Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) has had some of the most harrowing, magical adventures anyone could imagine. In one of his lesson plans, however, he insists that archeology is the study of facts and not the abstract idea of truth that philosophers endlessly ponder over. He’s so adamant about facts being the only knowledge worth having that he will deny the reality of any supernatural event he’s researched as well as many of the indisputable paranormal events he’s seen with his own eyes. It is so easy for audiences to believe the stories because they use bits of real archeological history to flesh out Indiana’s fantastical journeys. The believability of these movies is one of the greatest aspects of the franchise, which is why Indiana’s disbelief in magic is the biggest, most consistent plot hole in the franchise. The multitude of plot holes created by his stubborn disbelief in anything besides objective observable facts are enough to keep a person sleep-deprived if they dwell on them too long.

Indiana Jones Has Witnessed Some Major Miracles

In each of his adventures, Indiana has witnessed some of the most important historical moments any scholar of history would dream of seeing. They’ve never managed to fully convince him that there are things in existence far beyond what our knowledge could explain. In Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, he watches a man continue to live after magically having his heart removed. He loses control of his mind through blood magic to the point where he backhands his companion Short Round (Ke Huy Quan) and nearly helps Mola Ram (Amrish Puri) sacrifice his the object of his affection at the time, singer Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw). Later, Indiana somehow knows the magic spell that causes the sacred Shankara stones to ignite, sending Mola Ram to his death. He still reduces the stones to dusty old rocks that would sit in a museum if he tried to use them for his ultimate goal of riches and glory.

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Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark takes place a year after the events in Temple of Doom, but after all he had seen the previous year, Indiana is still adamant that the scholars who start to believe the ancient myths they study have lost their minds. He goes through this adventure, however, seeing one miracle after another, leading up to the opening of the Ark itself. When he finds the Ark, he sees a supernatural cloud flooding the sky, and that same cloud manifests when they open the Ark. After the bad guys pop the top, myst swirls around the artifact and thunder rumbles. At this point, Indiana appears to have found just enough faith in the supernatural that he tells Marion (Karen Allen) to keep her eyes closed while all the magic kills the bad guys. It could be because he believes the magic could kill them if they witnessed it, but it could also be that he believes something can’t be real if he can’t see it.

Image via Paramount Pictures

In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, he meets a 700-year-old man guarding the actual Holy Grail that will magically extend your life by drinking water from it. There are also dozens of other cups that will magically age a person beyond death. He witnesses the water from the grail immediately heal his father (Sean Connery) from a fatal bullet wound. He also watches the temple magically self-destruct when Dr. Elsa Schneider (Alison Doody) carries the grail past a holy seal carved into the ground. At the end of this adventure he’s not outwardly expressing his denial of the miracles he experiences, but he’s still very eager to put it behind him and return to a normal life.

With the events in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Indiana seems more open to the fact that there are things in existence outside human knowledge, such as psychic connections with an alien skull and an interdimensional flying saucer lifting off and disappearing before his eyes. Just like in the third movie, however, Indiana competes his journey ready to get back to being a college professor.

The Real Magic Is That Indiana Always Survives
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With Indiana, his mindset is beyond just a lack of faith. He outright denies the evidence he sees and judges those who believe the events they’re experiencing as though they’re crazy. Denying the existence of the bigger miracles he witnesses is a bit more understandable because it takes a level of faith that he just doesn’t possess. Some of the smaller miracles that he survives would be enough for most to start believing in magic.

The notion that all the booby traps Indiana springs during his explorations all seem to still work is a miracle itself. The opening scene in Raiders shows pressure activated steps that trigger blow darts to shoot from tiny holes in a stone wall that somehow were never triggered, or the blow dart holes never plugged up in the centuries since they were put in place. This is especially true in The Last Crusade, where the metal of the saw blades that behead people still shines, clay stepping stones over a pit have never crumbled and fallen though, and an optical illusion painted on a thin stone bridge to make it appear invisible that never faded or got damaged. One neat trick Indiana performs nearly every time he enters a cave or a dark passage is that he’s able to magically light up the whole space with just a torch, and sometimes only using a single match.

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There were many other magical moments in Indiana’s life as well. In The Temple of Doom, he and his two fellow travelers magically fly through the air, sled down a mountainside, fly over a cliff and float down treacherous rapids all in the same inflatable raft without getting one tear in it or breaking a single bone. Of course, we later learn that it was the tribe’s deity Siva that magically crashed Indiana’s plane and brought them to bring back the sacred stone stolen from their shrine after the tribe’s leader prayed for it. In The Last Crusade, Indiana magically caries a lit torch over a pool covered in petroleum that doesn’t catch fire until the people chasing him toss in a match. In The Crystal Skull, there was a chase through the rainforest and magically not one car ran into a tree, but after crashing into a massive ant hill another car lands on top of them, and they all miraculously survive. They use this same car that got run over to go over three waterfalls.

Does Indiana Jones Believe In Magic?
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Indiana Jones values facts over feelings to an extreme degree. This is never more true that when he’s in front of a classroom full of students, as he emphasizes that most work in archeology is not onsite discoveries and dangerous adventures, but research and studying others’ discoveries. It’s possible he could be discouraging future competitors from pursuing his dream of riches and glory by denying that anything exciting ever happens in archeology. It could also be true that he tells his students this to stop them from risking their lives the way he does. His disdain for the fanciful in preference to the facts of life seems genuine either way. As Indiana ages, it appears he’s become more willing to radically accept what he sees with his happening in front of him whether he believed in it before or not. Regardless of whether he knows the facts about these events or is unsure what to believe, he has learned to accept whatever happens as just another real moment in his mystical, magical life. It will be exciting to see if he opens up even more to the fantastical side of his life in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, in theaters now!