National Treasure: A character study

Last week was kind of a "treasure" week.  I wrote about watching the movie Treasure Planet, and looking at some ties there.  William Tychonievich wrote about that "Hidden Treasures" cereal, and made some additional ties to and commentary around Treasure Planet.

I think I've mentioned that a typical Friday night in our household is a pizza and movie night.  I make the pizzas, and the kids watch a movie.  Being Friday today, you can guess what is on the agenda for tonight.

Last Friday was a big day for our youngest because he got to end his moratorium on screen time.  He sustained a pretty bad concussion a couple weeks ago, and with pediatric protocols these days, or at least with his particular situation, they recommended no screens (or very limited screen time)  for a period of time.  That put movies off of the table for him until this past Friday.

He was excited because no one looks forward to movie night more than this guy, let me tell you.

The movie he ended up wanting to watch was called National Treasure.  The fact that he selected that movie last Friday isn't so much a coincidence with my own post on Treasure (since I published that post later that evening after the post) but it was a coincidence with William's post, just a bit I think.

Anyway, National Treasure is a completely unrealistic but pretty fun treasure-hunter movie.  The protagonists follow clues to try and find a treasure that has been kept hidden and secret for centuries.  Of course, Masons take center stage, with all sorts of secrets, and there is a fair amount of American history that gets woven into the story, and odd real-world details that get inserted into these clues.  As one example, the time shown on the image of Independence Hall on the back of a $100 bill is an important clue that shows the way to yet another clue.

If you suspend your disbelief enough and don't think about them too much, the clues all work and it is a fun mix of US history and treasure hunting.

A few spoilers follow, as when I was watching the movie, I noted a few things that I told myself I would get down.  As I am about to lap last week with another movie night tonight, I figured now or never.  I am just going to cite just couple things that really stood out that seem to tie to the story on this blog, starting with names of the 3 main characters.

Riley, Ben, and Abigail = Peter, Faramir, and Eowyn

There are 3 primary protagonists in the film who work together to find the hidden treasure.   I will introduce them and then, of course, use their names to give their rough symbolic representation.  And again, these characters can definitely be applied to other individuals or even groups - I am using them for my purposes for this story here for no more good reason than it seems relatively easy to see them that way.

First, we have the character Ben Gates.  He is played by the actor Nicholas Cage.  The name Ben has come up before on this blog, and has been determined to mean "The Son".  Thus, Faramir has been the historic association with this name, and we will leave that here as well.  Thus, the last name Gates has a pretty literal meaning here, as, along with Peter, Faramir seems to have something to do with Gates and Doorways, and their opening.

The actor's name, Nicolas Cage, could also be meaningful.  I have mentioned that currently we (all of us) are in a prison.  Cage is another word for prison, and Nicolas means "Victory of the people".  The work that Faramir is engaged in, in the end, results in a very literal victory for the people and their release from their current prison.  As Joseph Smith said, the prisoners shall go free.

Next up, we have Riley Poole.  He is Ben's partner, and is somewhat of a genius when it comes to all sorts of handy things relative to their adventure.  The character name, however, is not as immediately obvious.  Riley can mean "Rye clearing".  Rye is a type of cereal grain, and actually a member of the Wheat family.  Thus, when I read rye clearing, I think not of just a clearing, like in the woods or something, but of an action.  Either to clean the Wheat, or to collect and gather it - to 'clear' it.  This seems like it might make sense, particularly given what we have determined as Peter-Thomas Marsh's role of a doorkeeper and usher:  being able to help remove the Wheat (as in God's Family) to Holy Places.

I like this definition on its own, but Riley also means "Wood clearing", and we can imagine clearing here to perhaps be used in the same capacity as I used in Rye.  One who clears forests or woods.  Which at first sounds Saruman-ish, I guess, but I imagine this differently.  As one who perhaps helps tend and manage the woods, or something like that.

Poole, as a last name, means a pond, lake, or creek.  For this, I don't have much, other than the traditional story of Peter attempting to walk on water, but that might be a bit of a stretch.

The actor's name is Justin Bartha.  This is a good one, I think.

Justin means simply "Righteous", and Bartha is a Hungarian surname that means "Shepherd".  We have the Righteous Shepherd.  Given the traditional story at the end of the Gospel of John which has Jesus asking Peter to feed and watch over his sheep, this is a pretty on on the nose, I think.  This chargeto take care of the sheep, by the way, was repeated to Peter as Thomas B. Marsh, and the other Apostles who would work with him, in D&C 112.

In addition, Bartha can also be an Elvish word, which means "to doom".  In this sense, to doom means to judge or decree.  In multiple places in both the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants it is cited that the 12 Apostles who were with Jesus in "Jerusalem" (Tirion) will be judges.  For example, here is what the angel says to Nephi in the vision captured in 1 Nephi:

And he said unto me: Thou rememberest the twelve apostles of the Lamb? Behold they are they who shall judge the twelve tribes of Israel; wherefore, the twelve ministers of thy seed shall be judged of them; for ye are of the house of Israel.

And these twelve ministers whom thou beholdest shall judge thy seed. And, behold, they are righteous forever; for because of their faith in the Lamb of God their garments are made white in his blood.

Peter-Marsh would have been with Jesus in Tirion, and is one of these 12 Judges, or those who set a "doom" on Israel, including those who are over on Eressea (the Lehite Promised Land).

Anyway, so actually quite a lot going on with the name of Riley Poole/ Justin Bartha in representing Peter-Marsh, the Righteous Judge, Shephard, and Wheat Gatherer.

So, we have Faramir and Peter-Marsh.  

The 3rd character is named Abigail Chase.  She is archivist, which is important for the movie but also for our story, in that she is a preserver of historical document.

Abigail means "My father is joyful".  This name doesn't have any real apparent connection to the Being I think this person represents, at first blush, but I think it does.  In Doug's additional writings, there is a description of Thingol (who again is John and Aragorn) as a Being filled with Joy.  He has faced something like 'nothingness' come out of it, and goes around wherever Melkor has set up shop, and spread joy.  Here is the specific quote I am thinking of:

And yet, came [Thingol], renewed in Spirit, sudden to lighten hearts, near Eru-Home, and without Eru-place, seeing there, in challenge, Melkor’s wide filling [falling?] deceptions, that he of the Darkness’s Mastery, was now set to Rule; Not only the night, but also by Eru, being given rule of Day, the night every day-time, to bound, and constrain; There following as Melkor to far out shores descended, was a trailing True-Friend of Eru Light, and where so landing, softly, in Melkor’s devices, thundering came his heart-song, joyful, to all there that Evil-Dark now Abiding;

Sorry, that is the way that writing goes, but the important thing to tease out is that Thingol is positioned as a Being who specifically brings a joyful song to all places that Melkor or other evil is.   This may sound like something far different than what we envision from the actual stories of Thingol or even Aragorn, who weren't particularly bursting with outward displays of joy, but such is how it goes when we descend into these types of situations.  We don't always seem as we are, and likely have to taken on  roles that aren't completely suited to our true Being, in a way. 

Anway, recall that I have Eowyn-Ilmare as a daughter of the Being who played Thingol, but from a time pre-dating this world (whatever his name would have been in a far distant past existence), and so the name of Abigail might make sense here.

As to "Chase", if you look this word up on Etymonline, the first result you get back is "to hunt".  Yesterday, we connected Eowyn with Artemis, the Goddess of the Hunt, and so this seems to be pretty straightforward.

As with the other two characters, looking at the actor's name also is helpful.  The actress in this case is Diane Kruger.

Diane is a straight conversion to Artemis, and to Wonder Woman.  Also in yesterday's post, I highlighted that Wonder Woman's name is Diane, and this is the name of the Roman goddess who is equivalent to the Greek Artemis.

Kruger is German in origin, meaning "jug" and can either apply to a tavern-keeper, or to a potter, one who shapes clay.  I think both are applicable to Eowyn.  For instance, in Xanadu it is mentioned that Sonny (the Son - Faramir) is going to need a drink.  The movie in fact ends with Sonny receiving a drink from Kira (representing Eowyn).  It is Eowyn who has the beverages to dispense, I think, at least to a few folks, as part of her role, so Kruger seems to work just fine here.

Collecting history - a sample scene that illustrates these connections

So, that is where the names took me.  Perhaps you have other ideas, or think that this is looking too deeply into their names, which is definitely a possibility.  

There is a scene, though, that I am going to specifically refer to that also reinforces some of these character references, and the story I have been exploring here.  There are actually quite a few references, winks, scenes, etc., but this one I thought was a good one to cover here.

Ben and Riley actually first meet Abigail as they are trying to inform or warn people that the antagonist of the story, Ian, is going to steal the Declaration of Independence.  No one believes them, and Abigail ultimately doesn't as well, but during the scene Ben makes a specific reference to some buttons that Abigail has been collecting.  Here is the scene, and then I will mention a couple things:

From the opening dialogue, there are a number of Easter Eggs.  For instance, when they walk in, they assume that "Dr. Chase" is a man, only to discover that Chase is a woman.  One of Eowyn's story elements in LOTR was dressing up as a man in disguise in order to accompany the rest of the Rohirrim to Minas Tirith, only to be revealed as Eowyn to Merry in her conflict with the Witch King.

The part I want to focus on, though, is the button collection.  Ben (who is calling himself Paul in the scene  - a wink to Peter's biblical counterpart, perhaps?) goes and inspects Abigail's collection of George Washington campaign buttons.  She gets agitated and doesn't want him to touch those buttons.

He references that it is a nice collection, but she is missing one button, however.  It is not as apparent early in the scene, but later at the end of the above clip there is a zoom-in on the collection and we see that she has exactly 12 buttons.  So, she is missing the 13th.

At the initial visit, Ben says that he had found the button that she is missing.  He will ultimately send that missing button to Abigail, thus completing her collection.  She has all 13.

In talking about the collection, Ben explicitly ties it to 'history', and that in putting together that collection, Abigail has assembled history.  His exact quote is:

"You know that really is a nice collection.  Must have taken you a long time to hunt down all that history"

So, we have a reference to hunting again, and also the notion that this took a significant amount of time to pull together.  This is actually the quote that first made me take note of the entire scene and think that there must be something here.

In my story, Eowyn was charged with pulling together and aggregating what I am calling the Book of the Lamb, perhaps.  This Book comprises the testimony or words of the 12 Apostles of the Lamb.  I believe those words may have been captured on Stones, represented in this scene as the 12 buttons in Abigail-Eowyn's collection.  

But there is a 13th.  Recall that in Lehi's dream at the very beginning of the Book of Mormon, it is 13 Beings he sees, with One being brighter than the sun, and then 12 others.  My view is that whatever Book is being pulled together (and perhaps represented in part by the Book Lehi himself was given by that bright Being), there will be 13 stories or witnesses, perhaps, as represented by 13 Stones or these buttons.

That 13th witness or Stone is the Sawtooth Stone, then, and it is the one that Eowyn is currently lacking or has not been able to receive a story from.  Faramir will come into possession of it at some point, and through the link of the Anor and Ithil Stone, share it with Eowyn, thus completing her collection and the Book itself.  I don't know if that is all right or not, but it is the story I have fairly consistently explored on this blog, and it seems to be playing out in this scene.   At least I can see it in the scene, I suppose.

Anyway, you never know if you are so wrapped up in your own story that you see things or analogies in other things that aren't really there, so who knows.  The whole analogy could unravel at a more detailed level, but in general terms, it seems to work

To conclude this post, though, there was one other detail that stood out to me later in the movie.

The magic spectacles

In the scene above, Ben mentions the map is invisible.  How do you read an invisible map?  Well, the solution in the movie was through magical spectacles that looked like this:

Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon characters, which although were not invisible, may have well have been so given that there was no way of reading or translating them without magical means.  In Joseph Smith's instance, that was accomplished through spectacles that were afterward referred to as the Urim and Thummim, whether rightly or wrongly.

Modern scholars, LDS and otherwise, have all seemed to cave to the notion that the translation happened by Joseph dropping a seer stone into a hat and putting his face into it.  I think this is pretty dubious, by the way, as they rely on accounts many years later and by people who weren't actually involved.   Both Joseph and Oliver, the only two people who were consistently involved in the translation from start to finish, were consistent and unanimous in their contemporaneous claim that the spectacles were used throughout the translations.  Meaning, looking at the plates with magic glasses. 

With that out of the way, I think these spectacles are a nod to those interpreters, or at least they stood out to me in that way.

So, just a few nuggets from National Treasure.  There are more things I noticed, but again, just wanted to get a few things down and captured from the movie, in part so I don't forget.