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Molly Merillat
Andrew Selich
ENG 112
22 February 2017
Heroes Below the Clouds
King Arthur and Roy Hobbs: a champion of bravery and selflessness. Two men are
presented with major conflicts but lead themselves and others toward a prosperous ending. They
lived through hardships but overcame all declaring them major hero’s. Summing them up is
reflected in a perfect quote by Joseph Campbell stating, “A hero is someone who has given his or
her life to something bigger than oneself.”
King Arthur, though he is a dynamic character, his values stay static throughout the film.
Arthur is a brave fighter all throughout the film but his reasons to raise his sword and take
another man’s life changes. Arthur fights in the beginning for the preservation of his utopia,
Rome. Influenced at young age, Arthur is told of the perfect democracy upheld in Rome and it
becomes Arthur’s perception to preserve these values. Arthur’s father was a Roman soldier who
died in battle and Arthur’s mentor as a child was an important official at Rome, causing a young
misconstrued Arthur wanting to validate himself. He gives up fifteen years of his life to serve
and protect under the Roman rule. Arthur’s values bring him to think of this not as servitude but
as his civic duty, while his Knights seem to think otherwise. Arthur is a leader who thinks for the
group and puts others above himself and because of that the Knights have won countless battles
outnumbered. Over the years, Arthur’s men have been killed but six loyal fighters still stand
behind him. At the beginning of the film, Arthur and the Knights have to ensure the safe arrival
of Bishop Germanius, and they fight the natives with the help of Roman military. This is the
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final homestretch for Arthur and the Knights working under the command of Rome. But Bishop
Germanius reveals that they must perform one more life risking task in order to become free
men. Arthur is the only one not upset from this news because he sees this as one more task under
his civic duty. Clearly identified, Arthur is a man who lives by his values but later on we see his
values change. Arthur and his loyal Knights set out to complete the duty of returning Roman
official Marius and his family to Rome, saving them from the treacherous path of the Saxons, a
Germanic tribe ruthlessly trying to take over and invade the rest of Europe. When the Knights
reach Marius’s estate, we see hungry, overworked indentured slaves working under harsh
conditions. These abhorrent conditions appall Arthur. The Romans he imagined are superlative
citizens who believe in compassion and benevolence. He discovers more torture taking place in a
vault underground–inflicting pain or hunger onto slaves because they wronged God, meaning the
