/lit/ - Literature

>>15934506
An agent of destruction. Death incarnate. An apostle of war. God and the devil. A gnostic knight. One of the four horsemen. An apocalyptic vision. A judge. A fat man with an egg shaped head.

>>15934536
oh ok thanks

>>15934746
He was also poopoocaacaa :)

>>15934506
An evil larger than life character without a good larger than life character to oppose him.

>>15934506
I finished reading this recently and I'm still trying to figure it out. There's many ways you can interpret him. I don't buy the ideas that he is a concept personified, that he is a Tyler Durden to the Kid. I think he is 'something' possessing a human body. Whether that is the horseman War himself, Death, God, The Devil, Jared Fogle or a random entity I can not say. I only believe this to be the case as he actively takes measures to keep his body intact: fashions a hat in the desert while fleeing the Indians at the end, trying to bargain for the Kid's gun, etc.

>>15934506
>>15934536
A man

>>15935769
There was missed opportunity with Tobin, who was the only one the Judge seemed to have a measure of respect for, as well as personal hatred. He serves as the great spiritual foil of the Judge.

>>15934506
Gore Magala in life was a Judge, one who managed to break free of the Mantle and who earned a soul of his own. He was known to appear to beleaguered adventurers and enforce impossible rules of his own making, leading inevitably to their untimely deaths ... He is popular among necromancers, executioners, and those who kill for profit or sport.

http://nolanarlfg.wikidot.com/gnostic-deities

>>15936110
I will enjoy this

https://peter-mclachlin.livejournal.com/115239.html

>>15934506
>What was he?
a Djinn.

Hey, that's a picture of me. Take it down or I'll call the cyber police.

A manifestation of the 'coomer', but this was before we had really identified and solidified the concept.

>>15935769
>a good larger than life character
>in a McCarthy novel

>Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner.

>>15934506
I'm a literature pseud,what book are you fags talking about?

>>15937605
God that lecture was based.

>>15937694
lurk moar newfag

>>15934506

I was reading up on the background of Blood Meridian the other day and it's surprising how much CM just took it all from real life.

Holden was a real guy, and he was pretty much as in the book. McCarthy embellishes a few things, but only slightly.

IRL he was 6'6", pale and hairless, superbly erudite and completely ruthless. He also liked raping and killing children.

One difference is that he was described as showing no emotions except when there was killing, when his eyes burned with ferocity. CM has him smiling all the time. I suppose you could imagine him as smiling in a very cold way, but that's not quite how I picture it.

>>15937605
As much as I appreciate the maymay, isn't the Judge naked except for his hat at this part?

>>15937726
good point, albeit >>15937728

>>15937728
>I suppose you could imagine him as smiling in a very cold way, but that's not quite how I picture it.
I took the Judge's smiling as the kind of smile someone gives after they tell the punchline of a joke a sort of "Get it!?" or even "I know something you don't" and to an extent "Bless your cotton socks"

>>15934506
>Judge Holden is a villain worthy of Shakespeare, Iago-like and demoniac, a theoretician of war everlasting
>Judge Holden, the prophet of war, is unlikely to be without honor in our years to come.
>We first meet the Judge on page 6: an enormous man, bald as a stone, no trace of a beard, and eyes without either brows or lashes. A seven-foot-tall albino, he almost seems to have come from some other world, and we learn to wonder about the Judge, who never sleeps, dances and fiddles with extraordinary art and energy, rapes and murders little children of both sexes, and who says that he will never die. By the book’s close, I have come to believe that the Judge is immortal. And yet the Judge, while both more and less than human, is as individuated as Iago or Macbeth, and is quite at home in the Texan–Mexican borderlands where we watch him operate in 1849–50, and then find him again in 1878, not a day older after twenty-eight years, though the Kid, a sixteen-year-old at the start of Glanton’s foray, is forty-five when murdered by the Judge at the end.
>What is the reader to make of the Judge? He is immortal as principle, as War Everlasting, but is he a person, or something other? McCarthy will not tell us, which is all the better, since the ambiguity is most stimulating.

>>15934506
what a charming smile

>>15934536
is this actually from the book?

To me he was just McCarthy's physical manifestation of mankind's sadism and war(?).

>>15937851
No

>>15937778
Yes, it's smiling from a position of superior understanding, like Vito Corleone, Hannibal Lecter, Noah Cross, etc.

>>15937863
sounds like it desu

>>15937928
No it doesn't senpai

Holden is the demiurge made flesh. He is the Son of inverted Holy Trinity, the Father is Demiurge and the Spirit is War. Blood Meridian in general is a gnostic inversion of the New Testament wrapped in cowboy pastiche.

>>15934506
a real jerk

>>15937934
>Holden is the demiurge
Didn't read the rest of that word salad but that's basically it. He represents the animating force of the world. The Schopenhauerean Will, you could say.

He is the masculine ideal.

>>15937934
Why is it that every time a purely evil character is presented in any work, there's bound to be some retard gnostic claiming he's the embodiment of "muh demiurge god of the material world"?

>>15934506
he is literally me. smart, nihilistic and with a wicked sense of humor

>>15937959
because Blood Meridian did it and everyone reads Blood Meridian

>>15937959
>purely evil
That makes me wonder: does Holden ever do anything good - anything at all - throughout the whole book?

He does rescue the retard from drowning. That's probably selfish but it's hard to know. The whole Judge-Retard thing is weird.

Also he's always very forthcoming and happy to share his erudition with the gang when they ask him about things. And he doesn't ever mock them for their ignorance. Or not often, anyway. That's quite agreeable. (More aggreable than most people on 4chan anyway.)

>>15938031
Holden's evil lies in his casting shadows on the wall, he is the embodiment of all that which prevents man from achieving enlightenment; not merely acts of violence, but also acts of enchantment with vain knowledge.

>>15935769

What would the nversion of Judge Holden be like? Has there ever been such a character in literature?

Someone like Leonardo da Vinci might be close but he wasn't really as much good as Holden is evil.

>>15938031
He helps the group being chased by Apaches by making the pee explosive?

>>15938143
Yeah but that's not really a good thing; it just furthers his ends. He wants to ride around with the Glanton gang killing people. Synthesizing the gunpowder does this directly, and also means he can go on doing it in future.

>>15938110
Insofar as evil is distance from God, it's always easier to be more evil than good. One can only walk towards God so close before one touches Him, but one can always walk further away.

>>15938143
>>15938206
best chapter

>>15938110
I suppose a philosopher king would fit the bill.
But I don't think that any character fits that inversion really. Maybe some mentor figures that die early on to inspire the heroes come close, but they die of course.

It down to reading about a paragon of order and good that can never lose unless matched by an evil ubermensch or something doesn't make for a very interesting book I suppose.

>>15937959
Because it's true. Read the text, retard.

>>15938110
>What would the nversion of Judge Holden be like? Has there ever been such a character in literature?
Jesus Christ

>>15934506
When you bring me out, can you introduce me as Joker?

My absolute favorite part of this book is when they enter that bar and ask for beans and the bartender mistakes them for blacks because they're covered in dirt and shit and one of them shouts "he thinks we're niggers!" and the one black dude blows the bartender away

>>15936132
well Tobin did somewhat guide the Kid who became a complete antithesis of the Judge's ethos

>>15937739
I think he gets either Toadvine or Brown's clothes (hence them being ill fitted). What's missing is the skin parasol and idiot

>>15938031
He does mock then openly a number of times, like when he whips them into a frenzy talking about cosmology I think and "laughs at them for fools"

>>15938110
Winnie The Pooh

>>15934506
a dancer

As someone who's never read anything by McCarthy, is Blood Meridian a good start?

A draft version of Anton Chigurh

>>15934506

>>15939377
I wanted to lol but memes have taken away my will to power. Have this (you)

>>15938031
Holden saving the idiot and letting the insane Germans live are not acts of mercy. Holden does those things because its crueler to force them to live like that than to let them die. McCarthy drives home the point when he has Glanton mention that he wished they would have killed the Germans.

This is also contrasted by the Kid not killing Shelby while the Mexican army was coming. The Kid's intentions in refusing to kill Shelby are to give him a chance to live and respect his wishes. So while both are actions that end up with the person worse off because they weren't killed, the Kid was merciful while the judge was cruel.

>>15938723
The best part of that is they throw the bartender a gun first and cheer him on to shoot black Jackson. Then when the law enforcement comes they deny having ever been in the restaurant.

>>15937841
hes a great favorite

>>15938031
holden and the idiots relationship

>>15938502

>>15934506
He's a gnostic archon. A prince of the Earth and master of the material plane.

>>15934506
Nature

>>15934506
Is that the Joker?

>>15934536
Thanks /r/DCEU

>>15937959
Because Persona 5 came out and used it as a villain so every retarded 4chan zoomer found their religion that's both edgy and sidesteps the problem of evil.

>>15940484
They were originally going to use Metatron, too. In fact, if you search the gamefiles, you'll see his file is still named "Metraton".

>>15939179
Well, I just read this a couple weeks ago and it was my first McCarthy. Blew me the fuck away, ordered Suttree but am just about to start reading it because I can't imagine it living up to BM so i'm sort of putting it off.

Shit was insanely good, I really wish more literature described brutality - or at least alluded to it - like this book does. 99% of the books I read feel like PG13 versions of the authors actual thoughts and vision.

>>15940382
You have to go back

>>15934506
An absolute chad

>>15934506
McCarthy making a direct assault on the human definition of evil. People treat evil like it's "Whoever does something that I don't like", they toss it around as a cover for people they really do like or really don't like, or an accusation against those who wrong them. When they perceive evil in the sense of performing violence they see it as almost animalistic. A demon that that kills everything in its path "just because". The Judge causes pain and suffering simply because he can. He'll do it whenever he can, but only when he knows people can't or won't stop him. He's not a bully, he doesn't do it for personal satisfaction. It's almost more of a mockery, an insult, directed at everyone around him. He's not the devil, his goal isn't to turn them away from God, it's simply to kill and cause suffering, as much as possible without anyone else interfering, mainly so he can laugh inside at their complete ignorance and naivety and the ease with which they can be manipulated.

Or at least that's what I've put together from you all never shutting up about the book, I've never read it.

Does anyone have an expanded reading list for BM? Like, works that influenced the themes/development of the book.

>>15942097
whoever drew this should be shot

>>15942277
y

>>15939179
Child of god and the road are your best bets for an easier read. No country for old men would be a good start too.

>>15939179
Not really. I never like starting with an author's best because it'll make the rest feel like a downgrade. I'd say Child of God > The Road > No Country for Old Men > Suttree > Blood Meridian. Though you could put off CoG and Suttree until after if you like.

>>15942501
I really liked All the Pretty Horses. It's nothing particularly special but it was definitely a pleasant read.

>>15942656
Could always continue the Border Trilogy then! All pretty good.

>>15934506
The vile, gory vengeful spirit of war

>>15934506
A big man with small hands and feet. The kid was small with big hands and feet. Judge was big in character but small in action while the kid was small in character but big in action. The judge led the kid to rape and murder children, that’s why the girl was said to show marks of big hands strangling her. The judge is the devil working through the idle hands of small men.

>>15942715
>that’s why the girl was said to show marks of big hands strangling her
which girl?

>>15937934
Good take.

>>15942756
I meant the dead children who got raped and murdered, I just confused them with the missing girl. The judge couldn’t have done it because he had small hands. The book said the child had been strangled with big hands, which the kid had.

>Aw, Davey

Desu I thought the Judge actually did die in the end. The epilogue symbolizes the incoming industrialization and taming of the Wild West.

>>15942997
What if the real judge was the capitalism we made along?

>>15943043
I don't mean the rape scene I mean the guy setting up the railroad

>Aw, Davey

>>15942664
That’s what I did. They’re good books but no BM. So I read BM again afterwards

>>15943043
>the judge is drumpf! Ha checkmate fascists!

absolution

>>15942286
he's not showing his cute smile! :)

>>15943043
nah close but he's colonialism chief

>>15944826
THE WHITE MAN
H
E

W
H
I
T
E

M
A
N

>>15938751
And look where that got the kid

I always thought of him as a raw representation of human nature. While we may be more abstract in our execution, the core remains the same.

>>15940842
You first.

>>15945772
We’ll go together anon. Hand in hand.

>>15934506
Your father

>>15945257
Personally I think the Kid didn't even try to fight Holden in the outhouse. He knew he had committed atrocities and got away with living a fairly long life, for those times anyway

>>15940484
People reading fatlus games out of a McCarthy book is a very stupid attempt at an observation

Alright, you got me. This better not be another meme.
Should I read the 2010 or 2001 version?

>>15947176
>2010 or 2001 version
What

>>15947220

>>15947233
They're virtually the same

>>15934506
more human than human