The Empty Scroll

Do you still need someone else to tell you?

I often rewatch movies and one of my most rewatched trilogies is Kung Fu Panda. (And yes, I only acknowledge the existence of the trilogy.) And if you ask me one image that always come up in my mind whenever it is mentioned, it is unquestionably the golden empty scroll reflecting Po’s face back to him in the first part. It wasn’t always so, but now, it is the definitive moment of Kung Fu Panda for me. Because for me, it is the exact point where Kung Fu Panda answers the question it asks throughout the trilogy, Who am I? It is the question at the heart of the trilogy. The whole trilogy is Po trying to answer this question.

And in the first part, he gets the answer. He’s going to be the dragon warrior. He just needs the dragon scroll. And then the scroll comes up empty. I swear to you, it didn’t even matter to 7 year old me when I first watched the movie. I was with my friend eating his mom’s aloo sandwiches. We wanted to see the fight. But to 15 year old me, who was binging the complete trilogy one day, after discovering piracy, it was everything. That blank scroll and the “It’s just you” explanation in the end is brilliant. But 22 year old me realized the scroll is not a lesson, it is a test. And the trilogy is teaching you how to answer that.

When you look back at the first movie, the scroll is the answer to everything. It is the reason Tai Lung turned villainous. It is the evidence Shifu that he fulfilled his role. It is the reward Po is training towards. But most of all, it is a test. It is not revealing secret techniques. It’s not confirming what you are. It is a test asking, Do you believe that YOU are the dragon warrior? After going through arduous hours of training, bleeding knuckles, broken bones, once you have it in your hand, do you still need the scroll to confirm if you are the dragon warrior? Do you still seek someone’s permission? And as long as the answer is a “yes”, you’d never be the dragon warrior, even if you have the scroll in the hand. Because for you, it’d be nothing. Just like it was for Tai Lung during the final battle of the first film.

Tai Lung has always answered “Who am I” with his past. His past defines him. His tragedy, his betrayal, his distorted legacy, it all exists in the past. He exists in the past. Tai Lung cannot look for himself outside of his past. And a past filled with what he considers only failures, could never give him the permission to be anything more. So he looks for that permission in the scroll and it shows him nothing but himself. And in Tai Lung’s own words, “it’s nothing.” For someone who can’t answer “Who am I?” beyond his past failures, he could never believe he could be the dragon warrior. The scroll just asks, it’s Tai Lung himself who answers. And for Po, he learns to answer it with his future in the first movie. He is going to be the dragon warrior.

And that is still incomplete. Because the one character who defines “Who am I” only with his future turns out to be one of the most despicable characters in this universe (and my favorite antagonist); Lord Shen. At first glance, it feels like Shen is also defined by his past. But look closer, the one thing that drives Shen off the rails is not his past, it is the prophecy of his future. The fear that the prophecy is true, the terror of an uncertain future scares the life out of him. Shen is defined by this terror, by the uncertain defeat his future might hold. He cannot live by this uncertainty. Shen defines himself solely on this possible future. And this fear is exactly why inner peace evades him. And Po, by the end of this movie, understands that he is not solely defined by his past or his future. He is defined by his now. He is a panda. He is the dragon warrior. And this is still incomplete. Because he can be more. He can be a teacher.

Enter Kai, beast of vengeance, maker of widows. Kai answers “Who am I” with both his past and his future. He is the friend Oogway betrayed. He is the one who will become the conqueror of Chi. Kai defines himself completely, with no doubts whatsoever. Kai defines himself in the present. Kai’s complete battle is to make the world recognize the definition he has for himself. He defines himself and wants the world to bend to that definition. There is no more space in his definition. And that’s why Kai is so powerful. Meanwhile a Po undergoing an identity crisis proves to be no match for him. Not until he understands that he can always be more. He just doesn’t accept everything he ever has been, but the fact that he can always be more than his definition. It’s almost poetic that Kai is defeated by filling him much more than he can handle, however cliche I find this trope.

Po becomes the dragon warrior not because he now understands who he is. He becomes one because he accepts that he’ll never completely know who he is. Po accepts his incompleteness. And that brings us back to the scroll, reflecting Po’s face at him as he smiles. The scroll doesn’t show you the past in some secret technique. The scroll doesn’t show you the future in some confirmation of being the dragon warrior. The scroll shows you, as you are now, incomplete, and then asks you, Do YOU believe that you are the Dragon Warrior?

I don’t believe that the question “Who am I?” has a definitive answer. You can always be more. You can always be different. Heck, even Michael Jordan, after the first threepeat, had an identity crisis. You will never know who you are. Maybe you will at your death bed. But until then, you only have what you are, right now. 7-year-old me was interested in enacting the fight with his friend right after the movie ended. 15-year-old me, coincidentally nicknamed Panda in high school, was a brilliant student who was going to be in IIT because he was enough. 22-year-old me understands that he is what he is, believes he is enough and still realizes, he can be more. That’s who I am.

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PS: I am a 20 year old with a blessing of overthinking and overanalyzing. All the problems it might bring, it does surface some interesting ideas forth. This is me sharing some of those. If you liked reading such analysis, let me know.