The Forgotten Monk

Yesterday one of my favorite movies is came out on DVD, Stardust. It was one of those films that didn’t get the press it deserved and wasn’t handled very well with its marketing.

They don’t make movies like this anymore; it had intrigue, love, humor, adventure, character growth, lots of heart and my one-day future ex-wife Claire Danes (sorry I haven’t call ya baby!) And I can’t wait to own it. (The DVD, cause no one owns Claire Danes!)

With it, there are a few lessons to be learned, most of them relationship ones. Now if you haven’t seen the movie, read no further, watch it, rent it, buy it! It’s worth it. But before you do, subscribe to www.theforgottenmonk.com and come back and read about what I learned from this movie I hold close to my heart. So, lets get to it and be warned spoilers ahead!

******Spoilers******

Our hero, Tristan is trying to win the love of Victoria (Sienna Miller) and after witnessing a falling star, promises to bring it to her to prove his love. One thing leads to another and he finds himself beyond the wall and in a mythical and magical world where he runs into the fallen Star, who, as it turns out is a woman named Yvaine (Claire Danes).

Tristan starts his journey dragging Yvaine along against her will, back to Victoria, to make good on his promise and win his hearts desire. Which leads me to what I wanted to get at, Tristan is a nice guy.

Tristan is a nice guy, with a big heart and a strong resolve. He starts his journey with one of the pitfalls of many a Nice Guy, the idea that he can change her mind by going out of his way to prove his love.

He spends a lot of his time so focused on winning Victoria over that he fails to notice his budding romance with Yvaine. He is so intent on his goal that he isn’t very nice to the lost and scared Yvaine and at one point he even tied her to a tree, in the middle of the forest… in the dead of night.

But there is hope for our hero, he grows up and he evolves as a person. He trades his obsessive one-sided relationship with the manipulative Victoria for a mutual and deep love with Yvaine. But how does one get there? How does a nice guy or gal come to accept that the way they conduct themselves isn’t winning the game? (For more on this, refer to our previous post ‘What Most Idiots Don’t Know about Fear of Failure or you can my article of the Nice Guy here)

A big part of it is that you have to stop thinking of relationships as your feelings towards another person, but rather what feelings are there between the two of you. Tristan and Yvaine grow closer as their adventure continues and they are a better fit with one another, whereas Tristan’s relationship with Victoria, as far as we know, has always been one-sided and she mostly plays with his emotions to get what she wants out of him.

The narrator will tell you that this is not a tale of a boy who becomes a man, but a tale of a man who finds his true love. But really, to win her love, he must first become a man. Tristan grows up, becomes more responsible, mature and sees the error of the way he had been conducting himself. Enough so, that he is willing to let go of who he wants for the love of the woman he needs.

When Tristan reached this point in his journey, even Victoria is taken aback at his transformation. He has the character traits that could have attracted her to him, but at this point she already lost her chance and he’s figured out that she isn’t the one for him.

Stardust has reinforced what I’ve grown to think about being a Nice Guy, many of his actions early on were exactly how I would conduct myself several years ago and his character growth leads him to be more the type of person who can attract and gain someone’s love.

Just remember my Nice Monks out there; sometimes there is a lot of growing up for you to do. You’re not a perfect person as much as you might think you are. And in many cases, you have to let go of who you want, in order to find who you need in your life.

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