This is very good. If you're interested I wrote about this as well but came at it from a different angle using an essay by C.S. Lewis about the knight as a masculine archetype that boys and men should be adopting.
Men have these tendencies. Pretending otherwise is foolish so the goal has to be finding ways of ensuring those tendencies are directed in virtuous ways.
“The important thing about this ideal is, of course, the double demand it makes on human nature. The knight is a man of blood and iron, a man familiar with the sight of smashed faces and the ragged stumps of lopped-off limbs; he is also a demure, almost a maidenlike, guest in hall, a gentle, modest, unobtrusive man. He is not a compromise or happy mean between ferocity and meekness; he is fierce to the nth and meek to the nth.”
Thanks so much for this! Great read. While not all men have these tendencies to the same degree, the majority of men have them to one extent or another and a greater extent than almost any women. Your knight archetype is well-sketched! You’re convincing me (along with my 9 year old son) that it’s time I read lord of the rings. 😂
You're welcome! Hope you two enjoy Lord of the Rings too. I think I was about 11 when we read The Hobbit as a family, and then I read Lord of the Rings on my own at 12.
This is very good. If you're interested I wrote about this as well but came at it from a different angle using an essay by C.S. Lewis about the knight as a masculine archetype that boys and men should be adopting.
https://noahwrites.substack.com/p/the-knight-as-a-masculine-archetype
Men have these tendencies. Pretending otherwise is foolish so the goal has to be finding ways of ensuring those tendencies are directed in virtuous ways.
“The important thing about this ideal is, of course, the double demand it makes on human nature. The knight is a man of blood and iron, a man familiar with the sight of smashed faces and the ragged stumps of lopped-off limbs; he is also a demure, almost a maidenlike, guest in hall, a gentle, modest, unobtrusive man. He is not a compromise or happy mean between ferocity and meekness; he is fierce to the nth and meek to the nth.”
- C.S. Lewis, The Need for Chivalry
Thanks so much for this! Great read. While not all men have these tendencies to the same degree, the majority of men have them to one extent or another and a greater extent than almost any women. Your knight archetype is well-sketched! You’re convincing me (along with my 9 year old son) that it’s time I read lord of the rings. 😂
You're welcome! Hope you two enjoy Lord of the Rings too. I think I was about 11 when we read The Hobbit as a family, and then I read Lord of the Rings on my own at 12.
Aw thank you! He’s read them. I haven’t. 😂🫣