Who Dies and Who Gets Married?

The 2000 epic historical drama war film The Patriot, which was directed by Roland Emmerich, stars Mel Gibson as Benjamin Martin, a widowed veteran of the French and Indian war who struggles with raising seven children on a farm in 1778 South Carolina, against the backdrop of the encroaching American Revolutionary War. Benjamin’s initial opposition to engaging in war with the British puts Benjamin at odds with his eldest son, Gabriel, who is eager to join the fight.

The Patriot becomes a revenge mission movie in a fateful scene in which a British infantry army, led by the despicable Colonel William Tavington, invades the Martin homestead and proceeds to shoot and kill one of Benjamin’s sons, Thomas, before burning down the Martin home and taking Gabriel away. After the infantry rides away, Benjamin gathers his remaining sons and tracks the convoy holding Gabriel to a forest, where Benjamin and his sons shoot down the British soldiers with ruthless efficiency.

With sheer brutality, Benjamin strikes a British soldier with a Tomahawk ax, long past the point of death, before allowing, in an act of psychological warfare, the lone surviving British soldier to escape and relay the details of Benjamin’s attack to Tavington, who ascribes a “ghost” moniker to Benjamin. Benjamin’s unleashed rage, contrasted alongside his essential kindness and humility, is effectively portrayed by Gibson, whose powerful and touching performance in The Patriot reflects a haunted man who’s ready to explode.

Was Gabriel’s Wife Pregnant Before She Was Burned Alive?

Heath Ledger’s solid dramatic performance as Gabriel in The Patriot combined with his performance in A Knight’s Tale established Ledger as one of the hottest young actors in Hollywood. Ledger is most impressive in The Patriot at displaying complex emotions with subtlety. This is especially visible with Gabriel’s relationship with Gabriel’s childhood sweetheart, Anne, whom Gabriel marries in the film, in a wedding scene that follows a tender scene between Gabriel and his father in which Gabriel suggests that Anne is pregnant.

However, while Anne, played by Lisa Brenner, was indeed pregnant in an early version of The Patriot script, this is left unresolved in the film, especially after Anne and her family are burned alive after being locked inside a church by the immoral Colonel William Tavington. Despite the uncertainty regarding whether Anne was pregnant, Ledger convincingly projects the grief and rage of a young man who, like his father, knows what it’s like to lose a child and family.

The shocking church-burning scene highlights one of the most prominent criticisms of The Patriot, which has been accused of unfairly fostering anti-British sentiment by showing atrocities that were supposedly committed by British soldiers during the American Revolutionary War. While various accounts of the war show examples of American and British soldiers both executing soldiers in violation of the rules of war, the church-burning scene is based on an event from World War II, when Nazi soldiers burned a group of French villagers alive.

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Is Gabriel Killed Before He Gets Revenge?

Just as the wedding of Anne and Gabriel in The Patriot serves as a happy reprieve from the horrors of the American Revolutionary War, Anne’s death makes audiences hunger for the death of Colonel William Tavington, who ordered Anne and her family to be burned to death inside a locked church. After discovering the massacre, Gabriel proceeds to hunt down Tavington, who is caught by Gabriel shaving near a creek, where a gunfight ensues.

However, Gabriel’s rage makes him careless, which proves fatal against the diabolically clever Tavington. After apparently being seriously wounded by Gabriel, Tavington plays possum until Gabriel leans over him with a knife to kill him. Tavington then suddenly rolls over and fatally stabs Gabriel with a saber before fleeing, leaving Gabriel gasping alone until Benjamin arrives.

Before dying in Benjamin’s arms, Gabriel expresses guilt over the death of his younger brother, Thomas, much to the dismay of Benjamin, who, while mourning Gabriel’s death, struggles to find the courage and energy to keep fighting. Benjamin fears that Gabriel’s death is a punishment for Benjamin’s past sins, specifically the atrocities that he committed during the French and Indian War.

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Did Benjamin and Charlotte Get Married and Have a Baby?

In the climactic scene of The Patriot, Mel Gibson’s character, Benjamin Martin, avenges the murder of his eldest son Gabriel by killing the sadistic Colonel William Tavington, in much the same manner in which Tavington killed Gabriel. However, while the primary conflict in The Patriot is clearly resolved, several character details are left to the viewer’s interpretation by the end of the film.

This is especially evident with the vague status of Benjamin’s relationship with sister-in-law Charlotte, who serves as a second mother to Benjamin’s children in the film. In contrast to the film’s various graphic battle scenes, the romantic nature of this relationship is revealed through awkward pauses and suggestive glances. While it’s clearly implied that Benjamin and Charlotte have gotten married by the end of the film, this is never specified.

Moreover, The Patriot features two scenes in which Charlotte lovingly holds a blanket that presumably covers Benjamin and Charlotte’s newborn baby. In the first scene, Charlotte, played by Joely Richardson, holds a stuffed blanket while surrounded by Benjamin’s children, who gaze upon the blanket admiringly, as if the blanket holds their new brother or sister. However, the baby isn’t heard or seen. In the film’s closing scene, Charlotte is again seen clutching a plump blanket as if she’s holding a baby. However, a baby isn’t visible in this scene.

The screenplay for The Patriot went through multiple drafts, in which character details, like Anne’s pregnancy and Charlotte’s supposed baby, became muddled in the process. Moreover, the screenplay was tailored for Gibson, as evidenced by how the screenplay, which originally gave Benjamin six children, was changed to give Benjamin seven children, as Gibson’s own seventh child, son Thomas, was born prior to the start of filming. Stream on Netflix.