By C. Rommial Butler
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Here’s a tough thing for us to admit:
We are not responsible for every bad thing that happens to us.
Here’s another tough thing for us to admit:
We are responsible for the way we deal with it in the aftermath.
An old saying goes, heal what hurt you or you’ll bleed on those that didn’t cut you.
But this is shortsighted.
How good is a friend that won’t rush to staunch the wound rather than blanch and run off?
There are two fictional characters through which I want to explore this concept. The Crow and the Winter Soldier—the spirit of vengeance and the mind control slave.
The Crow… A Story about Forgiveness?
In James O’Barr’s The Crow we encounter a man resurrected from death to avenge the rape and murder of his one true love. I want to emphasize here that he does not seek vengeance for himself.
One of the most remarkable things about The Crow is that Eric, the title character, is so naïve in the time and place where he lives with this beautiful woman, surrounded by the most depraved sort of people. Shelly, his fiancé, is an advocate for some of those people, in the tenement ruins where they reside.
This is not a criticism from me, but a nod to O’Barr showing us how the beauty and love in the heart of innocence survives even the most awful circumstances—even when it doesn’t survive.
This is perhaps best exemplified by Sherri—who in the 1994 movie adaptation is renamed Sarah—a destitute little girl who Eric and Shelly befriend and with whom Eric, as the Crow, bonds ever closer and protects. I liked the way they gave her the role of narrator in the movie. It added a color to the story which vivified in turn Brandon Lee’s iconic performance.
In the comic, however, is a scene which I do not remember from the movie, and perhaps the most important message in the whole story. Throughout the book, Eric has a guide, a crow—naturally—with whom he has many illuminating dialogues. After all the work is done, and Eric is finally ready to move on, this conversation between the two at Shelly’s grave should illuminate us all:
“The resolution isn’t about justice or revenge. It’s about forgiveness,” the crow said.
“Are you MAD?!! I could never forgive them!!!” Eric retorted.
“NOT THEM, IDIOT! YOURSELF!!”
Bad things happen to good people. Good people tend to blame themselves first. The more time we spend blaming ourselves, the longer bad things continue to happen, because if good people don’t do good things in a bad world, how will it ever turn for the better?
Listen to that little bird sing its song against the gale. Move toward its music and you will move also toward the light.
The Winter Soldier… A Story about Timeless Friendship
I recently rewatched the Captain America trilogy with my children: Captain America: The First Avenger, The Winter Soldier, and Civil War.
The character of Steve Rogers is an awesome one. I couldn’t help but love the guy from the moment he jumped on the grenade in the first film. Despite Captain America being a symbol created for wartime propaganda—his 1941 debut has him punching Hitler right in the jaw—he’s a symbol that, to me as a kid growing up reading the comics, still represents an American Dream I never could quite experience in real time.
Not the dream of prosperity, but the dream of Justice and Good Will. Nevertheless, I sincerely hope the following discussion may reawaken that dream.
In the movies, Cap and his best friend Bucky both enter World War II. The fictional occult intelligence agency Hydra may seem like only a symbol, but anyone who is familiar with Operation Paperclip, MK Ultra, and the like, has to wonder if the writers of the films weren’t nodding and winking a bit.
Bucky apparently dies helping Cap hunt down a Hydra mad scientist. Or so we are led to believe. In fact, Bucky survives the fall from a train, less one arm, and is captured by the Soviets, who use trauma-based mind control techniques to turn him into a perfect killer, after repurposing him with a bionic arm. Those who encounter him in the field call him The Winter Soldier.
Cap is frozen for the rest of the century, and so too is Bucky between missions, apparently, as neither seems to age. When Cap encounters the Winter Soldier in the field, he removes Bucky’s mask and instantly recognizes his old compatriot.
Cap being Cap, he won’t stop until he rescues his friend; and just running into his old friend, his best friend, Bucky’s conditioning unseats itself. The young man of valor is still there beneath the mind control slave.
In the interest of not giving away any more spoilers, I want to draw attention to one remark Bucky makes when he awakens to the cruel realization that his hands, both human and robotic—symbols on symbols!—have murdered many people. He says:
“I remember them all.”
It was not Bucky’s fault, but it was Bucky’s doing.
There is an apt analogy here for anyone who grew up through the Cold War. Both the U.S. and Soviet governments did horrific things in their bid to outdo each other for control of the world.
Unquestionably, the citizens of those nations supported them the entire time, and most never knew it. In this way, citizens of any nation could consider themselves mind control slaves.
I’m not trying to be a downer, dear reader, but I think it’s time we all looked at ourselves. The propaganda from both sides of the political aisle right now is insidious and detrimental. There are no resolutions, and there will be none, until the war is over, and we can forgive ourselves.
How to end the war? Well, I don’t have many answers, but I think it starts with disrupting our automated responses and reaching deep down to find the heart of that dream which drove us to care in the first place.
Is it still beating or must we resurrect the self to fight anew?
