The Joy of Discovering Who You Really Are

And what you were made to be

Manticore: How do your boys do in a crisis?
Laurel: Not great! One of them is afraid of everything, and the other isn’t afraid of anything.

I’ve just watched Onward twice in the last week, firstly without my kids, and then with them. I wasn’t sure whether it was suitable given how traumatic it sounded. An elf called Ian (left in pic) turns 16 and is given the chance, through magic, to spend a day with his dad. Ian (Tom Holland) never knew his dad, who died when he was still a baby. I was pretty sure this Pixar presentation was going to be an emotional rollercoaster so I decided to literally screen it first.

Why I loved Onward

There are many reasons to love this movie, but I’m going to focus on the one reason who, frankly, provides all the energy and drive for the film: Barley (right in pic), Ian’s big brother. He is such a refreshing character. Let me explain why.

The action takes place in a world where there is magic. But no-one really uses it any more because everyone has phones and cars, so who cares? Barley does. He’s really interested in and excited by magic and the old ways. He presents as a bit of embarrassing geek – the kind that plays Dungeons and Dragons into adulthood.

It’s really exciting for Barley when his deceased dad has left his two sons a magic staff and a spell so they can get him back for one day. Barley knows how all this works. He grabs the staff and says the spell over and over again. Nothing happens. When his little brother, Ian, says the spell as a bit of an afterthought, there are fireworks. Ian can do magic.

When Two Sons Don’t Go To War

This is all in the first fifteen minutes of the movie, so these aren’t spoilers. And here’s a non-spoiler. This is how you might expect the story to go in what I would call the ‘Jack Black’ version of Onward. If Barley were voiced by Jack Black in High Fidelity mode, the older brother would bitterly resent his younger brother’s magic gift. Their relationship would go badly, as with Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his brothers, and the two sons in the parable known as the Prodigal Son. This is such a common theme in the Bible that whenever a story starts with ‘there were two sons’, your instinct is ‘uh oh’.

Barley is the oldest, and he knows everything there is to know about magic, quests, gems and the old ways. But Barley isn’t Jack Black. He’s Chris Pratt. (The irrepressibly cheery optimist from Parks and Recreation, and the ‘everything is awesome’ Lego Movies). Barley’s reaction to his little brother’s gift and ability is delight, joy and pride. “My little brother can do magic!” he cries. Watch the movie and you’ll appreciate the reason for that. I don’t want to spoil that bit for you which is a refreshing deviation from the norm.

The Blessing of Barley

But here is what’s really great about Barley, and it is only there in the background throughout the movie. Barley calls characters back to their original and true identity. His mum’s new boyfriend, a policeman, is a centaur who drives around the place in a squad car. Barley tells him that a centaur he doesn’t need a car. He was made to run. Later, he runs.

Barley tells some winged Hells Angel sprites who ride around on noisy bikes that their wings are there so they can fly. And in an emergency, fly they do. Barley is also a catalyst for a manticore rediscovering her own need for exciting quests.

Barley is calling people to be who they were made to be. He’s not wagging his finger at them, or saying he’s disappointed in them. If anything he is surprised that they have forgotten who are they really are, because the reality to which they are blind is so much more exciting than the reality they have settled for.

The Weight of Glory

It’s reminiscent of that great awakener, CS Lewis, who said these famous words in a sermon that was published as The Weight of Glory:

It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

Barley would say ‘amen’ to that. But Lewis doesn’t just chide us but lifts our eyes to the cosmic reality of our world:

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.

I hope to take this approach in a new project I’m working on for the autumn, which is a live evangelistic one-man comedy show about the miracles of Jesus. I don’t plan to persuade people that these miracles took place. That would place the audience as judge over the Lord Jesus Christ. No, thanks.

Moreover, most people have already made up their minds, one way or the other. Or think they have. Like Lewis and Barley, I prefer the option of calling someone back to something they not only think could be true, but can’t imagine not being true.

I mention this in my forthcoming book, The Gospel According To A Sitcom Writer, which is mostly jokes, but contains a more serious section about why I believe in miracles (with reference to Father Ted, The Vicar of Dibley and Rev). At the end of that chapter, I write this:

No matter how sceptical we become, even when it tips over into cynicism, we cannot extinguish the hope we have that sometimes God breaks through into our reality and does something we thought impossible. That’s what a miracle is. It is a sign of hope. And hope is something we can never ex­tinguish. If we’re honest, we must admit that not believing in miracles is the most intolerable burden.

You are an eternal being born into a world of wonder. I’m with Barley and Lewis. Onward!

You can pre-order a signed copy of The Gospel According to a Sitcom Writer after Easter.

If you want to hear my chat with reformed mythologist Nate Morgan Locke about Onward (before I’d seen it), or other animated family movies, listen to Popcorn Parenting here. We’re recorded episodes about Toy Story 1 and 2, Wall-E, Hercules, Tangled, Surf’s Up, Moana, Frozen II and the disaster movie that was Soul. New episodes are coming after Easter 2021 so please subscribe to the podcast.