We know he has heart and experience, knowledge and skill but the latest article over at Lucasfilm delves into the courage and perseverance of Henry Jones Jr. aka Indiana Jones, from his childhood right through to the present.
Indiana Jones is not a fearless man. But he doesn’t overcome adversity in spite of his fears. Indy is a courageous hero because he is afraid. He isn’t a superhero with a last trick up his sleeve. There is no secret to Indy’s triumphs. He simply does not quit, and with a bit of luck (or quite a lot of it), he breaks through.
“I’m like a bad penny, I always turn up,” Indy tells the duplicitous Elsa Schneider in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. After Indy manages to trail his foes all the way to a secluded island in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, an exasperated Rene Belloq tells his adversary that “your persistence surprises even me.”
When a much-younger Indy becomes embroiled in a murder mystery while visiting Egypt’s Valley of the Kings, he and his companion T. E. Lawrence (the real-life “Lawrence of Arabia”) attempt to solve the crime. “Play up! Play up and play the game,” the elder Lawrence tells the hesitant boy (borrowing his line from a 19th century poem by Henry Newbolt). From Lawrence and others like Theodore Roosevelt, Indy develops confidence, even a dash of bravado.
