I Choose You, Anakinchu!

by Brian Martin

For a term as suggestively singular as “Chosen One”, there sure are a lot of them.  In fact, a Wikipedia search of “Chosen One” unveils a list of landmark fictional heroes like Harry Potter, Buffy Summers, and Tim Tebow.  What do these characters all have in common?  They are ALL relatively recent additions to pop culture.  Yes, there seem to be a lot of people running around today who are preordained to overthrow something.  Hell, four years ago people were saying the same thing about the President-elect.

Literature is full of Chosen Ones.  We had, of course, The Jesus.  Surely He was a Chosen One.  There was Arthur Pendragon.  Then…um…Rodimus Prime?  Was he next?  Were there really no more Chosen Ones for 1,000 years of storytelling?  What happened?  And more importantly, why are some of them complete fops?

It’s easy to figure out why writers love prophecies surrounding chosen heroes rising to rescue people, save the world, or kill all the Jedi.  Divine right gives us instant character motivation.  Why is the hero the hero?  Well, because he’s meant to be the hero.  There!  What more do you want???

Anakin Skywalker is certainly a product of this device, although less in the eyes of viewers (who know where he’s going to end up) and more in terms of his own worldview, since the only reason he even decides he’s capable of being an insufferable Force-wielding dick by Attack of the Clones is because he’s had people telling him he’s the “Chosen One” for ten years.

"How much you wanna bet I could throw a football clear over them mountains?"

Why does Qui-Gon Jinn even bother rescuing Anakin from his impossibly nice slave resort on Tatooine, when by his own admission he “didn’t come here to free slaves”?  A prophesy.  Why does Obi-Wan train Anakin, even though he clearly hates kids?  Qui-Gon told him about the prophesy.  When it all goes to shit at the end, what does Obi-Wan shout at Anakin?  “You were the Chosen One!”

"Seriously, kid!  What the fuck?!"

If Anakin was the prophesied “chosen one”, then why was he so miserably BAD at filling that role?  Wasn’t his son a better chosen one than he was, a hero in the vein of Arthur, rising from obscurity to topple an oppressive regime?  And did anyone ever need to refer to Luke as a “chosen one”?  No, because he was given perfectly serviceable character motivation.  He had a reason to be doing what he was doing, unlike Anakin, who (other than the fact that he liked shiny objects) had no real reason to leave home in The Phantom Menace.

By comparison, The Matrix at least gave its chosen one a logical, perfectly relatable reason for embracing his destiny: Neo was essentially living in Office Space.  If that isn’t motivation to embrace fate when it comes calling, I don’t know what is.

"Oh, no!  I totally forgot those T.P.S. reports!  Bogus!"

Neo has obviously been waiting for this moment his whole life, since his online handle is an incredibly lazy anagram of “one”.  It’s easy to picture a young Thomas Anderson sitting around moping, listening to Rage Against the Machine, and saying, “I wish someone would tell me I’m a chosen one!”  It’s no surprise, then, that Neo fares pretty well as a chosen one.  For a while.  Then comes The Matrix Reloaded, where we discover two things about Neo: 1) he should have taken more philosophy courses in college and 2) he, like Anakin and Jesus, also has a high Midichlorian count.

How else would you explain this?

By the end of the second Matrix movie, Neo’s status as chosen one is looking a lot less “action hero” and a lot more “well-spoken scholar/diplomat”, a role that, obviously, was never going to suit Keanu Reeves very well.  And ultimately how effective is Neo at being a chosen one?  Who wins at the end of the Matrix movies?

The Matrix movies end with a stalemate that even the Architect and Oracle agree probably isn’t permanent.  All the bullet-time in the world, and Neo couldn’t even create a lasting peace?  At least Anakin eventually tossed his boss down a reactor shaft.

So what’s the deal with “Chosen Ones”?  Are they cop-outs, just to get out of building real character motivation?  I’d like to think they represent more than that, showing us that anyone is capable of achieving great things when called upon to act.  All we’ve learned from these two schmucks, though, is that where destiny goes, whining and ineptitude follow close behind.

Next: Mel gets to discuss Deus Ex Machina: Crutch of the Damned.