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Wisdom from the Movie “Kingdom of Heaven” - (2168)

Introduction

There are some movies that leave you with some pieces of advice that at point or another in your life or in the lives of others prove useful.

This movie: “Kingdom of Heaven” was terrible to watch (too many battle scenes and people dying) but offered some very useful messages.

In this post, I have presented a few, that have come in handy at point or another.

Just to give you a bit of context, the movie is about the crusades, where the French and English were trying to defend the “Holy City” – Jerusalem from Islamic occupation. The topic of religion and God is a constant theme in the movie. It is very violent though, matching it frankly, quite awful to watch.


Your Soul is in Your Keeping Alone

An interesting dialogue between the French appointed king of Jerusalem and French Knight, the protagonist of the movie. Note, the king wears that metal mask because he has leprosy.


King Baldwin IV: Come forward. I am glad to meet Godfrey's son. He was one of my greatest teachers. He was there when, playing with the other boys, my arm was cut. It was he, not my father's physicians, who noticed that I felt no pain. He wept when he gave my father the news... that I am a leper. The Saracens say that this disease is God's vengence against the vanity of our kingdom. As wretched as I am, these Arabs believe that the chastisement that awaits me in hell is far more severe and lasting. If that's true, I call it unfair. Come. Sit.

[they sit down on opposite sides of a chessboard]

King Baldwin IV: Do you play?
Balian of Ibelin: No.
King Baldwin IV: The whole world is in chess. Any move can be the death of you. Do anything except remain where you started, and you can't be sure of your end. Were you sure of your end once?
Balian of Ibelin: I was.
King Baldwin IV: What was it?
Balian of Ibelin: To be buried a hundred yards from where I was born.
King Baldwin IV: And now?
Balian of Ibelin: Now I sit in Jerusalem, and look upon a king.
King Baldwin IV: [Baldwin chuckles] When I was sixteen, I won a great victory. I felt in that moment I would live to be a hundred. Now I know I shall not see thirty. None of us know our end, really, or what hand will guide us there. A king may move a man, a father may claim a son, but that man can also move himself, and only then does that man truly begin his own game. Remember that howsoever you are played or by whom, your soul is in your keeping alone, even though those who presume to play you be kings or men of power. When you stand before God, you cannot say, "But I was told by others to do thus," or that virtue was not convenient at the time. This will not suffice. Remember that.
Balian of Ibelin: I will.


War Over the Holy City

Saladin: Will you yield the city?

Balian of Ibelin: Before I lose it, I will burn it to the ground. Your holy places - ours. Every last thing in Jerusalem that drives men mad.

Saladin: I wonder if it would not be better if you did.

All of Nothing

Balian of Ibelin: It is a kingdom of conscience, or nothing.

True Image Made

Godfrey of Ibelin: You are not what you were born, but what you have within yourself to be.

Ethics for Humanity

Balian of Ibelin: What man is a man who does not make the world better.

Where but in my Heart

Balian of Ibelin: [praying to his wife] how can you be in hell when you're in my heart.

End (2168).

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