hope and Helm's Deep

My view of the world used to be that life--whether mine specifically or human existence in general--was like the battle at Helm's Deep in Tolkien's trilogy. We're stuck in a dismal chasm with no escape, a small band fighting to the death and watching our friends fall beside us. It is deep night with dawn a long way off, and hope of rescue even further. The enemy blankets the valley in front of us, foully raging at us and mocking our predicament. We sent for help--we know it is coming--but it seems highly unlikely that help will arrive in time.

And then, just when we completely lose hope and charge out to deaths that will be, at least, valiant, Gandalf comes charging over the mountains with reinforcements and drives away the hordes. The tide of battle shifts completely--but it is a gift, an amazing miracle, that he arrived in time.

I have been told--and i am coming to realize--that this is not an accurate view of the world. ;-) People have different metaphors for life, and mine will probably always be a battle (versus a race, a game or a journey) but i'm trying to no longer see it as a losing battle. I don't even think it's accurate to see it as losing-the-battle-but-winning-the-war. On the other hand, i have no solid image with which to replace the picture of Helm's Deep in my mind.

I may be the elf that dies on the wall or i may be Eowyn who lives to fight another battle, but in either case, the situation is not hopeless. (Okay. I'd probably be a mere peasant, not Eowyn or an elf.) Hope was not in vain, not even for those who died before seeing that hope fulfilled. Things might (and did, and do) get worse, but they will be all right someday. It isn't a fluffy, imaginary hope--it was based on something and someone solid and dependable, a person who had given them that hope and had the means to fulfill it.

That is something i would like to see aptly captured in a film: Hope, especially a desperate hope, fulfilled.