire for gritty, relentless courage created a real paradox though.

The word “innocent” comes from the latin roots “in” and “nocere” and literally means “unable to injure.”

How can you be a gritty, relentless protector if you truly are unable to injure people? William Wallace really was a great protector and liberator, but the only way that he was able to do that was through justified defensive violence.

If William wasn’t strong enough to stand up for himself through force, then he wouldn’t have been able to be a protector.

But if William really was strong enough to stand up for himself through force, then he would no longer be innocent. By definition.

This created an unsolvable problem for me. How do I keep the purest parts of myself safe, while also becoming tough enough to protect them? How do I harden some of myself but not all of myself?

In my own life, I never really needed to physically defend myself from physical violence. But there are all sorts of other types of non-physical violence that every person in the world needs to defend themself from.

If I were a tree I could have just grown tough deadened bark around my trunk and kept the inside of the trunk as a tender vibrant core.

But human minds are much more complicated than trees. So the task was far more nuanced than that.

I would have never used these words at the time, but what I needed to do was polarize myself. Like a magnet. To create a shield around myself.

The most common way to make a magnet is through the “powder metallurgy” process. You get a material like iron and pulverize it into a fine powder. Then you compact and heat that powder in a crucible to cause densification. (The “crucible” is the durable, heat proof metal container that you put the pulverized iron powder into.)

The “powder metallurgy” process might be more aptly named the “pulverize and crucify” method.

That process may sound cruel, but if you want to turn yourself into a magnet, so that you can have a magnetic shield, then it’s simply what you have to do.

It wouldn’t have been very practical for me to actually try to pulverize my physical body and toss it into a blacksmith furnace, because then I would just be dead. So I had to do this process in my mind.

And the way to do it was to hate myself. To discipline myself. To be harsher with myself than anyone else in the world could be to me.

And over time, throughout my childhood, my mental energy shifted away from innocent curiosity towards reptiles and turned into harsh internal criticism.

It sounds cruel, yes. But it was necessary. I needed to become a magnet in order to protect myself. I needed to become a magnet to shield myself.

And if I was going to become a magnet then I needed to pulverize myself. And I needed to press myself. And I needed to forge myself at a very high heat.

Self hatred is a very misunderstood phenomenon. It does not arise accidentally and it does indeed serve a very useful purpose.

I hated myself because I loved myself. I was making myself stronger. So that I could protect myself with a magnetic shield. And one day, I would finally become strong enough to protect my own innocence enough to let it reemerge, and frolic happily, and finally thrive.

I never had any of these strategic thoughts back then. This was never a conscious plan. But it was undoubtedly my subconscious plan. I can see that clearly now.

This plan had to be a secret. It it wasn’t a secret, it wouldn’t have worked. If the plan wasn’t a secret, then I wouldn’t have been able to hate my own innocence. And if I wasn’t able to hate my own innocence, then I would have never learned how to protect it.

How do you keep a secret from yourself like that? How do you truly convince yourself that you hate yourself and actually believe it?

You do it through distance. You do it by “severing” yourself from yourself.

That word reminds me of ……“Severus Snape” from the Harry Potter film collection.

From the beginning, Snape is cruel and harsh towards Harry. He appears to be Harry’s enemy throughout most of the films.

But in the end, it is revealed that Snape has been protecting Harry the whole time. And ultimately, Snape gives his own life to save Harry.

Upon realizing this, it was very hard for me to understand why Snape needed to be so cold to Harry in the first place.

But over time I came to see how Snape absolutely needed to be cold to Harry, so that Snape could be accepted as a member of Slytherin. He needed to act as a double agent. He needed to act as a steadfast protector twin.

And based on all of this, perhaps it would have been the most accurate to call my guiding constellation, “Severus William Thomas.”

Three words for the three stars of gritty, relentless courage. My severed steadfast protector twin. My alter ego protector.

As I grew even older, I came to love the Batman trilogy of movies by Christopher Nolan.

There is a line in the second movie, The Dark Knight, that says: “You either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain.”

It is a profoundly profound line. A line that echoed within me for years before I was finally ready to hear it.

My own personal twin hero, my gritty, relentless, courageous protector, had finally become the villain.

My ancient protector had now become my chronic pain.

In the end of the second Batman movie, Batman goes into hiding. And takes the fall for a crime he did not commit. He knows that he will be hated by the people of Gotham.

He will be hated and he will be hunted.

And he accepts this.

In the final scene, Batman is talking with the police commissioner, James Gordon.

Batman says, referring to murders perpetrated by another character who was viewed as the civic hero of Gotham, “I killed those people. That’s what I can be.”

Gordon is deeply unsettled by this and says, “No…….NO…..…you can’t…you’re NOT……”

And Batman replies, “I am whatever Gotham needs me to be………You’ll hunt me, you’ll condemn me, set the dogs on me. Because that’s what needs to happen. Because sometimes, truth isn’t good enough. Sometimes people deserve more. Sometimes people deserve to have their faith rewarded.”

Batman then runs off into the distance.

Gordon’s son comes up and asks “why is he running, Dad?”

And Gordon replies, “Because we have to chase him.”

Son: “But he didn’t do anything wrong.”

Gordon: “He is the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now………So we’ll hunt him…….Because he can take it……Because he’s not a hero……..He’s a silent guardian…. a watchful protector……….”

“a……………Dark Knight.”