Child soldiers in medieval(esque) cinema

Abstract

This chapter explores portrayals of child soldiers in medieval or medievalesque fantasy worlds, and examines how filmmakers make use of fairy tale tropes as rhetorical devices in ways that mark and amplify children’s agency. Although the historicity of armed youths is well documented, the authors argue that audiences must be carefully introduced to children’s military service as both tragic and necessary. Ostensibly “Western” cinematic settings thus feature children as capable but also as last-resort, necessary fighters whose presence on the battlefield underscores the righteousness of the protagonists who recruit them. Such portrayals radically contrast with film depictions of child combatants in modern-day Africa, which characterize child soldiers as abused children situated in a dysfunctional continent beyond redemption.