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Dec. 9th, 2015 12:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
proximoceptionRewatch of 6.4 of Walking Dead:
(May again be repeating much of what I said before - simply can't remember.)
Morgan's framed visually as though in prison, and of his own making, at numerous points, and often with pointed "bars" - ones he sharpened, often.
He's framed that way at the end after not throwing away the key, since this act is a bit of a repeat of Eastman's imprisoning and starving of Crighton Dallas Wilton. The bars are pointed in that scene, I think? And the words of Rick's he hears are "Open the gates" when he's just locked one. Meaning the example of Rick and what has happened to him should make him back down from his act of exclusion.
Eastman's making of cheese: milk gone bad can still become cheese. And he keeps trying till it's right, like he does with Morgan.
He's in the prison of going back to the moment when his son dies, with a door that might open out but just comes back in. If it's him or you, it needs to be him no matter what, he's in effect saying to his son - so kill your mother, son. He can't do this either when the son he killed of the man he killed comes back to kill him. So the argument he's been having all this time with his dead son is won by the son.
But the door eventually does open - one is eventually real. Eastman lets him see this. And he truly is outside, at the end of his story. The sun shines through the trees, the world expands everywhere.
On the wall by the daughter's infinitely indivisible house is a picture of a turtle, showing it in its shell from the side and from above, and then just the shell from the side and from above.
The notion of having your home on your back is being played with; hence his large pack at the end, echoing the packs of the man he kills and the woman he saves.
The contrast with the J.S.S moment where Enid eats a turtle alive (but has blocked from memory the part in between her attacking and its death?) is pointed. Eastman's shirt says "Save the Terrapins," and he eats oatmeal burgers.
His story ends on the train tracks, like The Grove did. A clear path forward?
Wanting to kill isn't condemned. Eastman wants to kill Morgan when he breaks his daughter's house picture, and again when in the clearing when Morgan seems to have not changed. Morgan has this after the Wolf's response to his story.
We do hear a lock after the fight in the house, meaning Eastman has locked himself in for protection. Similarly, he has a locked box with a gun in it he uses to kill himself. So locks have their place, for him - in this case as a temporary measure against a clear, proven danger.
Eastman doesn't go as far as to say that Wilton is not evil. Just that his life is precious too. But from his story one gets the impression he truly isn't evil, but rather in one of the other categories: born with a sick brain, having acquired one, or having been damaged but able to heal. Born, achieved, thrust-upon, for those keeping count. Heredity, environment, free will. The paradox that we can only hate those who have truly chosen to hurt, and that if someone can truly choose we cannot hate them because what if they choose differently next time. Since why wouldn't they? Evil is a terrible choice. Do I depart from the show in lamenting the concept of free choice, as implicitly defined? Or is that exactly where a show about zombies is pointing.
Does his mistake cause his death? Has he hesitated at all, with Morgan? You know, he really has. Because he lets him know that truly evil minds do exist. Which may be incoherent, but gives Morgan the option of believing that might be him, that he might be that 825th (826th?). Gives him the option of seeing his own good behavior as just an act, like Eastman's interpretation of Wilton's in prison. Where once "out," once in the other place (which, if evil can exist, it must have a whole world of its own, have its own code and justice), he can feel that it all was a dream. Can want to die, rather than accepting who he had been and trying to make up for it. It is a direct connection, then. A later failure of Eastman's, though one he makes up for by saving Morgan's life at the cost of his own. Tiny-seeming mistakes can have great consequences on this show. Because even the smallest acts might still change the life of another. Since Morgan's positive response is to how thoroughly Eastman seems to accept him, the single reservation matters, just like with Glenn's toward Nicholas.
All the words in the clearing have reversible meanings. Here's not here: 1. This seems like world but is prison, 2. This seems like prison but is world. Clear: 1. Kill everything and hope that clearing out the world around you will clear out the suffering inside, 2. Step clear of the fear and hate in your head, so it flies on past, and your way will be clear, your view of the world will be clear. Pointless acts: 1. Saving people is pointless since they will die, though killing them is also pointless since they will die anyway, 2. Acts that do not seek to kill, that accept and protect. What was the fourth one?
In his hometown he also wrote, "You are not here." 1. You are not in the world as it seems but instead imprisoned or already dead, or the son you speak to is no longer really here because he made his mistake and died - both a torment and solace, 2. That moment-prison of his death that you keep returning to is just in your head.
The violence seems to come from not knowing which to choose, living or dying. This is more or less brought up again in Always Accountable by Sasha: violence and other back to the wall situations seem to preclude choice, so can hide from others one's guilt (survivor or otherwise), but not from oneself. If we're all doomed or damned why kill everyone? Or anyone?
Redirection of aggression, fear, grief. A new direction, a new chance. Everything coming 'round again. This can be taken in an annoyingly implausible Eastern way, where it evades death itself, or just as a where there's life there's hope type thing. As Martin had said, there is always a choice. And as we learned with Tyrese, when there isn't a choice there isn't life anymore, so then you can let it all go.
The fire is supposed to make us think of Carol, I think, in that episode where all her abandoned past selves are symbolized by the various fires she's witnessed and sometimes set. Accepting who you were is the opposite; what lies behind the urge toward mayhem is always a death wish, on this show, hence the repetitions when cornered of "kill me" by Morgan, the Wolf, the priest, I think Martin ... probably others. Is the "clearing" impulse pure projection, can we say? Or a bit more complex than that?
Don't make me see what has happened. Don't make me see what I've done. Because what has happened has made the world unacceptable, identifying it with the worst that can be remembered about it. Because what I have done makes me unacceptable to myself, since I can remember that I did that. But no, instead of denying the worst this embraces the worst as the only true thing; "Don't ever apologize," Morgan says to Eastman, and later knows he has failed with the Wolf when the Wolf repeats that back. To apologize (or was the phrase "say you're sorry," which would be much better, since it includes the unwitting implication that you really are sorry but simply won't let yourself admit it) ... To apologize means to accept the reality that you have done something wrong and perhaps to express that you would like to make amends if possible. To not apologize might seem to be to not admit that you did something wrong, but instead (or as much) cuts your self-definition off from the things you have done that were right. Morgan admits freely that he has murdererd, but not that he has saved. Being damned is one end of the process of guilt - but it is a false one. Guilt doesn't end with being self-damned.
Wilton goes back to planting flowers after murdering Eastman's family. Flowers earlier for waiting rooms to remind those temporarily imprisoned by fear and sadness that life still goes on, renews itself, that the world isn't only one color. He has defined himself as the same evil that Eastman has, but can't live his remaining life according to that definition. And is angry at Eastman for, what, being right? If he were truly evil he would have nothing to prove to anyone. Rather than meeting "I think you're evil" with "Yeah? Well then I'll show you evil."
The couple Morgan saves ... He does basically mug them, but it's stranger than that. A feral, threatening hiss at people who are very clearly no threat. It's the kabuki version of being a clearer. He wants them to see him that way. But instead they give him food. Like Eastman? And that bullet, like Michonne gave when she had nothing else to give. As a mugging, it's not so great to have received someone's everything. Maybe the "thank you" was the point? She summed his series of actions as the best that it was: saving them. Not the worst. Definitely echoing how Eastman thanked Morgan for saving Tabitha, despite the fact that he had also endangered her - but did Eastman know that? Or is the point just that in each case Morgan had the choice of correcting the mistake but realized that he preferred the version of himself their mistake or fearful humoring of him had created? Because that's what re-cures him. But maybe the adding of the bullet is what proves that the gesture is "everything," short of their lives, is one of gratitude. She didn't have to do that, perhaps? Or is it that she does it because he still seems unappeased? But maybe to believe in good one has to choose to see it - to prefer to. Maybe it's as much about him preferring to see her as wanting to do good in return rather than doing whatever it takes to not be killed. Does he realize this too? That small nod.
The not quite deserved thank you - echoing Nicholas in the previous episode? That scene's certainly the one thing on our minds coming into 6.4.
The [Walking] Dead - Joycean? Some common ground.
(May again be repeating much of what I said before - simply can't remember.)
Morgan's framed visually as though in prison, and of his own making, at numerous points, and often with pointed "bars" - ones he sharpened, often.
He's framed that way at the end after not throwing away the key, since this act is a bit of a repeat of Eastman's imprisoning and starving of Crighton Dallas Wilton. The bars are pointed in that scene, I think? And the words of Rick's he hears are "Open the gates" when he's just locked one. Meaning the example of Rick and what has happened to him should make him back down from his act of exclusion.
Eastman's making of cheese: milk gone bad can still become cheese. And he keeps trying till it's right, like he does with Morgan.
He's in the prison of going back to the moment when his son dies, with a door that might open out but just comes back in. If it's him or you, it needs to be him no matter what, he's in effect saying to his son - so kill your mother, son. He can't do this either when the son he killed of the man he killed comes back to kill him. So the argument he's been having all this time with his dead son is won by the son.
But the door eventually does open - one is eventually real. Eastman lets him see this. And he truly is outside, at the end of his story. The sun shines through the trees, the world expands everywhere.
On the wall by the daughter's infinitely indivisible house is a picture of a turtle, showing it in its shell from the side and from above, and then just the shell from the side and from above.
The notion of having your home on your back is being played with; hence his large pack at the end, echoing the packs of the man he kills and the woman he saves.
The contrast with the J.S.S moment where Enid eats a turtle alive (but has blocked from memory the part in between her attacking and its death?) is pointed. Eastman's shirt says "Save the Terrapins," and he eats oatmeal burgers.
His story ends on the train tracks, like The Grove did. A clear path forward?
Wanting to kill isn't condemned. Eastman wants to kill Morgan when he breaks his daughter's house picture, and again when in the clearing when Morgan seems to have not changed. Morgan has this after the Wolf's response to his story.
We do hear a lock after the fight in the house, meaning Eastman has locked himself in for protection. Similarly, he has a locked box with a gun in it he uses to kill himself. So locks have their place, for him - in this case as a temporary measure against a clear, proven danger.
Eastman doesn't go as far as to say that Wilton is not evil. Just that his life is precious too. But from his story one gets the impression he truly isn't evil, but rather in one of the other categories: born with a sick brain, having acquired one, or having been damaged but able to heal. Born, achieved, thrust-upon, for those keeping count. Heredity, environment, free will. The paradox that we can only hate those who have truly chosen to hurt, and that if someone can truly choose we cannot hate them because what if they choose differently next time. Since why wouldn't they? Evil is a terrible choice. Do I depart from the show in lamenting the concept of free choice, as implicitly defined? Or is that exactly where a show about zombies is pointing.
Does his mistake cause his death? Has he hesitated at all, with Morgan? You know, he really has. Because he lets him know that truly evil minds do exist. Which may be incoherent, but gives Morgan the option of believing that might be him, that he might be that 825th (826th?). Gives him the option of seeing his own good behavior as just an act, like Eastman's interpretation of Wilton's in prison. Where once "out," once in the other place (which, if evil can exist, it must have a whole world of its own, have its own code and justice), he can feel that it all was a dream. Can want to die, rather than accepting who he had been and trying to make up for it. It is a direct connection, then. A later failure of Eastman's, though one he makes up for by saving Morgan's life at the cost of his own. Tiny-seeming mistakes can have great consequences on this show. Because even the smallest acts might still change the life of another. Since Morgan's positive response is to how thoroughly Eastman seems to accept him, the single reservation matters, just like with Glenn's toward Nicholas.
All the words in the clearing have reversible meanings. Here's not here: 1. This seems like world but is prison, 2. This seems like prison but is world. Clear: 1. Kill everything and hope that clearing out the world around you will clear out the suffering inside, 2. Step clear of the fear and hate in your head, so it flies on past, and your way will be clear, your view of the world will be clear. Pointless acts: 1. Saving people is pointless since they will die, though killing them is also pointless since they will die anyway, 2. Acts that do not seek to kill, that accept and protect. What was the fourth one?
In his hometown he also wrote, "You are not here." 1. You are not in the world as it seems but instead imprisoned or already dead, or the son you speak to is no longer really here because he made his mistake and died - both a torment and solace, 2. That moment-prison of his death that you keep returning to is just in your head.
The violence seems to come from not knowing which to choose, living or dying. This is more or less brought up again in Always Accountable by Sasha: violence and other back to the wall situations seem to preclude choice, so can hide from others one's guilt (survivor or otherwise), but not from oneself. If we're all doomed or damned why kill everyone? Or anyone?
Redirection of aggression, fear, grief. A new direction, a new chance. Everything coming 'round again. This can be taken in an annoyingly implausible Eastern way, where it evades death itself, or just as a where there's life there's hope type thing. As Martin had said, there is always a choice. And as we learned with Tyrese, when there isn't a choice there isn't life anymore, so then you can let it all go.
The fire is supposed to make us think of Carol, I think, in that episode where all her abandoned past selves are symbolized by the various fires she's witnessed and sometimes set. Accepting who you were is the opposite; what lies behind the urge toward mayhem is always a death wish, on this show, hence the repetitions when cornered of "kill me" by Morgan, the Wolf, the priest, I think Martin ... probably others. Is the "clearing" impulse pure projection, can we say? Or a bit more complex than that?
Don't make me see what has happened. Don't make me see what I've done. Because what has happened has made the world unacceptable, identifying it with the worst that can be remembered about it. Because what I have done makes me unacceptable to myself, since I can remember that I did that. But no, instead of denying the worst this embraces the worst as the only true thing; "Don't ever apologize," Morgan says to Eastman, and later knows he has failed with the Wolf when the Wolf repeats that back. To apologize (or was the phrase "say you're sorry," which would be much better, since it includes the unwitting implication that you really are sorry but simply won't let yourself admit it) ... To apologize means to accept the reality that you have done something wrong and perhaps to express that you would like to make amends if possible. To not apologize might seem to be to not admit that you did something wrong, but instead (or as much) cuts your self-definition off from the things you have done that were right. Morgan admits freely that he has murdererd, but not that he has saved. Being damned is one end of the process of guilt - but it is a false one. Guilt doesn't end with being self-damned.
Wilton goes back to planting flowers after murdering Eastman's family. Flowers earlier for waiting rooms to remind those temporarily imprisoned by fear and sadness that life still goes on, renews itself, that the world isn't only one color. He has defined himself as the same evil that Eastman has, but can't live his remaining life according to that definition. And is angry at Eastman for, what, being right? If he were truly evil he would have nothing to prove to anyone. Rather than meeting "I think you're evil" with "Yeah? Well then I'll show you evil."
The couple Morgan saves ... He does basically mug them, but it's stranger than that. A feral, threatening hiss at people who are very clearly no threat. It's the kabuki version of being a clearer. He wants them to see him that way. But instead they give him food. Like Eastman? And that bullet, like Michonne gave when she had nothing else to give. As a mugging, it's not so great to have received someone's everything. Maybe the "thank you" was the point? She summed his series of actions as the best that it was: saving them. Not the worst. Definitely echoing how Eastman thanked Morgan for saving Tabitha, despite the fact that he had also endangered her - but did Eastman know that? Or is the point just that in each case Morgan had the choice of correcting the mistake but realized that he preferred the version of himself their mistake or fearful humoring of him had created? Because that's what re-cures him. But maybe the adding of the bullet is what proves that the gesture is "everything," short of their lives, is one of gratitude. She didn't have to do that, perhaps? Or is it that she does it because he still seems unappeased? But maybe to believe in good one has to choose to see it - to prefer to. Maybe it's as much about him preferring to see her as wanting to do good in return rather than doing whatever it takes to not be killed. Does he realize this too? That small nod.
The not quite deserved thank you - echoing Nicholas in the previous episode? That scene's certainly the one thing on our minds coming into 6.4.
The [Walking] Dead - Joycean? Some common ground.
