July 2025, 8 Minutes

Down Towards Grace

Jung, Dante, and the Importance of a Good Fall

It may surprise some to hear, but my favourite line from any movie I have ever seen is from the end of the third act of the 2013 sci-fi flick, Pacific Rim.

It's okay now, Mako.

We did it.

I can finish this alone.

All I have to do is fall.

Anyone can fall.

For those who have not seen it, or have forgotten the specific part, allow me to try to set the scene.

The film, directed by Guillermo del Toro, with the script written by Travis Beacham, is set in a near future where Earth is under siege by colossal sea monster Kaiju (Japanese for “strange beast”; think: Godzilla), emerging from a dimensional rift deep in the Pacific Ocean. To combat them, humanity unites to build massive robotic war machines known as Jaegers (the German word for Hunter), which are piloted by two humans linked through a mental bond called the Drift.

Our hero is Raleigh Becket (the postmodern name alone denotes hero status), a former Jaeger pilot traumatised by a past battle in which his brother died, who is pulled back into service as the Kaiju threat escalates. He is partnered with Mako Mori, a determined trainee with her own painful past. Together, piloting Gipsy Danger, they fight to prevent humanity's extinction. The final mission involves a desperate plan to close the rift once and for all.

*Spoilers from here*

At the film’s climax, Gipsy Danger is confronted by two monstrous Kaiju. A big, beautiful, brutal underwater battle ensues. Despite sustaining heavy damage, our heroic duo win, but Mako is unconscious and low on oxygen. So, Raleigh ejects her to safety, sacrificing himself to manually detonate Gipsy’s nuclear core inside the alien dimension. This is where the lines are delivered, when he releases his apprentice from her duties, and takes the responsibility upon himself.

Some of the reasons I like the film: non-romantic protagonists (you are allowed to do this, writers of the world), tension-building dialogue that does not undermine itself with horrific “banter”, strict in-universe rules are upheld, and it’s an original script not burdened by being tied to a pre-existing IP. By all rights, it should be a dumb movie, in the vein of a Hasbro adaptation, or late-stage Marvel slop. Yet, against all chance and odds, it ended up being decent. Before I lose what little credibility I have here, let me just clarify that I don’t think the movie is any great work of art. It promises, and it delivers. That’s all I can ask of a film. And, to repurpose a phrase written by a man a long, long time ago, nothing beautiful is alien to me.

To be frank, I’m not even going to recommend it. If you’re not into big robots bashing the shit out of interdimensional aliens, you’re not gonna dig it, regardless of a few snappy lines here and there.

(The sequel is that insultingly bad, cash-grabby film, and is one of the many reasons I despise contemporary Hollywood; and the less said on that, the better.)

So why do I consider it such a great line? Why does it hit?

Well, the context matters. Being invested in a film, giving a shit about the characters, and what happens to them will make any line they speak that little bit extra, especially if it is delivered in a climactic moment. How that delivery transpires, the score, the execution, the editing, will all contribute to the weight of the emotional punch, too. But it goes beyond that for me - those cinematographic aspects - as that would only explain why I think it is a good line of dialogue. But I think it’s one of the better ones – so, why?

Naturally, one could read a biblical interpretation into this line, especially the obvious use of the word “fall”. In the beginning we had disobedience and doubt. The world’s first couple both took a bite of the Apple, thus setting in motion…well – all of this.

In the epic poem Paradise Lost, John Milton explores the idea that even angels can fall, as Lucifer becomes Satan through pride. The implication of this is obvious: fallibility is not limited to the weak or mortal, or weakly mortal. Rather, it is built into the structure of existence – “anyone can fall”.

Struggle is democratic in nature. The line “anyone can fall” equalises us. It reminds us that no title, talent, intelligence, or success shields us completely. In this way it has the potential to arrest some of the worst excesses of hubris or self-righteousness.

A Cave in Thessaly

Jung introduces us to the concept of the Wounded Healer. The one who, though themselves broken, still heals. It is a trope that repeats throughout literature and movies.

Swimming out into the waters of deeper time, the archetype originates with Chiron, a centaur from Greek mythology. Unlike other centaurs who are often depicted as wild and unruly, beasts untamed by civilising instincts, Chiron was wise, gentle, and a master of medicine (I’d say medicine man, but he’s not really a man, in the traditional sense…). On his travels, away from his home at Mount Pelion, a lush, forested mountain overlooking the Aegean Sea, Chiron suffered a terrible wound: struck by a poisoned arrow, he was cursed with pain he could not heal, even though he was a healer himself.

Trapped in a paradox of being unable to die and unable to heal himself, Chiron suffered consciously and without relent. But rather than becoming bitter, he devoted his life to teaching and healing others, most notably heroes like Achilles and Asclepius (fittingly, the god of medicine, and whom the Staff of Asclepius – one of the universal symbols of medicine – is named for). Yes, his story is tragic, but it is also noble, for in his pain he found the source of his compassion and wisdom.

Jung revived this archetype in the 20th century. He proposed that therapists (and healers of all kinds) are often drawn to their work because of their own wounds - personal traumas, losses, emotional pain. He wrote, “A good half of every treatment that probes at all deeply consists in the doctor examining himself.”

The wounded healer doesn't pretend to be perfect. Instead, they use their self-knowledge, humility, and vulnerability to connect with others more deeply. Their own fall, in other words, becomes a source of strength.

Little Frodo Baggins carries a great weight. Literally. On his walkabout through Middle-earth, he incurs great psychological and spiritual trauma from the immense pressures exerted by the Ring. He also takes a couple of physical wounds, which leave him scarred and weakened, changed forever. He can save the day. He can save the whole world. But he cannot heal, not fully. Thus at the end of the story, we see Frodo, physically reduced, but wise enough to be invited to the Undying Lands – a place reserved for only the purest of hearts.

Victor Hugo’s endlessly creative mind produced Jean Valjean, a man who spent 19 years in a brutal penal colony in Toulon, on France’s Mediterranean coast, all for stealing bread as a youth to feed his starving family. His suffering didn’t find relief upon his release, however. Being a convicted thief, he faced social stigma and rejection.

But he got there. He became successful, accepted by society, in its polite and impolite instantiations, and made a good go of it. His success did not come at the expense of his soul, however. He helps, he cares, he protects, he saves.

His innate goodness and bravery were so profound and unrelenting, that upon discovering these truths, his bloodhound pursuer, Inspector Javert (one of literature’s great complex characters) is so disgusted with himself, he jumps into the Seine, ending it all in a watery reclamation of a soul lost to obsession.

In 1793, Sydney Carton stood in Paris’ Place de la Révolution (today’s Place de la Concorde) and accepted his fate with a light heart. Dickens’ hero was a man of considerable talent and subsequent wasted potential. This led to self-loathing and alcoholism, an abiding outward-facing cynicism,

But he did love, and sometimes love is enough. The object of this love was Lucie Manette, the Anglo-French beating heart of A Tale of Two Cities, married to the deposed French aristocrat Charles Darnay, a man who resembles Carton just enough for a swap to be made on the eve of execution. I believe this contributes to an added layer of tragedy here, but I will leave that for the reader to figure out in their own time; sometimes saying things removes the power they gain from being silently true.

Lucie knew of his love and though moved, could never reciprocate in kind. Undeterred, and wanting the lovely young woman who possessed his heart to live a life of peace, he conspires to take Darnay’s place under the bloodied steel of the guillotine, in front of a baying, untired crowd, ending his life and one of the greatest tales ever told by an Englishman with,

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done;
It is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”

Undoubtably, you will be able to think of your own examples, from fact to fiction to your own lives. If you are fortunate to know someone like that, thank them.

Life is but a Divine Comedy (of Errors)

We’re now going into another cave, this time not overlooking the plains of central Greece, but in a forest outside of Florence, in the haunted Tuscan countryside.

Dante wants to go to heaven. You know, up there. But, to get there, he must first go all the way down. He misses Beatrice, who has already made it heavenward, and she misses him. She’s a resourceful gal though, and is able to send the great poet Virgil back to Earth to help him reunite with her.

Thus, we get the Divine Comedy, the tripartite journey through Inferno (Hell), Purgatorio (Purgatory), and Paradiso (Paradise). It is often understood as a spiritual ascent, from sin and despair to purification and divine union. But this ascent isn’t straightforward; it involves paradoxes, one of which is that true elevation requires a fall.

The most forceful of these paradoxes is that Dante must first descend, plummet into the grotesque, the damned, the demented, the lost, the fire and ice, before he can begin to rise. The fall is not simply punishment, but an essential stage of transformation. To see the stars again, he must first walk beneath them, through suffering, sin, and the brokenness of humanity. This mirrors a universal spiritual principle found in myth, philosophy, and scripture: one must be undone before being remade. The soul cannot ascend without confronting its own shadow. So, Dante’s non-linear “fall” into the dark wood and down through the circles of Hell is not a detour from grace. It is in fact the path to it.

Closing Breath

So, a midrange, heavy-on-the-five-cheese movie made me think about something valuable. Good. I’ll take it. I am grateful.

The line reminds me that vulnerability is a universal reality, and that bravery in the face of that which overwhelms is always an option. Like Dante’s journey, or the journeys of the wounded healers that are all about us, falling is an unavoidable part of growth and grace. It is a part of living, a key movement in the great symphony of life. Accordingly, don’t be overly hard on yourself or on others who may be in the midst of a fall. Reach out, offer yourself, help them rise again.

Cos, ya know, anyone can fall.

Photo by: H&CO