Following Lucian in "The Rise of the Lycans": Recovering or Redubbing Paganism?

****Spoilers Alert*****














I saw Underworld:The Rise of the Lycans last night and was struck by its overt appropriation of Christian imagery and language at important points in the film. Now, I was a huge fan of the first Underworld movie and have come to appreciate the series and (some of the) other films by LAKESHORE ENTERTAINMENT for how they tell the story of paganism, often with an implicit or explicit contrast with their (mis)perceptions of Christianity. In this way, they are reminiscent of Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons. They demonstrate the worldview of committed outsiders to Christianity that highly likely bear the marks of Christianity's influence outside the bounds of the Orthodox, if you will....

This is nothing new. Julian the Apostate , Roman Emperor from 360-363, attempted to jump-start paganism, with a little help from Iamblichus' Life of Pythagoras (See Christoph Riedweg's book for a more systematic reconstruction of Pythagoras. Pythagoras was a charismatic political religious leader who set up in the late 6th ctry bce a counter-cultural secret religious society, Croton, in southern Italy centered around ritual and sacrifice(of plants). Through Croton, Pythagoras imported into Greco-Roman thought much of what he had learned from his travels (to Egypt and Babylon...) and provided the grist that Plato and Aristotle later developed philosophically.

Underworld has an (Anti)Christ figure, Lucian, the first of the Lycans (quite possibly the offspring of the main badguy and anti-lycan bigot Viktor, since he displays many Vampire-like abilities), a more human-like form of Werewolf. Lucian rivals his (possible) father, during the "dark ages" of (eastern) Europe, and both saves and falls in love with Viktor's vampire daughter(How's that for mucking up the trinity?), Sonja, who becomes pregnant with a hybrid. For this, he is scourged with a whip repeatedly and Sonja is murdered by her own father. Lucian then leads a rebellion against the Viktor and the Vampires, setting the stage for the war dealt with in earlier films. At the end, his 2nd in command says "It is finished," and Lucian says "no, it is not."

Lucian rises through the recognition of his own being and his willingness to learn from the Vampires. If the Vampires represent Constantinized Christianity, which is a reasonable assumption given how a crucifix is briefly depicted as hanging above Viktor's throne (through an oblique angle), then Lucian is the Pagan Anti-thesis and their synthesis is what has been crispy-fried in the womb (or strangled in the manger), only to eventually emerge centuries later. This meta-story is consistent with the appropriation of "Passion of Christ" like imagery for Lucian. As a critic has noted, there's nothing new in this prequel to Underworld, but it does enflesh its mythology with far more detail. The appropriation of and rejection of aspects of Christianity's "mythology" is far more explicit and consistent with its dialectical/evolutionary emphases.

To go back to the Dan Brown analogy, Neo-Pagan Meta-Narratives(bunk history and all) often pay Christianity the compliment of arguing that their belief system is, in fact, true Christianity. In the case of Underworld, they have a tacit moral exemplar Christology, not unlike 3:10 to Yuma or Appaloosa.

So, to be brief(er), I'm not up in arms (over Underworld's appropriation of Christian imagery), like many Christians were after Da Vinci Code came out on film, why? Well, I see anti-christs, when recognized as such, as casting around the world, seeds of points of contact with the true Christ. These seeds are out there and can sprout into a Christology with more integrity, among those who are willing to dig deeper. But yeah, anti-christs, by definition, may also draw people away from the true Christ. Which effect is stronger depends on us, and how we testify to the real Jesus Christ, whose cross was never meant to be a propaganda tool for the expansion of Empire, or Constantinized Christianity.

dlw