Pathfinder

The superimposed phrase “600 years before Christopher Columbus” establishes Pathfinder as a fantasy (as distinct from a history) as clearly as “a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away” establishes Star Wars as a fantasy (as distinct from science fiction). The importance of the distinction is that the story in question has an arbitrary relationship to reality. Fantasies don’t teach us about our world. They present an alternate world, formed specifically for the purpose of allowing us to play out specific inner conflicts in isolation from the circumstances that would otherwise complicate them.

Case in point: many Americans feel conflicted about their status as citizens of a conquering nation and an expanding empire. Liberal movie-going white people such as myself like to believe that if we had been among the first Europeans to live in the western hemisphere, we never would have cheated or killed any Indians, and that if we were living in the White House, the United States would be a benevolent power focused on building coalitions and saving the environment. And yet, those fantasies are informed by the same easy sense of moral entitlement that comes with being a bourgeois citizen of the most powerful nation on Earth.

Enter the “angel of death, redeemed” story. A warrior sent to destroy a nation/race/village/etc. ends up falling on his ass and getting nursed back to health by his would-be-enemies. Then he develops what anthropologists refer to as the “my-people syndrome.” He finds in this alien culture his raison d’etre, and decides to do battle with the ones that brung him.

The fact that in this case, the warrior is actually a child left behind by the conquerors and raised by the natives, doesn’t change the basic template; it’s just the “boy raised by wolves” variation.

The real conceit here is that you as an audience member can travel back in time and vicariously change
the course of American history. The Vikings are invading, threatening to turn pre-America into a land of brutal savages. Oh no, that cannot happen. If that happens, then perhaps Americans will someday exterminate the indigenous population and start disastrous and thinly justified wars with third-world countries. Perhaps if the viewer’s guilt at being more like the savages than the natives can manifest itself as a savage-turned-native and savagely kill a bunch of the savages, then maybe the fate of the continent will change, and things will turn out differently. After all, we’ve still got 600 years, right?

Pathfinder trailer