Prince of Persia: The Bond of Brothers

A/N: This post is particularly full of theories and ideas. If you have any theological disputes with what I've said, I welcome your opinion. I should have spent a lot more time on these ideas than I did, but I simply cannot research them; I don't have the time. If there is anything you feel is untrue or misleading, please tell me.

Continuing on with the idea that we are the undeserved, adopted, beloved children of the King of kings, just as Dastan is the undeserved, adopted, beloved child of Persia’s ruler, I would like to take a look at Dastan’s role in the story, the role of his brothers, and the their relationships with each other and the king.

“The bond of brothers is what holds the Persian empire together,” the king tells his children. The bond of brothers.

The biological sons of the king of Persia are good men, and they shall inherit the throne. As the narrator tells us at the beginning of the movie, Dastan has “no hope of the throne.” His adopted brothers the firstborn. He gives them reverence throughout the movie; maybe not obedience, but he respects them totally as the heirs to the throne. He has no qualms with them being the firstborn, with them being related by blood to the king.

I would like to put forth that Dastan’s two brothers can be paired with the Jews. They are God’s chosen people, the firstborn. The Gentiles are adopted, grafted in, only by the kindness of God. We are the prodigal son. We are the adopted, without any right to be royal.

We are like Dastan in that way, and it is interesting to note that his love for his father was just as strong as his brothers’; we love our Father like our Jewish brothers and sisters do.

It almost seemed, throughout the movie, that Dastan loved his father more than his brothers did. I don’t claim to understand the hearts of men, but I will note that Dastan knew he was completely undeserving of royalty.

“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God…” – Romans 3:23

And I know that Jesus said this,

“Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, [the same] loveth little.” – Luke 7:47 (Luke 7:36-50)

I would also refer here to Luke 15:11-32, the story of the Prodigal Son. Dastan was not the son who left and returned, was lost and was found, but, there was an older brother and all that the Father had was his. This story meshes very well, but I’m only going to touch on it here and let you read into the rest.

SUMMARY

• Dastan's father = God
• Dastan's brothers = the Jews (Luke 15:11-32)
• They had Dastan's respect and reverence.
• Dastan = Gentiles, grafted in
• Dastan did not expect the inheritance of the throne nor did he seek it. 
• Dastan's love for his father = Our love for God
• Dastan's love for his father was different from that of his brothers because he knew he was undeserving (Romans 3:23; Luke 7:47).

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Prince of Persia: He Found Me

Dastan was an orphan. He was an orphan with a good heart, but he was still an orphan. He was still without a father. And then he did something worthy of death.

We are orphans. We may think we’re good, but we’re still without fathers. And we have done things worth of death, worthy of an eternity in hell, worthy of total destruction. Even our good deeds are like filthy rags to God, the king. And we deserve to lower our head and have it severed from our bodies.

And then the king shows up. Instead of condemning the boy, he decides to take him as his own son. Dastan the fatherless becomes Dastan the son of the king, a prince of Persia.

What a beautiful picture of God! To lift an orphan from the gutter and not only clothe and feed him, but to love him, to call him son, to make him beloved. That is what God has done with us; He has not only saved our lives and our souls, but He has called us beloved. He has called us His children. We are the children of the king.

There is a scene from Prince of Persia not yet available on the internet. I wish I could quote the conversation in full between Dastan and Tamina or post a video of the scene. However, since the movie is still new to America, I can do neither. But, in my memory, Tamina was goading him, telling him that he walked just like a prince of Persia, haughty, determined, and spoiled since birth. He turned on her then, abruptly, and told her who he was. He told her that he was not a prince, that the king had taken him into the palace. He told her that he had grown up in the gutters, and then he said three words that floored me, that sent tremors through my heart.

“And then,” Dastan looked at Tamina, his face wrenched with anguish and guilt over his beloved father’s death, and swallowed. “He…” he looked to the side, trying to decide how to explain what had happened, how he had come from the gutter to be a prince of Persia, “…found me.”

I think that’s pretty self-explanatory.

He found me. I don’t know how it happened, it wasn’t anything that I did, but He found me.

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