In both Braveheart, and the closely-related (plotwise, anyway) Gladiator, we can see the plot progress as follows:
Hero wants to settle down and do a litle farming, and vows not to fight anymore.
Mrs. Hero gets knocked off by the Bad Guys, giving the Hero reason to strap the old sword on again and set things right, avenging her in the process.
Hero has various adventures proving his courage, skill, leadership, etc, all the while having reassuring dreams that if and when he dies gloriously in battle, he’ll meet Mrs. Hero again in whatever Paradise he believes in.
In the process of #3, beatiful good-at-heart Bad Guy falls for Hero, helps him out, and they have sex scene.
Hero finally dies valiantly.
And, my imagined epilogue:
6. Mrs. Hero meets him in Paradise, she’s not happy about #4.
But really, what gives with this? It would seem to me to be much more virtuous, upstanding, heroic, and so on if he would refuse the good-at-heart Bad Guy’s advances with a stalwart, “My heart can no longer be given to one of this world” or something like that. When your on a mission to avenge the loss of your One True Love, is it really good etiquette to dally with the enemy? And don’t tell me our heroes were just doing this to get inside information…I’m pretty sure they were into it. Does this bother anyone else? My apologies if anyone’s already addressed this.
Wow, I’d never really thought about it before…but you’ve just described “The Outlaw Josey Wales” and “Unforgiven”. Maybe Clint Eastwood wrote “Braveheart”…
Yeah, well, it’s not surprising that it describes Josie Wales and Unforgiven; this is the Standard Revenge Plot, which covers about 60% of all movies ever made.
The second most common is probably The Stranger Who Cleans Up the Town and Then Moves On. Shane, Mad Max 2, The Bells of Saint Mary’s, etc…
I don’t remember this step from Braveheart. IIRC he never had sex with the french princess, or even showed desire in her. It is true that she wanted it though.
Yeah, he had sex with her, a fact she later dropped on the English king while he was on his deathbed.
But yeah, I don’t dig the whole “banging someone else while avenging lost wife” thing. Nothing against it morally, but it works better the other way.
?!? I’m not sure I understand at all what you mean by “the other way”
Banging the lost wife while avenging someone else perhaps? Or should you lose someone else while avenging your banged wife? I’m confrused.
I think Medea’s Child nailed it. This bizarre and unworthy (IMHO) behavior is a product of Hollywood’s annoying insistence on having some kind of “romantic” subplot shoehorned into every movie, no matter how inappropriate or obviously tacked-on it may be.
(Remember that part at the end of Braveheart where Wallace is on the scaffold, about to be beheaded, and sees his wife in the crowd? Standard MST3K comment in these parts is “I saw what you were doing with that French tart!”)
Contrary to the original post, though, Gladiator omitted step 4. Well, omitted the sex part, anyhow.
I stand corrected…I suppose step 4 should have read:
“and they become romantically involved”
And yeah, I assumed that, movie-wise, the reason for it all was to tack a romantic subplot in there. I just don’t like it! It bothers me because, IMHO, the theme of these movies is that to be a hero takes the willpower and conviction to keep fighting for your ideals no matter the cost, and these subplots undermine that whole concept. These guys are supposed to never give up, and they don’t…except for these tacky subplots.
This is scary, I remember someone quoting Tolstoy about all stories are either “going on a journey” or “stranger comes to town” Now I remember, it was Zippy the Pinhead.
