I do hope I wasn’t just deprived of a movie ending on the magnitude of “I am your father” or Bruce Willis in the Sixth Sense finding out that he’s actually… oh never mind.

There’s some of that in NCFOM as well. Sheriff Bell never actually comes into direct contact with Chigurh (at least in the movie): he basically just learns that the monster exists. And that alone is almost enough to destroy him.

I mean, I definitely think the point is “we live in a hostile world full of killing machines and even badass Chigurh can be a victim of violence,” but I don’t think that Chigurh is the intended recipient of that message.

I also think it’s an “Indy in the fridge” moment where you see the old country and the new country collide — literally. Because obviously most of us aren’t going to meet that many hitmen in our lives, but that sort of life isn’t totally alien from the brutality of our own — it’s the bridge; we just kill with station wagons instead of shotguns.

The irony, of course, being that station wagons are far more fearsome and kill far more people than shotguns too.

I also don’t think the world of NCfOM is nihilistic. Pessimistic, sure, but not nihilistic.

And I don’t think Lovecraft is nihilistic, either.

It’s one of the old philosophical discussions Jordan and I had once:

If a demon who wanted to kill you showed up, what’s the proper reaction? Be scared and sad, because you’re going to be killed by a demon, or be excited and intrigued, because it means there’s something more to the world than you might have otherwise considered?

I was always a bit more on the latter side.

I definitely agree that NCfOM shows global brutaility failing to inspire much of courage. Same with Lovecraft. They think that sort of reaction would be delusional.

But I also don’t think the world, at least in NCfOM is entirely blank, either — entirely dark and level.

Because, after all, Chigurh does survive being hit by a car, and presumably goes on to kill again. So, something manages to endure. It’s just not what we might like.

In that case, NCFOM isn’t set in a nihilistic universe but rather a Gloucester in King Lear “the gods kill us for their sport”-type universe.

/overthink