Fourth feather?
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weiping-jiang — 19 years ago(April 11, 2006 12:56 AM)
and somehow, I believe if Harli could have been dead in his struggle to save his friends in the dessert; maybe the whole movie would be more powerful and fluence effort. Such 'happy ending', from my view, didn't really match with the topic or theme for the brave or disgrace.
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tmarcelle1984 — 18 years ago(February 16, 2008 11:00 AM)
Technically, Ethen didnt give a feather - he got the four in the parcel from his friends when he was explaining his resignation to her. He had to actually explain what they meant.
When Harry first opened the parcel there were cards from his friends indicating who had sent the feathers - watch carefully to read the names. But in the book it was Ethne who gave the fourth.
The question you should be asking is who gave the third? (1 - Willoughby, 2 - Trant, 3 - ?, 4 - Ethne). -
KitMagic — 18 years ago(February 16, 2008 01:49 PM)
Hmmm. I admit to not having seen it just lately, BUT, the way I
thought
I remembered it, he got
three
from his male friends
and
one
from her (in the movie). (I KNOW that he did give her [back] one of
the feathers, at the end. If she didn't technically actually give/send
one in the movie, forgive me if I don't remember that, but I KNOW that
[in the movie] he and she both
behave as if
she did give/send one of
the feathers. [And if I ramble on about this much longer, I will start
thinking/dreaming of her as a swan again. ^~ The whole "giving a feather"
thing starts to sound silly, or at least birdlike, if one babbles about it
enough. ^~])
=^__~= -
missdiane — 21 years ago(January 01, 2005 09:05 PM)
The fourth feather was Castleton's which he couldn't give back to him since he died. That did bother me a little that they didn't address it (hell, it's the title of the movie!) It always seemed to me that Castleton reluctantly went with the others in everything he did and probably felt he was honor bound to give the feather.
Willoughby got his back after the battle when Harry came to ream him out for not listening to Abou Fatma, Trench got his back in the prison and Ethne got hers back in the church. -
filmicon — 18 years ago(September 01, 2007 07:12 PM)
Doesn't Castleton recognize Harry riding a horse in the battlefield and actually yelling to the British soldiers to back? So, doesnt he recognize the heroism of Harry and how he put himself to danger to warn them, and thus "take back" the feather he gave to him?
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hannonle — 18 years ago(January 15, 2008 12:40 PM)
I agree. Castleton saw Harry twiceonce when he was riding away after the spies, and the British soldier is shooting at him, and Harry looks over his shoulder, but Castleton probably would have thought it just his imagination or a coincidence.
Then in the battle when the fake cavalry is bearing down on him and he knows he's about to die, Castleton clearly sees Harry riding towards him, recognizes him and recognizes that Harry is trying to save him. And he smiles, because he knows that his friends were wrong in calling Harry a coward.
I, too, got the impression that he was the kind who just got dragged along in whatever his friends did. It was only towards the end of his life there that he started to edge away from the pack, so to speak. He was recognizing the wrongness of what their company was sent to do.
So I think in the end he also would have admired that Harry could stand up what he believed in, and he didn't believe in this war and wasn't going to go kill these people just because he was told to.
In the end, then, Castleton fully understood that Harry was not a coward, but was a brave and noble friend, and that was the whole point of giving back the feather.
But, yeah, I wish the movie had made it clear who gave what feather, because it took the second viewing for me to piece together who did and didn't give feathers. -
IcySpoon — 10 years ago(June 29, 2015 05:53 AM)
I agree, the fourth feather would have gone to Castleton. I understand that it's different in the book (it went to Ethne) but the OP asked about the film.
"Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it." Norman Maclean
