Explainer

Culture

Royalty

26 April 2023

4 min read

Why we make kings

As the new King's coronation approaches, Ian Bradley explores the deep roots of kingship as an answer to anarchy and disorder.

Ian Bradley

Ian Bradley is Emeritus Professor of Cultural and Spiritual History at the University of St Andrews.

A medieval illustration of King David being anointed by Samuel

Samuel anoints David king. An early 14th century illumination from the Vaux Psalter.

Lambeth Palace Library.

At the most solemn moment of King Charles III’s coronation on 6 May, the Westminster Abbey choir will sing Handel’s thrilling setting of words from the first chapter of the first Book of Kings:

Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anointed Solomon king.

It provides a reminder that the anointing of the monarch with holy oil is carried out in direct imitation of a practice described in the Bible in connection with the inauguration of the kings of ancient Israel.

This is not the only link which the coronation will make with stories found in the Bible. Legend has it that the Stone of Destiny, on which Charles will be seated when he is crowned, started life as the pillow on which Jacob slept when he had a dream of the ladder leading up to heaven as described in Genesis. Jacob set the stone up as a pillar to commemorate the place where God had talked to him. Later stories identify it as the pillar beside which Abimelech was crowned king of Israel and King Josiah made his covenant with the Lord to keep his commandments and statutes.

The theme of monarchy looms large in the collection of books making up the Hebrew Bible which tells of God’s dealing with the chosen people of Israel and forms the Christian Old Testament. The word ‘king’ occurs 565 times and ‘kingdom’ 163 times. Six of the so-called historical books have the monarchy as their main subject matter, including the aptly named first and second books of Kings. The life of one particular king, David, occupies more space than that of any other figure, including the great patriarchs, Abraham and Moses.

By popular request

Kingship is presented in the early books of the Old Testament as both the popularly requested and the divinely appointed answer to the anarchy and disorder prevailing under the judges who ruled the people of Israel for the first two hundred and fifty years or so after their arrival in the promised land of Canaan around 1250 BCE. The Book of Judges emphasizes the corruption and lawlessness under this form of government, noting: ‘In those days there was no king in Israel: everyone did what was right in his eyes.’

The inauguration of the Israelite monarchy, which took place around 1020 BCE, is described in the Book of Samuel. A crucial role is played by Samuel, the last of the great judges who becomes the first king-maker and presides over the coronations of both Saul and David, the first two Israelite kings. Samuel is portrayed as prophet, seer and intermediary between Yahweh/God and the people, to whom the elders of Israel come asking for ‘a king to govern us like all the nations’. Samuel puts this request to Yahweh who is initially reluctant to accede to it and tells him to spell out to the people the dangers of kingship in terms of the accretion of private wealth and military might. These warnings are ignored, however, and the people continue to insist that they must have a king ‘to govern us and go out before us and fight our battles’. When Samuel reports this to God, he is told, ‘Hearken to their voice and make them a king’.

On king making

If there is a certain initial unease in God’s mind about the desirability of kingship, the institution is subsequently given divine blessing, with the king been seen as God’s chosen one – Messiah in Hebrew, or Christos in Greek. There is a sense of partnership between Yahweh and the chosen people of Israel in the making of kings. The emphasis is on a three way covenant between God, king and people. This concept of covenant is one of the most distinctive and central features of Israelite kingship, as is the idea that the monarch mediates and represents divine rule and stands for justice, fairness and truth.

During and after the long period of exile that followed the ‘Babylonian captivity’ of Israel in 597 BCE, Jews increasingly pinned their hopes on the future coming of a new Messiah, a king from the house of David, raised up by God to deliver Jerusalem from where he would reign, restoring and re-uniting Israel and bringing about a new world order of justice and righteousness, as looked forward to and promised in the Psalms and the writings of the prophets.

The theme of kingship, so fully explored in the Old Testament, continues to figure prominently in the New Testament, although its central focus is on the kingdom of God, inaugurated and proclaimed by Jesus, with its dethroning of the rich and powerful and exaltation of the humble and meek. All four of the Gospel writers use royal titles and monarchical allusions in their descriptions of Jesus. He is identified as the anointed king, the Messiah or Christos, leading his followers to be known as Christians. From his birth in Bethlehem in the house and family of King David, and his baptism where he is identified by God as his beloved Son, to his trial and crucifixion for being ‘King of the Jews’, the royal theme runs as a clear thread through his life and death.

Jesus himself redefines the concept of kingship. This is signalled most dramatically by his choice of a donkey on which to make his entry into Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday. He deliberately opts for an animal associated with humility, humiliation even, rather than a proud charger or stallion more fitting for a king on a triumphal progress. In washing his disciples’ feet on the first Maundy Thursday, he further shows that he is, in Graham Kendrick’s memorable words The Servant King displaying meekness as well as majesty. When Pontius Pilate repeatedly asks him whether he is indeed the King of the Jews, he gives the cryptic answer 'You have said so'. Jesus never repudiates the idea of kingship but gives it a wholly new meaning of humble servanthood which has been the inspiration for Christian monarchy ever since.

Review

Culture

Film & TV

Trauma

5 June 2025

5 min read

This bad TV version of The Last of Us ruins much more than storytelling

Following up the acclaimed video game doesn't deliver prestige viewing.

Jonathan Rowlands

Jonathan is a theology lecturer and Liverpool FC fan.

A pensive looking woman glances to the side.

Ellie, played by Bella Ramsey.

HBO.

What’s the point of the TV adaptation of The Last of Us?

Throughout its second series, I’ve been trying to wrap my head around this question. I’m still short of an answer.

Turning the two The Last of Us video games into prestige TV was always going to be problematic, because those video games already were prestige TV. You just had to press buttons on a controller now and then.

The first The Last of Us video game is regularly included in lists of the best video games ever, and it’s not because of any ground-breaking gameplay or because of any technological advancements it made. It’s because of its story.

It is richly character-focussed, gritty, realistic, and utterly human. The Last of Us Part I (as it’s now known) carries the kind of gravitas and emotional complexity you might expect from the likes of The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Chernobyl, or The West Wing. It’s already prestige TV.

So, is the TV adaptation simply an attempt to make this same story accessible to people who don’t play video games? Maybe. That would make sense, were it not for its deeply frustrating second series, the finale of which has just aired.

The Last of Us Part II was massively controversial when it released in 2020. (WARNING: absolutely colossal spoilers ahead, for both the games and the TV show). Joel – the main protagonist of the first game – is abruptly and brutally murdered in its opening act. This leads Ellie – his pseudo-surrogate-daughter – to hunt down those responsible in attempt to enact a reckoning.

In the video game, most of the story is told over the course of three days. First, from Ellie’s perspective, then from the perspective of Abby, Joel’s killer. In the TV show, the second series covers Ellie’s side of the story before very abruptly shifting to Abby’s side in the final seconds, leaving the viewers with a cliffhanger. Even as someone who’s played the game and knows what’s going to happen, it felt like a bit of a slap in the face.

But for someone who hasn’t played the games it must be bordering on nonsensical. Even spread over two series, the story is so truncated, and so much is left unsaid. I can’t imagine making sense of this series without having played the video game first. But the TV show is basically just a live action remake of the game. Which again begs the question: what’s the point of the TV adaptation of The Last of Us?

I’ve found this series, and the video game it’s based off, hugely frustrating. Because it’s trying to convey an important message. But both the game and the show contrive to undermine their important central ideas through poor storytelling techniques and structures.

But in making clear what was left unsaid in the game, the power of the moment is undercut. Much is spoken; little is said.

Let’s take one example. Half-way through the game (or towards the end of series 2), Ellie has tracked down and tortured one of Abby’s friends for information on her whereabouts. Afterwards, she talks to her lover Dina about what happened.

In the game, it’s harrowing. Ellie is visibly shaken by what she’s just witnessed herself do. “I made her talk.” She says. And then to Dina: “I don’t want to lose you.” “Good,” comes Dina’s reply. And that’s it. Cut to black. Little is spoken; much is said.

But where the scenes last about 30 seconds in the game, in the TV show it’s over five minutes long. “I made her talk. I thought it would be harder to do, but it wasn’t. It was easy. I just kept hurting her.” So says Ellie, halfway through the conversation. The writers are clearly trying to make explicit Ellie’s fear that she’s losing herself, and Dina by extension, in her thirst for revenge. But in making clear what was left unsaid in the game, the power of the moment is undercut. Much is spoken; little is said.

“I know writers who use subtext and they’re all cowards,” Garth Marenghi once said. I can only assume he writes for HBO now.

It’s a shame the scene gets fluffed as badly as it does, because really it’s the centrepiece of the narrative. Faced with unthinkable violence, Ellie chooses to repay the act in kind. But, in hunting down and torturing those responsible, ultimately Ellie finds herself becoming less and less human with each act of revenge. Here, in this conversation with Dina, Ellie begins to glimpse the reality of this. That acts of violence towards others are ultimately also acts of violence towards her own nature.

This is, as it turns out, a deeply Christian notion. Where other Ancient Near Eastern creation myths depict their gods as creating the world through violent and bloody struggle, in Genesis God merely speaks life into being. Where Jesus’ disciples would violently overthrow their Roman oppressors, he instead says “those who live by the sword, die by the sword.”

Moreover, Jesus’ death by crucifixion was unspeakably cruel and violent, encompassing protracted public humiliation, sexual abuse, and mutilation. It is here that Christ draws the suffering of the world to himself, that we might be given the opportunity to live free from the ongoing cycle of violence that surrounds us. Not that we might avoid having violence done to us, but that we might find the strength not to be violent in turn.

And this is the ultimate paradox at the centre of Christianity: that the greatest show of strength the world has ever seen is found in Christ’s being nailed to a tree.

Violence begets violence begets violence begets violence. That’s the message of The Last of Us Part II; albeit one conveyed in a rather ham-fisted way. While I’m not optimistic, I hope the next series of the TV show manages to fix the game’s wobbly narrative structure to convey this in a way that is nuanced and compelling. Because it’s a message we desperately need to hear.

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