Blood meridian

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whoops, clicked enter too early
anyway i just finished this and was wondering on Veeky Forums's interpretation of the ending.
Is Holden the devil?
what happened to the kid?

meme/10

Blood Meridian

I'm a relatively new reader and this was my take on the ending:
The judge seems to have fashioned himself as a figurative Satan. He seeks to obtain souls via spreading violence and corruption, those he cannot corrupt he simply kills.
When "The Kid" enters the toilets and is "embraced" by the judge, i believed this to be a figurative embracement of the true evil in his soul. the judge had finally corrupted the kid into embracing his own depravity. thus the kid stumbles upon the young girl who had lost the bear alone in the toilets, he proceeds to rape and mutilate her. Throughout the story several girls are having mentioned to have gone missing.

Holden claims that the kid refuses to be 'true to his heart' and that he was the 'false one' among them, for he alone withheld an aspect of his violence from the others

"The third Man" taking a piss i believed to be the kid. the book ends with Holden dancing claiming that he "will never die".
Holden in truth knows he will die but what he stands for will not, he is in ecstasy at having spread his own work and coerced the kid into reveling in violence and accepting that he, like the judge enjoys it for itself

Yes he is the devil. He was playing the fiddle, which is something the devil usually does.

I'm guessing the kid was raped, in order For Holden to dominate him.

i understand that this is much more likely and regarded as the true answer, i still find mine more satisfying ;^)

I was always torn between rape or an extremely violent death. Not sure which still.

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surprise porta potty buttsecks

Why is this making me laugh?

I couldn't get pass the part with the traveling gypsies.

The judge is supernatural. He knew thing only the kid would know (not killing that injured guy on the mountain) and predicted the death of the bear.

The judge was there to turn the members of the gang evil. Once a member totally gave in to evil he then had permission to die. Who survived Yuma? Only the kid, the ex priest, toadvine and brown. All people that at one point opposed the judges pure evil (defending kids for example).

I don't believe the judge raped any of the kids it is implied he raped. You never explicitly see the judges engage in violence, he only initiates it (for example the first time we meet him and he gets the crowd to kill the preacher).

At the end the kid gets drunk and tries to fuck a midget whore. He can't get hard and she says it doesn't always work (that is, fucking a midget can't replace fucking a child).

I belive that in the Jake's is the kid raping the organ girl. But both are dead in the act. Since the kid gave into evil the judge was able to kill him.

Forgot to say, the kids that were implied raped, I think other members of the gang did it by the influence of the judge. After each raped a member of the gang is found dead. The judge killed them after they totally gave in to his evil.

I like this, especially the "permission to die" part. hadn't thought of that.
however "You never explicitly see the judge engage in violence" is incorrect, we see him commit many acts, such as scalping the child that they had been playing with.

The kids go missing because of the judge. He kills them outright in the novel, and is shown with a young girl in his room during the Yuma massacre. Let's also not forget that 'The Kid' literally just got laid. Even ignoring all that, you're pretty much just making shit up, if McCarthy wanted to have such a specific ending he would have alluded to it. He obviously wanted to keep things vague. There probably is no set ending (in McCarthy's mind) for what happened, only the conveyed atmosphere (the guy reeling in shock at the scene) so that we know something in the general vicinity of Bad Shit occurred. Exactly which is not important, because any symbolic implications are completely covered in the Kid/Judge conversation in the section previous.

Analogize The Sopranos ending, there are people arguing endlessly, 'was he shot' etc., but you can find interviews of the creator talking about how it was supposed to be ambiguous, the whole point is contained in the non-specificity of it. Being able to understand and accept why the ambiguity exists without trying to solve it like some kind of puzzle is an important step in appreciation of art, because only a faggot reads for plot.

I like to embrace the ambiguity of scenes like this instead of trying to pick a side. The Judge either killed the kid or the kid embraced him, symbolizing his corruption. I think the value of the ending is that it's unclear which happened.

Know how each chapter header has an outline of what happens? Go translate the German.

Iirc the child was already dead by someone else's hand though.

i literally said this thread was about YOUR interpretation, as in what did you personally think happened.
"you're pretty much just making shit up"
yes that is basically point of this thread

>I think the value of the ending is that it's unclear which happened.

Of course it is. But it's fun to think of different scenarios. If you just finish and don't think about it your really not appreciating the ambiguity. I'm And my interpretation has changed about 4 times and this is the one I currently believe.

I keep trying to think of one but every time someone else ends up committing the acts.
such as when he threw the puppies into the river, IIRC it was blackie? who shot them

Interpreting and making shit up are not one of and the same.

The fact that you need to believe in an interpretation seems like you're kind of missing the point you claim to embrace.

He seems like a very violent character but I noticed on my second read that he was never explicitly violent. He did kill some Indians I think, but that isn't particularly evil considering the place and time.

Here's the passage:

They covered it [the child] with a blanket and in the mornning the judge was dandling it on one knee while the men saddled their horses. Toadvine saw him with the child as he passed with his saddle but when he came back ten minutes later leading the horse the child was dead and the judge had scalped it. Toadvine put the muzzle of his pistol against the great dome of the judge's head.
Goddamn you, Holden.

This is why toadvine survived Yuma. It's implied but not explicitly said that the judge killed that child. It's possible someone else did. He did explicitly scalp it though.

What did you guys think of the epilogue?

just corn my ye up

Symbolized fencing in the west, taking it out of the judges realm.

was my take on it