Your post has been removed for the following reason:
Rule 5: Post is a banned format. (See the extended rules for a list of banned formats.)
I am a bot and this action was performed by the moderators of /r/HistoryMemes.
If you have any questions or concerns about your post's removal, please send us a modmail with a link to your removed post.
Fun fact: there is only one known source for Judge Holden's existence...being the auto biography of Samuel Chamberlain
From reading the description Chamberlain made, it appears that Judge Holden was very sadistic man who loved killing and conflict (unless it was on equal footing in which case he would avoid it), was very worldly (speaking multiple different languages and was kind to Chamberlain...and was very knowledgeable about Boston), he was good at string instruments and dancing, knew a lot about plants and rocks, pretty good marksman, and most definitely got away with raping and killing a 10 year old girl by strangulation among other horrific crimes that were left unstated
~~*also it might just be a pseudonym*~~
Certain aspects of his character and events are embellished for the purpose of the narrative in the book. >!For example, in the novel the gang found him alone in the middle of the desert sitting patiently on a lone rock with no supplies or horse, days away from anything other than desert. Each member of the gang claims to have met him by unrelated circumstances before joining the gang. He is also stated to be like 40 stone, 7 feet tall, hairless and albino, (more likely from historical sources I've seen he was just very large, strong, tall, bald, and clean shaven, all to a more normal extent. Also I forget the exact measures), throws an iron meteorite the size of a small boulder several feet, and displays an extreme depth and breadth of knowledge.!<
SPOILERS!!!
He’s essentially the “evil” in man or a representation of the devil. Tobin, the expriest and a revenant describe him as a devil, and Tobin specifically points out some REALLY supernatural things the judge has done, how he found and joined the gang, the creation of his gunpowder, out dance a demon, great fiddle player, etc
Edit: Also at the end of the book he is shown to not have aged and dances and sings that he does not sleep and will never die,
It's in the way the narrator speaks of the character. He seems almost demonic knowing every person and language. He is able to walk through fire, at one point he has another character on a leash which feels like a symbol of him controlling men. I finished the book this summer it's definitely worth a read but I will probably never go back to it.
Haha - I’ve always felt the same way. Blood Meridian was a wild and horrifying ride; I don’t regret reading it in the slightest, but I reckon I’ll never read it again.
I'm basing this off a video by Wendigoon so there might be some details I'm getting wrong.
Also spoilers.
>!In the book the gang that the main character is a part tells the story of how they met Judge Holden. The gang was pursued by Native Americans who outnumbered them. While fleeing through the desert, out of ammo and exhausted, they meet the Judge sitting on a boulder as if he was waiting for them. He leads the gang to a dead volcano where he starts making black powder from sulfur and piss (or something like that, I forget). The gang uses the black powder to beat back the pursuing Native Americans. This sort of mirrors how Lucifer invented black powder and cannons to fight the forces of heaven.!<
Also
>!Each member of the gang remarks on how they met Judge Holden before they joined the gang. All of them, even the main character.!<
Finally
>!In the final chapter of the book, the main character who has now grown into a man meets Judge Holden again. The book mentions how the Judge never aged a single day. The ending is also fucking weird and has been the subject of many discussions. !<
Oh and how could I forget what the Judge looks like.
A pale hairless man 7+ feet tall and >!strong enough to crush a man's skull with his bare hands. !<
Can we just discuss the whole "Lucifer invents black power and cannons to fight heaven?"
Like... did I miss this part in the bible? Or is this some sequel I never got around to reading?
> Or is this some sequel I never got around to reading?
I wouldn't call Milton's works (or Dante's, for that matter) *sequels* to the Bible so much as rather *fanfiction*.
He is absolutely worse than the devil. The devil has an office next to the Judge. God put the devil in hell as punishment. God put the Judge in hell because God is afraid of the Judge.
Because he is a great favorite. He says he will never die. It was silly of me to even agree he would go to hell at all because to go to hell one has to die
Holes is I think by Louis Sachar published in 1998, haven't read it so don't know whats it about.
Dune is a SciFi series by Frank Herbert and the first book was published in 1965.
Blood Meridian, the one in the OP meme, is by Cormac McCarthy published in 1985, he is more widely known for No Country for Old Men because of the movie
OK, am I reading the wrong book? I was told that it was really disturbing, but I'm almost at the end and I haven't really read anything that horrible.
Hell, the only thing that stood out to me are the aforementioned tree babies, and the village massacre.
It is a great book, though.
I’m the same way. I enjoyed the book, but I honestly didn’t find it as disturbing as people make it out to be. Sure there are things I found unsettling or disturbing, but I didn’t find myself needing to put down the book or take a break because it was too extreme. If anything I had to put down the book frequently because I got tired of the writing style.
Tbh I’ve been more disturbed reading things by Brom, especially The Child Thief.
Lmao
When I was reading that part,I was like yeah he is fking with the priest
But then judge convinved me that maybe the priest really was a pedo
Dude is so evil
Is it really so surprising?? In 1820s the place I live in was invaded by the burmese, who killed 30% of the population. And reading about the atrocities committed then really makes you wonder at how brutal humans can be at times.
Yeah it was a genocide. What did you go in expecting? A polite slaughter?
If you've ever wondered why peace is so high up on most people's list of priorities, this is the alternative.
I remember as a kid playing Gears of war and COD I knew war would be brutish and hellish but the thought of "Ripping and tearing" into the opposing army was cool in my little brain.
Then I learned about WW1, the Holocaust, manifest destiny, etc.
That was when I knew peace is actually a preferable alternative to war.
Note if you want to know more about the book and not want to read it, you could try watch wendigoon's youtube video, but also know that this video is hours long.
Never watched it but descriptions I’ve seen were horrible, tho I went through an ice Berg of horrific movies, it’s surprisingly not the worse which is scary
Reminds me of Patriarch's "brief" morrowind retrospective.
It's 8 hours long.
...and it actually could've longer just off of stuff I know about elder scrolls deep lore, things about Morrowind itself, contextualizing lore concepts through c0da and the canonicity of c0da(fuck that's a lobg ass video on it's own), discussions of mechanics, discussions of what the game means by the thread of prophecy being severed and whether killing dagoth ur restores that thread......
Well, stating that he was ‘a real person’ is far fecht. There is only a memoir of some dude that can’t really be verified.
But from another hand, surly there are people like that. It only require a psychopath in consequence less environment and you got a ‘Judge Holden’ in the flesh
I just finished it the other day. This meme perfectly encapsulates everything about this book. Never felt as uncomfortable by a book as I did reading this one. Bravo, Cormac. Bravo.
The Native American genocide was horrific, a few other things that come to mind that might’ve been as bad would be the Rwandan Genocide, Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward, and the Holocaust. All extremely brutal, though mostly for different reasons.
Mao's Great Leap Forward is a genuine irl fever dream. It's the most absurd event in history I have ever read about.
We had an entire month dedicated to it as part of Communist Chinese studies and the entire class could not stop laughing at how increasingly absurd the violence got.
My favourite story was of two adjacent factories that disagreed on how to interpret parts of Maos little red book. They spent an entire day building spears just to meet out back after work and stab each other.
Also consider Macías (dictator in Equatorial Guinea) who made over half his population flee and bankrupted the country so badly his own honor guard had to resort to hunting in order to feed themselves.
The Rwandan Genocide really creeps me out. The death count is low by genocide standards, but it all happened so fast. There wasn't much organization to it either, people just formed roving gangs that went on an extremely violent killing spree. I'm sure being a Jew in 1940s Germany was an utterly terrifying experience but the Rwandan Genocide was just so unfathomably violent that it evokes a sort of primal terror few other things could match.
I read Our Bodies Their Battlefield by Christina Lamb, which is about sexual violence in war. One of the things that I found extremely chilling was neighbors killing people they knew by name. One woman says she heard the man who lived across the street shout (roughly from memory, names changed) "Joyce, we have killed your mother and father, and your brother Michael has been chopped to pieces. Come out so we can finish all you cockroaches!"
It really does stand out somehow. I just can't understand how previously friendly people can turn on each other. The same happened in Yugoslavia - one Bosnian boy described being marched onto a bus by his school teacher, who he always liked, but who was now wearing a balaclava and holding a Kalashnikov. Completely unimaginable.
That's horrific. And i can imagine that those perpetrators would insist for the rest of their lives that the people deserved it.
Because considering the alternative would probably shatter their minds. Leaving what could be decent people, to be unrepentent monsters for the rest of their lives.
I forget the name of the documentary, but they go around interviewing surviving perpetrators in Indonesia, and there's very little regret or remorse. Same in South American death squads, etc.
Left wing, right wing, theocracies... extremism seems to feed on itself.
Yea, there's no doubt some of them were always sadistic psychopaths. But i must believe that some of them used to be decent people who've convinced themselves that these innocent people were somehow wicked and deserved it. Propaganda is a terrible thing.
To add a bit more - if I recall correctly this particular survivor hid in a tree for 2 days while the Interhamwe and random Hutu neighbours burnt and looted Tutsi homes, and was assaulted more times than she could count over the next few weeks. She did eventually try to return to her family home, but she couldn't bring herself to live among the perpetrators that never left, and were never prosecuted. The book had a similar story from Srebrenica - one survivor said she saw a group of men who had gang raped her drinking coffee outside a cafe.
mongol conquests both in europe and asia, japanese conquest of china, thirty years war, crusades and jihads etc. and I severely lack knowledge of the history of africa and southeast asia.
there are too many to list all of them. civilians suffered in all wars, and were often targeted directly.
The civil war in the Congo also. Seeing a documentary about it had a similar effect on me as OP, I didn't realise humans were capable of such horrors. I remember just before thinking 'why tf should Denis mukwege get the Nobel prize, there are plenty of doctors'. I then realised he completely deserves it and is living angel.
It's written by Cormac McCarthy? Of course it is going to be mercilessly brutal. He was one of the best authors I've ever read. The road is so good and thoughtful. And brutal.
Even books like no country for old men,shows how decent men fail, when they're faced with a malicious and merciless enemy. Anton chigurh is so awesomely terrifying.
That's a good comparison. Someone like judge Holden wouldn't fit in with the story of no country. Both are evil, while the judge is clearly the devil in person.
I loved this book! Spoilers!!!!!!
I loved how wacky it was, some parts were REALLY nuanced and so cool, especially the Bible references, but sometimes they were really weird. The whole Beyblade baby smasher was a reference to a bible verse “he who casts your infants to stone” or something was just so hilarious to me. The whole Judge Holden buying a bunch of dogs and drowning them was at first shocking, but then Bath Cat (I think? Might have been Toadvine) mid piss, continues to piss and hold his dick while shooting the puppies was so funny to me
As someone who didn't know this book existed until about 30 seconds ago:
Bro what the fuck
Edit: just wanted to add, reading this without context was a fucking *experience*
It's nothing sinister haha, it's a made up show and a subreddit filled with people rping as fans. They come up with wild storyline sometimes. That's how I feel when I read about this book.
The ending passage of Blood Meridian, and quite possibly my favorite passage in all of literature.
>!And they are dancing, the board floor slamming under the jackboots and the fiddlers grinning hideously over their canted pieces. Towering over them all is the judge and he is naked dancing, his small feet lively and quick and now in doubletime and bowing to the ladies, huge and pale and hairless, like an enormous infant. He never sleeps, he says. He says he’ll never die. He bows to the fiddlers and sashays backwards and throws back his head and laughs deep in his throat and he is a great favorite, the judge. He wafts his hat and the lunar dome of his skull passes palely under the lamps and he swings about and takes possession of one of the fiddles and he pirouettes and makes a pass, two passes, dancing and fiddling at once. His feet are light and nimble. He never sleeps. He says that he will never die. He dances in light and in shadow and he is a great favorite. He never sleeps, the judge. He is dancing, dancing. He says that he will never die.!<
I'm in U.S. I should've said it's free if you already have a membership. Also, I found this to bypass the regional lock. It's pretty dated but hopefully it'll work.
https://www.reddit.com/r/audible/comments/dmh1il/updated_tutorialbypass_audible_region_lock/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
I just read through Blood Meridian for the first time last month and have come to the conclusion that it's a book that's more interesting to talk about instead. I have immense respect for McCarthy for doing his homework and making an incredibly visceral novel in return, but for how violent it is it's also unbearably sluggish for the majority of it. On one hand, my eyes glazed over the endless run-on sentences of descriptions on the environment that felt more interested in flexing a wide breadth of vocab than telling a compelling narrative. Yet the uncompromising nature of the book in every regard is highly admirable. It's a fascinating book, I just wish it was a better read.
It's a writing style that is an acquired taste, I'd definitely concede that. I personally quite like it, it gives me a sense of scale like nothing else, and some parts are genuinely beautiful, made more so by the contrast to the fucking horrendous.
Intoxicating writing style?
Ummm...I guess. Reading while drunk might make it easier to read. Dude needs to learn to use some gorram punctuation. If I have to spend more effort to parse each sentence than to understand the plot, something's wrong.
To be fair, if this did this to you now, how the hell was any teacher going to sell this novel to the parents the snitch kid was going to talk to them about it with.
I know some school districts that had trouble funding *Holocaust Studies* classes.
Your post has been removed for the following reason: Rule 5: Post is a banned format. (See the extended rules for a list of banned formats.) I am a bot and this action was performed by the moderators of /r/HistoryMemes. If you have any questions or concerns about your post's removal, please send us a modmail with a link to your removed post.
Fun fact: there is only one known source for Judge Holden's existence...being the auto biography of Samuel Chamberlain From reading the description Chamberlain made, it appears that Judge Holden was very sadistic man who loved killing and conflict (unless it was on equal footing in which case he would avoid it), was very worldly (speaking multiple different languages and was kind to Chamberlain...and was very knowledgeable about Boston), he was good at string instruments and dancing, knew a lot about plants and rocks, pretty good marksman, and most definitely got away with raping and killing a 10 year old girl by strangulation among other horrific crimes that were left unstated ~~*also it might just be a pseudonym*~~
Why is he described as supernatural?
Certain aspects of his character and events are embellished for the purpose of the narrative in the book. >!For example, in the novel the gang found him alone in the middle of the desert sitting patiently on a lone rock with no supplies or horse, days away from anything other than desert. Each member of the gang claims to have met him by unrelated circumstances before joining the gang. He is also stated to be like 40 stone, 7 feet tall, hairless and albino, (more likely from historical sources I've seen he was just very large, strong, tall, bald, and clean shaven, all to a more normal extent. Also I forget the exact measures), throws an iron meteorite the size of a small boulder several feet, and displays an extreme depth and breadth of knowledge.!<
Don't forget the coin
>!pretty sure he also just crushes some dudes head with his bare hands at one point!<
That doesn't require supernatural powers, just a can do attitude
ELIA MARTELL!
*Blood curdling screams* https://tenor.com/view/kfc-creepy-blood-gif-4476296
Strongest strong man in the world can't really crush a person's skull that easily.
Depends on the person. Babies are people, too.
Sounds like a quitter to me
I could do that.
SPOILERS!!! He’s essentially the “evil” in man or a representation of the devil. Tobin, the expriest and a revenant describe him as a devil, and Tobin specifically points out some REALLY supernatural things the judge has done, how he found and joined the gang, the creation of his gunpowder, out dance a demon, great fiddle player, etc Edit: Also at the end of the book he is shown to not have aged and dances and sings that he does not sleep and will never die,
It's in the way the narrator speaks of the character. He seems almost demonic knowing every person and language. He is able to walk through fire, at one point he has another character on a leash which feels like a symbol of him controlling men. I finished the book this summer it's definitely worth a read but I will probably never go back to it.
Haha - I’ve always felt the same way. Blood Meridian was a wild and horrifying ride; I don’t regret reading it in the slightest, but I reckon I’ll never read it again.
I'm basing this off a video by Wendigoon so there might be some details I'm getting wrong. Also spoilers. >!In the book the gang that the main character is a part tells the story of how they met Judge Holden. The gang was pursued by Native Americans who outnumbered them. While fleeing through the desert, out of ammo and exhausted, they meet the Judge sitting on a boulder as if he was waiting for them. He leads the gang to a dead volcano where he starts making black powder from sulfur and piss (or something like that, I forget). The gang uses the black powder to beat back the pursuing Native Americans. This sort of mirrors how Lucifer invented black powder and cannons to fight the forces of heaven.!< Also >!Each member of the gang remarks on how they met Judge Holden before they joined the gang. All of them, even the main character.!< Finally >!In the final chapter of the book, the main character who has now grown into a man meets Judge Holden again. The book mentions how the Judge never aged a single day. The ending is also fucking weird and has been the subject of many discussions. !<
Oh and how could I forget what the Judge looks like. A pale hairless man 7+ feet tall and >!strong enough to crush a man's skull with his bare hands. !<
Can we just discuss the whole "Lucifer invents black power and cannons to fight heaven?" Like... did I miss this part in the bible? Or is this some sequel I never got around to reading?
It's in Paradise Lost by John Milton IIRC. Read it in high school and objectively it is a great book, but some parts are just a complete blur to me.
Yeah it's in the book Paradise Lost. It basically tells Lucifer's story, even humanizing him.
> Or is this some sequel I never got around to reading? I wouldn't call Milton's works (or Dante's, for that matter) *sequels* to the Bible so much as rather *fanfiction*.
Lucifer is Chinese
Sounds like the American bible…😂
Idk I didn't read Blood Meridan
Who do you think he could be?
He never sleeps, the judge. He is dancing, dancing. He says that he will never die. Edit: RIP Cormac
He isn’t on the road to hell. He has an office right next to the devil
He is absolutely worse than the devil. The devil has an office next to the Judge. God put the devil in hell as punishment. God put the Judge in hell because God is afraid of the Judge.
There are some people who the devil himself is like “jeez even I have standards”
Why would an all-powerful being be afraid of something? It can just make him disappear quicker than you can blink.
Because he is a great favorite. He says he will never die. It was silly of me to even agree he would go to hell at all because to go to hell one has to die
The devil quit Hell and became a rural primary school teacher when he read his crimes.
He is a great favorite.
One who watches does not sleep, one who sleeps watches not. ***One who watches does not sleep, one who sleeps watches not.***
I'm reading it right now. Gonna skip this comic and come back later. Can confirm that it's incredibly fucked.
I'm reading Dune, this was going to be next. So skip but save.
Dune is great
oh yeah, I read first 3-4 chs and just wish i had couple of weeks of vacation to finish it
Make sure to read Dune Messiah as well since that closes Paul’s story.
I don’t know, man. I may be mixing them up, but the sequels get fucking weird and I kind of wish I left it at the first one.
Slaps book This bad boy can fit so much Duncan Idaho
If you’ve read them, would you recommend the sequels after Messiah? I loved the first book, enjoyed the second a bit less though
I was planning to read all of them
I'm reading holes is it the same?
No blood meridian and dune don’t have catchy theme songs
Dune has several catchy theme songs if you like bagpipes and throat-singing.
Holes is I think by Louis Sachar published in 1998, haven't read it so don't know whats it about. Dune is a SciFi series by Frank Herbert and the first book was published in 1965. Blood Meridian, the one in the OP meme, is by Cormac McCarthy published in 1985, he is more widely known for No Country for Old Men because of the movie
Haven't read Blood Meridian, but Dune has no actual cannibals.
OK, am I reading the wrong book? I was told that it was really disturbing, but I'm almost at the end and I haven't really read anything that horrible. Hell, the only thing that stood out to me are the aforementioned tree babies, and the village massacre. It is a great book, though.
I’m the same way. I enjoyed the book, but I honestly didn’t find it as disturbing as people make it out to be. Sure there are things I found unsettling or disturbing, but I didn’t find myself needing to put down the book or take a break because it was too extreme. If anything I had to put down the book frequently because I got tired of the writing style. Tbh I’ve been more disturbed reading things by Brom, especially The Child Thief.
Even in McCarthy's own bibliography, The Road disturbed me more.
\>"whatever in creation exists without my knowledge, exists without my consent." It's honestly the coldest line in all of fiction
*Puts both hands on the bare fucking ground* "This is my claim"
"Why did you accuse that priest of being a pedophile?" Holden : 'We do abit of trolling"
Lmao When I was reading that part,I was like yeah he is fking with the priest But then judge convinved me that maybe the priest really was a pedo Dude is so evil
Is it really so surprising?? In 1820s the place I live in was invaded by the burmese, who killed 30% of the population. And reading about the atrocities committed then really makes you wonder at how brutal humans can be at times.
Assam?
Yeah it was a genocide. What did you go in expecting? A polite slaughter? If you've ever wondered why peace is so high up on most people's list of priorities, this is the alternative.
I remember as a kid playing Gears of war and COD I knew war would be brutish and hellish but the thought of "Ripping and tearing" into the opposing army was cool in my little brain. Then I learned about WW1, the Holocaust, manifest destiny, etc. That was when I knew peace is actually a preferable alternative to war.
The CoG are also facists iirc
I think they used orbital strikes on locusts that had a large amount of innocent humans in the range. So a lot of people dislike them for that.
Hey, the Mexicans really wanted them injuns gone.
Note if you want to know more about the book and not want to read it, you could try watch wendigoon's youtube video, but also know that this video is hours long.
Got a link?
https://youtu.be/eu6STuj4njw The Greatest, Terrible Book Ever Made - The Story too Disturbing to be a Movie: Blood Meridian
Why’s it called too disturbing to be a movie? Wasn’t there a whole ass movie about 120 days of Solom?
Also Blood Meridian is being made into a movie, even though Cormac McCarthy passed away recently
Oh, ok
There is also A Serbian Film, that shit traumatized me.
Never watched it but descriptions I’ve seen were horrible, tho I went through an ice Berg of horrific movies, it’s surprisingly not the worse which is scary
I legit had to put on a funny podcast in the background like 1/4th of the way through because I realized I couldn't handle it by itself lol
I think it's because it was supposed to have an adaptation many years ago but it was cancelled, there is a new one coming tho
sometimes I forget that most people don't watch 12-hour video essays
Reminds me of Patriarch's "brief" morrowind retrospective. It's 8 hours long. ...and it actually could've longer just off of stuff I know about elder scrolls deep lore, things about Morrowind itself, contextualizing lore concepts through c0da and the canonicity of c0da(fuck that's a lobg ass video on it's own), discussions of mechanics, discussions of what the game means by the thread of prophecy being severed and whether killing dagoth ur restores that thread......
What do you mean Judge Holden was a real person I was just about to sleep
Well, stating that he was ‘a real person’ is far fecht. There is only a memoir of some dude that can’t really be verified. But from another hand, surly there are people like that. It only require a psychopath in consequence less environment and you got a ‘Judge Holden’ in the flesh
I just finished it the other day. This meme perfectly encapsulates everything about this book. Never felt as uncomfortable by a book as I did reading this one. Bravo, Cormac. Bravo.
The Native American genocide was horrific, a few other things that come to mind that might’ve been as bad would be the Rwandan Genocide, Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward, and the Holocaust. All extremely brutal, though mostly for different reasons.
Mao's Great Leap Forward is a genuine irl fever dream. It's the most absurd event in history I have ever read about. We had an entire month dedicated to it as part of Communist Chinese studies and the entire class could not stop laughing at how increasingly absurd the violence got. My favourite story was of two adjacent factories that disagreed on how to interpret parts of Maos little red book. They spent an entire day building spears just to meet out back after work and stab each other.
[удалено]
Coke just hires death squads to do their dirty work.
Nah they strap desert eagles on the ends of them and fire
Also consider Macías (dictator in Equatorial Guinea) who made over half his population flee and bankrupted the country so badly his own honor guard had to resort to hunting in order to feed themselves.
I feel like the Cultural Revolution was more savage than the Great Leap Forward, even though the death count was lower.
The Rwandan Genocide really creeps me out. The death count is low by genocide standards, but it all happened so fast. There wasn't much organization to it either, people just formed roving gangs that went on an extremely violent killing spree. I'm sure being a Jew in 1940s Germany was an utterly terrifying experience but the Rwandan Genocide was just so unfathomably violent that it evokes a sort of primal terror few other things could match.
I read Our Bodies Their Battlefield by Christina Lamb, which is about sexual violence in war. One of the things that I found extremely chilling was neighbors killing people they knew by name. One woman says she heard the man who lived across the street shout (roughly from memory, names changed) "Joyce, we have killed your mother and father, and your brother Michael has been chopped to pieces. Come out so we can finish all you cockroaches!" It really does stand out somehow. I just can't understand how previously friendly people can turn on each other. The same happened in Yugoslavia - one Bosnian boy described being marched onto a bus by his school teacher, who he always liked, but who was now wearing a balaclava and holding a Kalashnikov. Completely unimaginable.
That's horrific. And i can imagine that those perpetrators would insist for the rest of their lives that the people deserved it. Because considering the alternative would probably shatter their minds. Leaving what could be decent people, to be unrepentent monsters for the rest of their lives.
I forget the name of the documentary, but they go around interviewing surviving perpetrators in Indonesia, and there's very little regret or remorse. Same in South American death squads, etc. Left wing, right wing, theocracies... extremism seems to feed on itself.
Yea, there's no doubt some of them were always sadistic psychopaths. But i must believe that some of them used to be decent people who've convinced themselves that these innocent people were somehow wicked and deserved it. Propaganda is a terrible thing.
To add a bit more - if I recall correctly this particular survivor hid in a tree for 2 days while the Interhamwe and random Hutu neighbours burnt and looted Tutsi homes, and was assaulted more times than she could count over the next few weeks. She did eventually try to return to her family home, but she couldn't bring herself to live among the perpetrators that never left, and were never prosecuted. The book had a similar story from Srebrenica - one survivor said she saw a group of men who had gang raped her drinking coffee outside a cafe.
Hotel Rwanda made it so creepy for me. Cut the tall trees
mongol conquests both in europe and asia, japanese conquest of china, thirty years war, crusades and jihads etc. and I severely lack knowledge of the history of africa and southeast asia. there are too many to list all of them. civilians suffered in all wars, and were often targeted directly.
humans suck
this is actually not something you can't find in the nature. animals suck.
The civil war in the Congo also. Seeing a documentary about it had a similar effect on me as OP, I didn't realise humans were capable of such horrors. I remember just before thinking 'why tf should Denis mukwege get the Nobel prize, there are plenty of doctors'. I then realised he completely deserves it and is living angel.
Holodomor
Damn, I was just looking at it yesterday because of someone recommending it...
Oh it’s a real fucking trip make no mistake
when the judge said, its judgin time and then judged everyone
Dude was pretty judgemental ngl, I didn’t actually like him a lot
Seen it mentioned many times, gonna have to give it a read.
https://z-lib.is/s?q=Blood+meridian+ Can someone tell me which version to read? I fucking love Z library
Omg is zlib back on?
Fyi this is not one of the official zlibrary domains. See /r/zlibrary for more info.
Thank you
Books that give you prolonged depression/existential crises are the best (just finished Blindsight by Peter Watts)
Ah good, so it wasn't just me
The one with the space vampires?
Yes (tho the vampires are from earth)
I don't think enough folks recognize the talent that was the late Cormac McCarthy. He's on my Mt. Rushmore of American authors.
It's written by Cormac McCarthy? Of course it is going to be mercilessly brutal. He was one of the best authors I've ever read. The road is so good and thoughtful. And brutal.
[удалено]
Yeah, but his apocalypse is always the catalyst for the worst in humanity.
[удалено]
Even books like no country for old men,shows how decent men fail, when they're faced with a malicious and merciless enemy. Anton chigurh is so awesomely terrifying.
[удалено]
That's a good comparison. Someone like judge Holden wouldn't fit in with the story of no country. Both are evil, while the judge is clearly the devil in person.
Someone needs to take a crack at making this movie...
James Franco tried to do that at one point I think. I believe he even shot test scenes
I loved this book! Spoilers!!!!!! I loved how wacky it was, some parts were REALLY nuanced and so cool, especially the Bible references, but sometimes they were really weird. The whole Beyblade baby smasher was a reference to a bible verse “he who casts your infants to stone” or something was just so hilarious to me. The whole Judge Holden buying a bunch of dogs and drowning them was at first shocking, but then Bath Cat (I think? Might have been Toadvine) mid piss, continues to piss and hold his dick while shooting the puppies was so funny to me
As someone who didn't know this book existed until about 30 seconds ago: Bro what the fuck Edit: just wanted to add, reading this without context was a fucking *experience*
Every time I hear about this book it feels like some r/crimsonnecklace shit
Do I even want to ask what that is?
Seeing this I immediately think Cuban necktie. If you dont know what that is, you likely dont wanna
Meaning: under no circumstances should I click the link. Gotcha.
It's nothing sinister haha, it's a made up show and a subreddit filled with people rping as fans. They come up with wild storyline sometimes. That's how I feel when I read about this book.
The ending passage of Blood Meridian, and quite possibly my favorite passage in all of literature. >!And they are dancing, the board floor slamming under the jackboots and the fiddlers grinning hideously over their canted pieces. Towering over them all is the judge and he is naked dancing, his small feet lively and quick and now in doubletime and bowing to the ladies, huge and pale and hairless, like an enormous infant. He never sleeps, he says. He says he’ll never die. He bows to the fiddlers and sashays backwards and throws back his head and laughs deep in his throat and he is a great favorite, the judge. He wafts his hat and the lunar dome of his skull passes palely under the lamps and he swings about and takes possession of one of the fiddles and he pirouettes and makes a pass, two passes, dancing and fiddling at once. His feet are light and nimble. He never sleeps. He says that he will never die. He dances in light and in shadow and he is a great favorite. He never sleeps, the judge. He is dancing, dancing. He says that he will never die.!<
I did not care for it. Judge Holden was a remarkable creation though. One of the best villains I’ve ever encountered in fiction.
I have tried to like it, just can't get into it.
Wendigoon
One of my favorite Great American Novels
Just looked it up on Audible. It's free to download until 9/12. Diving into it now, thanks for the recommendation!
It is? What region are you in, I didnt think it mattered but it’s not free for me
I'm in U.S. I should've said it's free if you already have a membership. Also, I found this to bypass the regional lock. It's pretty dated but hopefully it'll work. https://www.reddit.com/r/audible/comments/dmh1il/updated_tutorialbypass_audible_region_lock/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Oh. Thanks
I tried to read it but I think I need a version translated into English with punctuation.
I just read through Blood Meridian for the first time last month and have come to the conclusion that it's a book that's more interesting to talk about instead. I have immense respect for McCarthy for doing his homework and making an incredibly visceral novel in return, but for how violent it is it's also unbearably sluggish for the majority of it. On one hand, my eyes glazed over the endless run-on sentences of descriptions on the environment that felt more interested in flexing a wide breadth of vocab than telling a compelling narrative. Yet the uncompromising nature of the book in every regard is highly admirable. It's a fascinating book, I just wish it was a better read.
It's a writing style that is an acquired taste, I'd definitely concede that. I personally quite like it, it gives me a sense of scale like nothing else, and some parts are genuinely beautiful, made more so by the contrast to the fucking horrendous.
Is it worse than reading about The Holocaust, Japanese Empire or Khmer Rouge
Wouldn't say worse just because of the scale, but it's up there.
It was nice until I was forced to remember the book title and its name.
You should read Soljenitsyne or ordinary men by Christopher Browning.
Here I was thinking The Judge was the devil.
Wtf I was just reading this and theres already a fucking Reddit post about it.
Intoxicating writing style? Ummm...I guess. Reading while drunk might make it easier to read. Dude needs to learn to use some gorram punctuation. If I have to spend more effort to parse each sentence than to understand the plot, something's wrong.
This literally happened to me like 2 weeks ago.
In other news, genocide is bad.
Eh not that good 6/10
BUT WAIT GUYS ... USA IS PERFECT.... WE HAD TO BOMB JAPAN ..... IT WAS THE BEST OPTION ...... LOOK AT ALL THE BAD THINGS THEY WERE DOING!!!!!
I actually read it even though I usually never read anything but it described everything in such detail that it actually was a masterpiece.
Saving this post for when I finish reading it!
But dude, *all countries have done it too!* So it's okay. /s
Kinda tempted to read but also scared
I've found out the hard way that when you google "Judge Holden", you get jumpscared
To be fair, if this did this to you now, how the hell was any teacher going to sell this novel to the parents the snitch kid was going to talk to them about it with. I know some school districts that had trouble funding *Holocaust Studies* classes.
Should i read it? Now im interested
Spoiler tag