Princess Bride - A Story Desire Re-Orientation

When we think about the movie Princess Bride, the image that floats into our mind is that of Westley and Buttercup looking into each others eyes and then perhaps Prince Humperdinck on the side looking like someone else ate his Thanksgiving pumpking pie. But the real hero of the movie is the grand father who helps his apathetic, bored grand son to care about life and know the meaning of love. 

Ironically, the core of Princess Bride is not the Princess or her suitors, but the love between a grand father and his grand son who open and close the movie. What stuck me this time was how the relationship between the grandfather and the grandson was en example of the relationship between God and human beings - depicting our strategies of distraction and resistance, and, God's relentless pursuit. 

The movie starts with a bored kid wanting just to play video games and distract himself from his boredom. His mom tells him that this grand father will be with him. The kid says that he does not want to hangout with his grand father - grand father is not as interesting as the video games after all. Not unlike how sometimes we feel with God - the "highs" of the world, whether it be Netflix or the next fashion fad or the next rung in the ladder of the "American Dream", seem more interesting than intimacy with God. But the grand father, like God, does not give up. His love keeps chasing us, as the song goes.

Grand father's strategy to draw him into a story that fires up his imagination and helps him see that story of true love satisfies his desires for adventure in a deeper way than any video game ever could. The grand father tells the boy a story of war, justice and pursuit of true love - which is the story of Princess Bride. Listening to the story of Westley's undying love for Buttercup, overcoming Prince Humperdinck's schemes, brings alive something in the imagination of the kid. The kid who did not want to get away from the video games is now fully engrossed in the story, he is so worried about the fate of Westley and Buttercup that the Grand father has to stop the story.

Here is the important part. The Grand Father does not deny or try to represses the desires of the grand son. He merely re-orients it to its true object, the pursuit of true love. The reason why the grand son wants to play video games is to forget his boredom by going on an adventure of the video game. The grand father knows that the impulse for adventure that his grandson has is miss directed if it is solely directed at video games. In resisting the grand father's story telling the kid says he only wants a story about sports, the grand father entices him saying there will be sword fights! On hearing, "sword fights," the grand son's eyes widen. So the Grand Father affirms the grand son's desire for adventure by firing up his imagination and re-orienting it towards the pursuit of true love - which is way more satisfying than just moving from one level of achievement to the next on the video game.  

Sometimes we are like the little kid, resisting God's call into the bigger story because we are stuck in our own little preoccupations. But the good news is that God does not leave us there, like the unrelenting Grand Father, God keep pursuing us, drawing us away from our preoccupations into a bigger story, firing up our imagination and satisfying our deep desires. Our desires are not denied, they merely are re-oriented towards their proper object. In Act 17, when Paul engages with the Athenian, he see the idols made for unknown Gods. He does not condemn their actions. Rather, he sees in that the desire for worship of the Divine. Paul does not deny their desires, rather he re-orients that to the God of the Bible. In our life too we desire beautiful things, we like good clothes/dresses. Our desire for beautiful things points to our deeper desire for worship whose ideal object is the beauty of God as we see in Revelation 4 where John is at loss for words to describe the beauty of God's throne room. Our desire for excellence at work points to our deep desire to creativity. God gave us the desire for creativity so that it would be deeply and lastingly satisfied in participation with God's kingdom building. Our desire for Netflix belies our deep desire for enduring stories of adventure, the biggest of which is the story of God’s kingdom.

In the grand father's story, Westley tells Buttercup, "As you wish" which is a euphemism for "I love you." When the grandfather finishes the story, the kid is overjoyed that Westley and Buttercup get together. The kid realizes that the Grand Father really had done him a favor in taking him away from his video games and re-orienting his need for adventure into the bigger story of pursuit of true love. He shyly asks his grand father to come and tell him another story again! Grand father replies, "as you wish," the last line of the movie. The kid has been transformed from the apathetic, bored video gamer into someone whose imagination is fired up about the bigger story of pursuit of true love.

In one sense each of our lives is like a video game that the grand son is preoccupied with. Our life has multiple levels of achievement, each level has its goals. We achieve goal, complete each level, whether it be climbing the corporate ladder, or pass through life stages - as in getting married, having kids, learning to play the guitar or paint or make pottery. All of these are good things. But if these good desires become preoccupations which hinder us from seeing the bigger story of love and connection to God, our neighbors and creation, then we are like the kid, limiting ourselves to our petty video-game-distractions. We have been given deep desires that will be satiated in the story of pursuit of love, beauty and truth in God's kingdom building. The Good News is that, like the Princess Bride grand father, God does not leave us to our petty preoccupations, rather he re-orients our desires, firing up our imagination drawing us int His story of kingdom building.