Rudolph Discussion #2: King Moonracer

In my annual watching of RRNR, one of the parts that always confused me – that never actually seemed to belong – was the Island of Misfit Toys adventure shared by Rudolph, Hermey, and Yukon.  They reach the island on an ice float, where they are met by Charlie in the Box and a whole cadre of other “misfit toys.”  So why is there an entire island of discarded toys?  And why are they lorded over by a flying lion named King  Moonracer?

Moonracer is Christ

            As for King Moonracer, he is a pretty straightforward story-transparency for Jesus Christ.  One of the main recurrences throughout the Rudolph story is that individuals who do not readily blend in with the crowd are cast out of their communities.  Rudolph is banished from the Reindeer Games because of his nose, Hermey is harangued by the elves for his dental predilection.  The Island is a reminder that no matter what division one experiences in the world of men, there is one cohesive community in the love of Christ and the kingdom of God.  King Moonracer, for all intents and purposes, is God/Jesus (they are, after all, one and the same).

            King Moonracer is a gryphon – or at  least a winged lion.  In mythology, the gryphon was a  hybrid animal: part eagle and part lion.  Christian symbolism adopted the creature as an image of Christ, embodying the Biblical appellative of “God of Heaven and Earth.”  The lion is the king of the beasts and thus, symbolically, the king of the earth; the eagle is the king of the birds and the king of the skies.  Both animals are also, historically, associated with royalty and hence are regarded as “noble” creatures.  Think of Buckbeak the Hippogriff in Harry Potter, or Aslan in Lewis’ Narniad (sans wings). 

Moonracer and the Sun

          So why the name “Moonracer?”  Well, if we break the character down symbolically, it becomes pretty simple to trace the etymology of his name.  As we have established, Moonracer is a gryphon, being part lion and part eagle.  However, looking at him, it is irrefutable that he is mostly lion.  He has the head of the lion, at least, and that is the most important part.  In many symbol systems, the lion is representative of the sun – the head being the mass of the sun and the golden man representing the corona or rays of the sun.  As humans on earth experience the sun, we see it rise in the morning and then set in the evening in a great cycle where it seems to precede (or follow, depending on your starting point) the moon, almost as if the two celestial bodies were chasing – or racing – one another.  Dawn is a significant time of the day because it represents the triumph of the light over the dark, and hope over despair (in the same way that twilight is often used to signify death and despair).  So we have an image of Jesus who literally is the dawn in the capacity that he “races [away] the moon.” 

            In a more literal sense, it is said in the Rudolph story that King Moonracer leaves the Island at dusk and flies all over the world, every night, finding orphaned toys and bringing them to his sanctuary.  So Moonracer is literally “racing the moon” in his nightly circumnavigatory flight.  He stands opposite of Santa Claus, who deposits toys into every home one night a year (fueling, as it were, the apparent toy overpopulation problem).

Misfits Among Misfits

            So, if King Moonracer is a story-transparency for Christ, and the Island of Misfit Toys is the community one can always find despite division and adversity in life, then why does he not allow our Trio to stay with him on the Island?  Well, if we simply go along with the straight narrative of the story, it is because they aren’t toys.  It’s not St. Moonracer’s Home for the Home-Impaired, it’s the Island of Misfit Toys.  He allows them to stay the night, but he cannot let them remain there permanently. 

            The real reason behind this, however, is because allowing Rudolph to hide in the island sanctuary for the rest of his life would disrupt the cycle of his Hero’s Journey and his alchemical purification.  According to Campbell, Rudolph, as an epic hero, still has to die and then rise again heroically.  Alchemically, he is only just leaving albedo and stands on the threshold of the Alchemical Wedding (note the gold and marble pillars with the red standards in Moonracer’s palace).  And, let us not forget, IF HE STAYS, THEN HE CAN’T SAVE CHRISTMAS!!

            In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, it is “always winter, but never Christmas.”  That is, the natural world has died but the redeeming light that comes with the Nativity never breaks over the world, and so we are forever steeped in perpetual death and darkness.  Same stakes in Rudolph.  Upon his shoulders rests the responsibility of bringing the light and hope accompanying the birth of Christ to the dead world.  His stopover on the Island reaffirms this in him and is what inspires him to set off from the Island on his own and return home. 

NEXT POST: The Alchemy of RRNR