Fairy Tale Spotlight: The Cowardly Lion

I felt like I would be missing an opportunity if I did not mention the very best friend of the Hungry Tiger. The Cowardly Lion is an extremely well-known character from the Oz books mainly because of his appearance in the 1939 film. I understand how little the books are read, but if you had read them, you would find there is a bit more to this fellow than was presented on the screen.

It seemed to me that the reasons that the Cowardly Lion was so close to the Hungry Tiger was twofold. It was simply because of the fact that they were both very large cats. A simple "birds of a feather" situation there. The other reason was due to the duality of themselves. That was the real connection that drove them together.

Where the Hungry Tiger wants to eat people but refuses to, the Cowardly Lion fears being courageous but shows courage regardless. So one won't do what he wants to do, and the other does what he doesn't want to do. Interesting, yeah?

The Cowardly Lion is actually very courageous. If put into a position where one of his friends are in danger, he will leap to the rescue and do so with great violence. However, when he is not directly in danger, he will appear to be extremely terrified of everything. And here we have a very interesting distinction between bravery and courage.

The Cowardly Lion is not really all that brave, wanting to shrink away from frightening circumstances. No one in the world is brave if they act like he does. But courage itself is the ability to fight despite that lack of bravery. He dives into the fray for the sake of all the things that he loves. This leaves him a tad traumatized, but he will still do it over and over as needed.

I think, to a degree, that the Cowardly Lion was not represented as well in the movie as he had been in the books. He really is a strong character. You may also find it interesting that he and the Hungry Tiger actually pull the carriage of Ozma, the queen of Oz. They are almost always together and seem very much to love each other, and when you consider it, they really are quite similar... but for very different reasons.

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