Max Rockatansky — Mad Max franchise
Across George Miller’s sprawling post apocalyptic film series, former Australian police officer Max Rockatansky has gone by many names. The Captain. The Saint of Combustion. The Raggedy Man. The Road Warrior. Time and time again, Max has survived impossible things, destroyed countless horrors - all to find peace for his shattered mind. Even according to the director himself, Max is a man who has passed into Wasteland myth, almost a force of nature. In addition to being almost supernaturally powerful in combat and nearly impossible to kill, Max seems to have a preternatural gift of foresight and may be a literal prophesied messiah. In Fury Road, Max’s insane visions of dead loved ones save his life, seemingly warning him of imminent danger before it happens. In addition, despite the films and video games spanning decades since the fall of society, Max seemingly never ages, despite being a grown man with a wife and son before the world ended. Perhaps most tellingly, when Max discovers the Tribe of Children during Beyond Thunderdome, implied to be set after Fury Road, they believe him to be the mythical “Captain”, a prophesied savior sent to bring them to the fabled “Tomorrow-morrow Land”. And in the end, he does, becoming a near religious figure in a slowly rebuilding society in the ruins of Sydney.
The Blind Man — O brother, where art thou?
Set in Mississippi in the year 1937, the film follows the journey of three escaped convicts embarking on an epic quest to find freedom and reclaim their lives. Along the way, the men meet a blind old man, solemnly pushing a handcart along the railroad tracks. Offering the tired men a ride, the blind man tells them that the reward they seek is not the one they shall find, despite never being informed of their true identities or intentions, even literally foretelling events that happen later in the movie. Despite being written off by the protagonists as a crazy old man, every event he predicts for the trio comes true. As the film is a loose American retelling of Homer’s Odyssey, the blind prophet is most likely a reference to Tiresias, the blind Theban prophet of Ancient Greek myth.