The main character of Dan Brown’s three books that are more popular: Angels & Demons, The Da Vinci Code and The Lost Symbol, Robert Langdon is getting old. Maybe the more appropriate way of expressing this view is that Langdon does not grow as a character. Brown seems to treat Langdon as if he has a “reset the character” button at the beginning of each of the books.
When the audience first meets Langdon in Angels & Demons, he is a professor of Art, Architecture and Symbology at Harvard University. He is awaken in by a telephone call by Maximilian Kohler, the head of Conseil Europyen pour la Recherche Nuclyaire (CERN), because Langdon is an expert in ILLUMINATI art and symbols. Through a ambigramatic brand, the ILLUMINATI has taken responsibility for the death of one CERN’s leading Elementary Particle Physicist. After teaming up with Vittoria Vetra, the dead physicist’s daughter, Langdon learns that an antimatter containment (failing) unit was planted at the Vatican and counting down to annihilation. He and Vetra must follow the path of ILLUMINATION to track down the Hassassin, who can tell them how to find the antimatter canister and get it out of the Vatican. Through the plot, Langdon demonstrates denial that the ILLUMINATI could have reemerged, Skepticism that Hassassin could be working with the ILLUMINATI, and realization that the ILLUMINATI tactics are alive and well.
Langdon next appears in The Da Vinci Code. In the beginning of the story, Langdon is led to the Louvre under the pretence of assisting Captain Bezu Fache in deciphering symbols, which the dying Director Jacques Sauniere drew on his body in his own blood. Agent Sophie Neveu, cryptologist, enters the crime scene, luring Langdon away to tell him that Fache suspects that Langdon is Sauniere’s murder. Through a series of coded messages left behind by Sauniere, Langdon learns that the Priory of Sion continues to be an active group, and Neveu needs his help to discover Sauniere’s real killer. However, the signs left behind by Sauniere have Langdon and Neveu on a quest for the Holy Grail. During the plot of the story, Langdon goes through the same process of denial, skepticism and realization. He is in denial of Leigh Teabing’s assertion that Mary Magdalene and her family line with Jesus Christ is the real Holy Grail. He is skeptical that the Priory of Sion and the Knights Templar are still functioning. He realizes at the end of the book that Sophie Neveu Saint-Clair is a descendant of the Royal Bloodline.
In Brown’s most recent book to be released, Langdon is once again lured to the macro-setting, in this case Washington DC, under mysterious circumstances. He arrives at the Capital Building for his lecture to find that the lecture was a rouse. Just as he begins to figure this out, Langdon receives a telephone call from Mal’akh, who tells him that he has Langdon’s mentor, Peter Solomon, and if Langdon wants to see him alive again, he must decipher the Ancient Mysteries. To add to the threat, Solomon’s hand is found under The Apotheosis of Washington Fresco, and the hand has been staged as the Hand of the Mysteries.
From this point, the story is off and running, following the same plot points that Brown has used in the other two books. The over-zealous fanatical antagonist, a repetitive arch-type in Brown’s writing, wants the “Word” that will make him a god-like being that the Ancient Mysteries are supposed to reveal. Also like the other two books, Langdon teams up with the emotionally wounded female relative of the catalyst victim. Langdon goes through the same formula of denial, skepticism and realization. He denies that the Ancient Mysteries exist. He is skeptical that the Freemasons had knowledge of the “Word.” He then realizes that the “Word” exists in a form that is hidden in plain sight.
The formula of Langdon’s psychological development is no longer likely after The Da Vinci Code. Langdon has been through too many implausible situations for him to go through the same repetitive cycle of denial, skepticism and realization. After spending time with Vetra, who has been able to produce and contain Antimatter, Neveu, who is the last decent of Christ, and Katherine Solomon, who has proven that the human soul exists through scientific means, Langdon should learn to reserve judgment on what is and what is not possible. One key moment, which illustrates his inability to grow, is when he is trapped in a sensory deprivation tank where Mal’akh shows him a puzzle. Of course, he is given a time limit to solve the puzzle and goes through the inevitable panic; however, if Langdon was able to grow and learn, he would have remembered that Vetra once advised him not to try to solve a problem but to try to remember the solution. Furthermore, Langdon is an academic. His whole life revolves around learning and passing on what he has learned to his students. So, through facing fanatical zealots, he should know that the small snippets of truth that they cling to are the keys to unraveling the mysteries around them. This method is a key most teachers use to promote learning in their classrooms to help students understand a concept; use a student’s pre-existing knowledge to increase their understanding. Langdon has had two sets of extraordinary yet similar situations, his third time of repeating the acceptance cycle is just not believable.
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