The only real inconsistancy that bothers me in the film is the scene where Julia is watching her past lives and sees that she was Prince Valiant in a past life. If doing brave things and such helps you move on to the next level then wouldn't Prince Valiant have been moved to the next level?
He's taking the knife out of the Cheese!
Do you think he wants some cheese?
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Wouldn't it be braver NOT to sack the castle? There's physical courage and there's moral courage.
I don't think he was actually supposed to be Prince Valiant(who is fictional), he just had the haircut. Perhaps he was in the process of putting down a peasant revolt or massacring a town of Saracens when we saw him leading troops. Or perhaps he was merely fighting to increase the wealth and holdings of himself and/or his feudal lord. These are things real knights did.
I think you (and I) may be overanalyzing something that was mainly a gag, though it is part of showing what a quality person Julia was. There are many aspects to courage, Prince Valiant may have been the one where she learned boldness and physical courage. She may have needed a few more lives to become a complete person.
I think, and I'm trying to remember here, there is more to "moving on" than just avoiding or beating fear.
The reviewers (or the prosecuter more accurately) were looking at fear in Brooks' case because that was his main issue in his life that kept him from living a complete life. Maybe he had everything else down, but the fear was still there and he hadn't beaten it yet.
Meanwhile, Prince Valiant (or whoever it really was) had other faults that were reviewed and determined that he/she/they needed to go back and try again.
The point is, I don't think "moving on" was just about being fearless. It's about being a complete person and living a complete life. Brooks' issue just happened to be fear.
Being brave and being without fear are two different things, aren't they? "Brave" means that you face things that are frightening, even though you may be afraid. So being brave doesn't mean you don't have fear.
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Fight the "everyday atrocities"!
The question implies that Prince Valiant was the epitome of bravery, actually. We don't really know what at that time was considered the high-water mark for the ability to face one's fears. I don't know that the whole idea was that you had to be fully able to face any fear that came your way in order to move up. You had to be able to deal with them, however that may come.
For example, Daniel speaking in public. If he did that some time later, would it mean that he had to do it with out fear, or as the Dragon Lady put it, "He never faced his fear." He never tried it it again, was her proclamation. Perhaps true. But, if say he agreed to another speaking engagement some time in his life after that, and he went out on stage, his hands shaking and sweaty. His voice at times, sounding like he was speaking into a fan on a cool summer night from how hard he was shaking. Would that mean he was brave, or had simpily looked his fear right in it's fiery face and stood it down?
But, would a person, sitting in a Psychiatrics office, telling the therapist of their deepest fear and talking in great detail about the events that set that in moving be also facing their fear?
The game show was all about challenging others to face theirs, a sort of “Face your fear” game of chicken, or as they tried to term it on American TV, “Fear Factor”, but that turned out to be really gross out factor.
It seems that the determination of what was a person who faced their fears and was thus smarter was subjective.
Anyway.. Prince Valiant did move up, and became something else.
My first guess was Valiant got the defender Daniel got when Bob was away; he could defend an innocent man to Death Row. Another theory I had was that there are different types of fear in this world like physical, emotional, intellectual, etc. I've heard of soldiers that can exhibit acts of bravery and save dozens of people in combat yet have great difficulty telling their loved ones how important they are to them. From what Julia said, her former lives were males so perhaps she went back in x amount of female lives to help her develop her emotions, become a complete soul, and move on.
shareLOL!
Great movie, but that inconsistancy always bugged me.