Scott Springmann - 300

I saw this movie twice in the theater and neither time did I see much in the way of religion in it. Mostly it was just manly Spartans who defended Greece by killing lots of Persians. But after thinking about it I did think that there was one part in which I could see a religious aspect. At the end of the movie when the Spartans are surrounded by the Persians, Xerxes tells Leonidas that he will have mercy and even make him his warlord if he would just kneel and swear allegiance to him. At this point Leonidas takes off his helmet, and dropped his shield and his spear, and kneeled to Xerxes. The reason he did this was that the helmet obscured his vision, the shield threw him off-balance, and he kneeled so that he would be able to catch Xerxes off-guard and hit him with a throw of the spear and showing them that he was not divine. In Ancient Greek culture the armor of a Greek nobleman was an important source of honor and pride. However, in order to hit Xerxes and expose him as a false god, Leonidas had to give up his source of honor and drop to a position of absolute humility. When I thought about this I drew comparisons to Christ and his humility in laying down his life. At the end of the movie when Leonidas is dead, we even see that he has fallen in a cross position, showing him to be a Christ figure.