Headscratchers / The Fisher King

• I understand that both Williams's and Plummer's characters are to be interpreted as weird, quirky and somewhat surreal, but when Parry confesses his love for Lydia, it still comes off as creepy. Yes, he might be a kind-hearted, nice man who'd never hurt her, but as far as Lydia knows, he's just a stalker who has confessed his eternal love for her after their first date. Yet, not only does she accept this immediately, but the movie itself treats it as something romantic and magical. This was really jarring, especially in contrast with how the movie handles the relationship between the two other leads.
  • Lydia is supposed to be Parry's princesse lointaine—a beautiful, unobtainable figure from medieval chivalric lore. In the classical version, not only does the princess not love the knight in return, she never even knows he exists, while the knight continues to do good deeds in her name. In the absolute ideal version, not only does the princess never meet the knight, but the knight never meets the princess, either; he just learns of her existence and the mere idea of her beauty and goodness is enough to inspire him (which is why he's so opposed to actually meeting her; the perfect knight doesn't seek out his lady. It could also be that this sort of distance is what Parry needs after being so devastated by the loss of his wife). The concept of a purely one-sided, eternally unreciprocated romance was codified into the highest, purest, most chaste idea of chivalric love, with emphasis on the word "idea." Obviously in a real-life setting, particularly a modern one, it's extremely creepy and demeaning to the lady in question, who goes beyond objectified and is reduced to a mere concept, but it's appropriate to Parry's Arthurian-themed delusions. Why Lydia chooses to go along with it, however, is something of a mystery. Perhaps the implication is that Lydia's life is so drab and colorless that she's overwhelmed at inspiring such feelings in anyone, or perhaps she has to be shown that that people can see more in her than she sees in herself,^note Arguably Lydia's first important relationship is not with Perry but Anne, with whom she has a whole conversation about the kind of person she could be. and that it's possible for her to inspire the sort of passionate devotion she reads about in her trashy romance novels. Lydia thinks she's nothing special, and she has to believe that someone could love her before she can consider the possibility of love. Jack and Anne's relationship is portrayed as realistically rocky, but genuine, in contrast to Parry's idealized romance, which is beautiful and pure, but a complete fantasy. Either way, it's still pretty fortunate for Lydia that Parry turns out to be a harmless, kind-hearted person. It's equally fortunate for Parry that Lydia turned out to be a gentle, understanding one who took the time to learn who he really was, rather than immediately phoning the cops.
• The story of Jack and Parry is clearly meant to be a retelling of Anfortas (The Fisher King) and the fool turned knight Parcival who finds the Holy Grail and defeats the Red Knight. The question is, which character of the film corresponds to which figure in Arthurian legend? Initially, it's heavily implied that Jack is the Fisher King (the wounded man who couldn't feel love and whose life had lost meaning) while the delusional Parry is the fool (even the name "Parry" seems to be a reference to Parcival). However, this seems to be a red herring. As the story unfolds, it is Jack who vanquishes the Red Knight, recovers the Grail, and heals the comatose Parry. In other words, Jack is Parcival, whose "folly" doesn't stem from stupidity or mental illness but rather from his initially cynical and uncaring view of other people. Meanwhile, while Parry may have aspired to be Parcival, he turned out to be Anfortas, the once glorious king whose wound (mental illness caused by his wife's murder) wouldn't heal without the power of the Grail.
• Does Parry eventually come to realize who Jack is and how he's connected to his wife's death? Once restored to relative sanity, Parry would surely be able to put the pieces together even if Jack never confessed it outright.
  • It seems the scene where Parry reawakens and tells Jack how much he misses his wife was basically meant to show that Parry understood that Jack was involved. Him asking Jack if he is allowed to miss her is basically asking Jack for a confirmation that he was involved and then forgiving him because he understands how terrible Jack feels for what he had done.