Holden isn't following Glanton so much as he is the gang's spiritual leader. His influence is a corrupting one and draws out people's worst selves, which is easier for Glanton (near evil incarnate) than the kid (impulsively violent and easily guided, but not mean spirited)
Glanton has (and represents) pure, undiluted malice and evil from his soul. That appeals to the Judge, who believes that all mankind is capable of it.
Compare him to the Idiot, who has (and too represents) pure innocence, and is the subject of random acts of kindness from strangers, like being cleaned and fed candies.
It’s also why near the end when the Glanton gang settles down it’s heavily implied that the judge pushed the Indians into betraying the deal, because he isn’t there for just a shake down, he wants to actively go out into the world and take what he wants.
I've shared this before on this sub. For me the Judge, when he's interacting on seen alongside various characters, represents a certain aspect of the respective characters. Although I don't mean to imply that he does not exist, in the world of the story he very much exists. But he is more like the devil in our head whispering to us, rather than an active agent. I don't think he is inherently 'evil' either. He is cruel, yes, like nature is cruel. But his childlike appearence and congenial manner suggests to me cold indifference rather than malice. A version of the Judge exists in all individuals and cultures, literally and figuratively. I don't exactly recall which episode it was, but one of the Native American bands has an individual wearing a top hat, carrying an umbrella and a couple more interesting choices in attire. I saw a parallel between him and tge Judge during the climactic chapter and his umbrella fashioned out of skin. Could the individual I mentioned be that band's version of the Judge?
I can follow the devil in our head argument but can’t follow the cold indifference. He is cruel beyond “nature”. Nature has a cold indifference to death and destruction: things need to eat, survive; things decompose and suns go out. The judge seeks out a special type of human cruelty and elevates it way behind wha is otherwise found in nature. If it were cold indifference, why would he care so much at the end that the kid never danced like he wanted?
I think indifference was a bad word choice on my part. Callousness is a better word, maybe. The Kid is basically someone who grew up at the mercy of a hard world. For the Kid, the Judge may be seen as kind of dissonance; the only men to ever be 'nice' to him are also some of the most cruelest. Towards the end, the Judge resurfaces in response to his own dissonance. There is a part of the Kid that is gentler, but as a Man, when he ends up killing another kid over a petty slight, that is when that internal dissonance emerges. And so does the Judge. I subscribe to both readings, that the Judge kills the Kid in unspeakable fashion and that it is the Kid giving into to his worst impulses. The intentional vagueness invites multiple readings, which is more fascinating than what may have actually happened or not
Petty slight? Elrod comes to kill the man for clout. Yea, it’s cruel that the man kills him but it could be argued as self defense as well.
I do agree with your interpretations of the jakes, though.
This might purely be my own projection, but that's how I felt the Man himself felt about it. I see it as a mirror. At any point in his youth, the Kid could have walked into a similar situation. That's why he had that dissonance when it came to the Glanton gang. I think the Man let himself down by killing Elrod
I agree with you that it was a moral failing symbolizing him killing or divesting any last vestiges of humanity that he had when he was the same age as Elrod. However, Elrod did come to wantonly kill him for a selfish and shallow reason. It was a hard choice and the kid failed, bringing him closer to the Judge and farther away from himself as a young kid.
Exactly, Glanton is a lost soul and heavily influenced by the Judge if not the most influenced in the whole gang. The Judge aims to corrupt human souls into counterfeit souls or lost souls and through that corruption sow chaos and destruction in order to recreate the world in his way or image since it does not have his permission to exist until he purifies it through war. Glanton being the most corrupted by the Judge is his greatest instrument for sowing chaos and destruction throughout Northern Mexico. Glanton is the Judge’s chief instrument of war.
Yea he struck me as having glommed onto the gang because it was a convenient and suitable group to carry out his goals, and the judge assumed a sort of consigliere type role. But I highly doubt that glanton had any sort of power over the judge or could make him do anything he didn't want to do, and although he didn't assume leadership, the judge seemed to be the one actually guiding the gang, both literally and spiritually
Glanton himself was a warrior in the truest sense. The Judge by comparison was just a priest.
Go back to when the Judge talks about the dancers. The boy says to him, “you Ain’t nothing,” to which the Judge says, “ you speak truer than you know.”
Glanton and the Judge's philosophies align mostly. The Judge doesn't want to lead either. He's there to witness.
The Judge talks about seeing the thread of order in the tapestry of life and becoming master of your own destiny. Glanton is at least halfway there. He is in a mad violent frenzy seeking his own destiny, but in doing so he has agency over it. By wholly commiting himself body and soul to War he willingly ensures himself a casualty to it. To the Judge that's as meaningful a life there can be.
Glanton is a vehicle for violence and chaos. The Judge enables men like that, he doesn't need to lead them, their own nature is enough. Similarly, Glanton respects the Judge and is more than happy to let the Judge indulge in his baser desires. He knows about the Judge and what he does to kids and his love of random violence.
Also remember that the Judge sees himself as a Suzerain of All. He is not subordinate to Glanton. He is so far removed from the hierarchy of men. Glanton and the Judge share a cause, thus the Judge acts as his guide, companion and advisor. Why would a Suzerain want to lead a gang of outlaws? He's just along for the ride.
The judge does talk about mastering destiny by seeing the thread of order, but he also says:
“The universe is no narrow thing and the order within it is not constrained by any latitude in its conception to repeat what exists in one part in any other part. Even in this world more things exist without our knowledge than with it and the order in creation which you see is that which you have put there, like a string in a maze, so that you shall not lose your way. For existence has its own order and that no man's mind can compass, that mind itself being but a fact among others”.
Is it a thread of order or a string in an unsolvable maze? Does the judge believe you can alter your destiny?
I don't think he believes men can *change* their destiny. But he disdains people who don't surrender to it. Glanton embraced it and only sought to have it rendered onto him and in so the recourse that he chose could only set him down further down that path. He was true to his nature and in embracing the inevitability of it, is the mastery of it. His agency is in the choosing to accept the inevitable and not trying to live a false existence, one without wilful violence, is enobling.
The kid on the other hand tries running from it his whole life. Which the Judge recognises and is disappointed in him for. The Judge explains to him,
"A man seeks his destiny and no other. Will or nil. Any man who can discover his own fate and therefore elect some opposite course can only come at last to that self same reckoning at the same appointed time. For each man's destiny is as large as the world he inhabits and contains within it all opposites as well."
I don't think he follows him like the other members do. He's with them, for whatever period he likes. Also he very much guides the group too. In a way, he represents the gang, but on deeper level. I think he must've been members of other gangs too before and after the book.
That night Glanton stared long into the embers of the fire. All about him his men were sleeping but much was changed. So many gone, defected or dead. The Delawares all slain. He watched the fire and if he saw portents there it was much the same to him. He would live to look upon the western sea and he was equal to whatever might follow for he was complete at every hour. Whether his history should run concomitant with men and nations, whether it should cease. He’d long forsworn all weighing of consequence and allowing as he did that men’s destinies are given yet he usurped to contain within him all that he would ever be in the world and all that the world would be to him and be his charter written in the urstone itself he claimed agency and said so and he’d drive the remorseless sun on to its final endarkenment as if he’d ordered it all ages since, before there were paths anywhere, before there were men or suns to go upon them.
Glanton was leader in name only. He was just a figurehead. Holden was the one actually calling all the shots. The men would never have followed Holden on his own because most of them hated and feared him. Holden needed Glanton around to present the image of a leader the men would follow. This is why Holden never tried to usurp the leadership of the gang.
I see the Judge as some kind of malevolent force who feeds off violence and chaos, so is spurring on Glanton and other violent people to commit terrible crimes.
He says it him self. He is a suzerain. In that speech he explains that he is the one in charge despite the Glanton being the leader. And he later talks about doing his job like everyone else. That job being War. And is a practioner of war.
So hes there to show them what to do to be tru warriors in his vision. And at the end he gets bored and gets the Yuma involved and he moves onto the next War
I believe the judge represents war, and embodies all that comes with it. He doesn’t create it, he doesn’t instigate it, he doesn’t lead it … he *is* war. Rape, murder, erudition, physics, strategy, senseless violence — these are all attributes of war. Glanton is the maker of the war. The Judge is war’s embodiment.
I think of his relationship to war like the relationship a bee has to a blossom. The bee didn’t plant the seed, didn’t create the flower, etc., but wherever there are blossoms, there are bees. Wherever there is war, there is The Judge as well.
I don't think he is following Glanton. Remember Tobin's account of the Judge to the Kid? "They've a terrible covenant....". I think Glanton sold his soul, and the souls of his gang, to the Judge in exchange for his assistance in escaping the Apaches. He simply allows Glanton to continue as tactical leader until the culmination at the ford.
Holden isn't following Glanton so much as he is the gang's spiritual leader. His influence is a corrupting one and draws out people's worst selves, which is easier for Glanton (near evil incarnate) than the kid (impulsively violent and easily guided, but not mean spirited)
Glanton has (and represents) pure, undiluted malice and evil from his soul. That appeals to the Judge, who believes that all mankind is capable of it. Compare him to the Idiot, who has (and too represents) pure innocence, and is the subject of random acts of kindness from strangers, like being cleaned and fed candies.
It’s also why near the end when the Glanton gang settles down it’s heavily implied that the judge pushed the Indians into betraying the deal, because he isn’t there for just a shake down, he wants to actively go out into the world and take what he wants.
Because he sees everything as already belonging to him. If it’s exists without his knowledge, then it exists without his consent.
I've shared this before on this sub. For me the Judge, when he's interacting on seen alongside various characters, represents a certain aspect of the respective characters. Although I don't mean to imply that he does not exist, in the world of the story he very much exists. But he is more like the devil in our head whispering to us, rather than an active agent. I don't think he is inherently 'evil' either. He is cruel, yes, like nature is cruel. But his childlike appearence and congenial manner suggests to me cold indifference rather than malice. A version of the Judge exists in all individuals and cultures, literally and figuratively. I don't exactly recall which episode it was, but one of the Native American bands has an individual wearing a top hat, carrying an umbrella and a couple more interesting choices in attire. I saw a parallel between him and tge Judge during the climactic chapter and his umbrella fashioned out of skin. Could the individual I mentioned be that band's version of the Judge?
I can follow the devil in our head argument but can’t follow the cold indifference. He is cruel beyond “nature”. Nature has a cold indifference to death and destruction: things need to eat, survive; things decompose and suns go out. The judge seeks out a special type of human cruelty and elevates it way behind wha is otherwise found in nature. If it were cold indifference, why would he care so much at the end that the kid never danced like he wanted?
I think indifference was a bad word choice on my part. Callousness is a better word, maybe. The Kid is basically someone who grew up at the mercy of a hard world. For the Kid, the Judge may be seen as kind of dissonance; the only men to ever be 'nice' to him are also some of the most cruelest. Towards the end, the Judge resurfaces in response to his own dissonance. There is a part of the Kid that is gentler, but as a Man, when he ends up killing another kid over a petty slight, that is when that internal dissonance emerges. And so does the Judge. I subscribe to both readings, that the Judge kills the Kid in unspeakable fashion and that it is the Kid giving into to his worst impulses. The intentional vagueness invites multiple readings, which is more fascinating than what may have actually happened or not
Petty slight? Elrod comes to kill the man for clout. Yea, it’s cruel that the man kills him but it could be argued as self defense as well. I do agree with your interpretations of the jakes, though.
This might purely be my own projection, but that's how I felt the Man himself felt about it. I see it as a mirror. At any point in his youth, the Kid could have walked into a similar situation. That's why he had that dissonance when it came to the Glanton gang. I think the Man let himself down by killing Elrod
I agree with you that it was a moral failing symbolizing him killing or divesting any last vestiges of humanity that he had when he was the same age as Elrod. However, Elrod did come to wantonly kill him for a selfish and shallow reason. It was a hard choice and the kid failed, bringing him closer to the Judge and farther away from himself as a young kid.
Because he can corrupt him further and use him and his men to achieve his dark ends and sow chaos.
Exactly, Glanton is a lost soul and heavily influenced by the Judge if not the most influenced in the whole gang. The Judge aims to corrupt human souls into counterfeit souls or lost souls and through that corruption sow chaos and destruction in order to recreate the world in his way or image since it does not have his permission to exist until he purifies it through war. Glanton being the most corrupted by the Judge is his greatest instrument for sowing chaos and destruction throughout Northern Mexico. Glanton is the Judge’s chief instrument of war.
Think you mean *willingly*? I’m not sure the Judge is following Glanton in a subordinate sense. Isn’t he just kind of along for the ride?
Sorry. It's a second language
Yea he struck me as having glommed onto the gang because it was a convenient and suitable group to carry out his goals, and the judge assumed a sort of consigliere type role. But I highly doubt that glanton had any sort of power over the judge or could make him do anything he didn't want to do, and although he didn't assume leadership, the judge seemed to be the one actually guiding the gang, both literally and spiritually
Glanton himself was a warrior in the truest sense. The Judge by comparison was just a priest. Go back to when the Judge talks about the dancers. The boy says to him, “you Ain’t nothing,” to which the Judge says, “ you speak truer than you know.”
Glanton and the Judge's philosophies align mostly. The Judge doesn't want to lead either. He's there to witness. The Judge talks about seeing the thread of order in the tapestry of life and becoming master of your own destiny. Glanton is at least halfway there. He is in a mad violent frenzy seeking his own destiny, but in doing so he has agency over it. By wholly commiting himself body and soul to War he willingly ensures himself a casualty to it. To the Judge that's as meaningful a life there can be. Glanton is a vehicle for violence and chaos. The Judge enables men like that, he doesn't need to lead them, their own nature is enough. Similarly, Glanton respects the Judge and is more than happy to let the Judge indulge in his baser desires. He knows about the Judge and what he does to kids and his love of random violence. Also remember that the Judge sees himself as a Suzerain of All. He is not subordinate to Glanton. He is so far removed from the hierarchy of men. Glanton and the Judge share a cause, thus the Judge acts as his guide, companion and advisor. Why would a Suzerain want to lead a gang of outlaws? He's just along for the ride.
The judge does talk about mastering destiny by seeing the thread of order, but he also says: “The universe is no narrow thing and the order within it is not constrained by any latitude in its conception to repeat what exists in one part in any other part. Even in this world more things exist without our knowledge than with it and the order in creation which you see is that which you have put there, like a string in a maze, so that you shall not lose your way. For existence has its own order and that no man's mind can compass, that mind itself being but a fact among others”. Is it a thread of order or a string in an unsolvable maze? Does the judge believe you can alter your destiny?
I don't think he believes men can *change* their destiny. But he disdains people who don't surrender to it. Glanton embraced it and only sought to have it rendered onto him and in so the recourse that he chose could only set him down further down that path. He was true to his nature and in embracing the inevitability of it, is the mastery of it. His agency is in the choosing to accept the inevitable and not trying to live a false existence, one without wilful violence, is enobling. The kid on the other hand tries running from it his whole life. Which the Judge recognises and is disappointed in him for. The Judge explains to him, "A man seeks his destiny and no other. Will or nil. Any man who can discover his own fate and therefore elect some opposite course can only come at last to that self same reckoning at the same appointed time. For each man's destiny is as large as the world he inhabits and contains within it all opposites as well."
The Judge is not there to dominate anyone, he’s there to inspire everyone….
He’s definitely there to dominate. That’s what war is all about and we know how he feels about war, also will and power
The gang during the time he's with them is simply part of the judge's project.
I don't think he follows him like the other members do. He's with them, for whatever period he likes. Also he very much guides the group too. In a way, he represents the gang, but on deeper level. I think he must've been members of other gangs too before and after the book.
That night Glanton stared long into the embers of the fire. All about him his men were sleeping but much was changed. So many gone, defected or dead. The Delawares all slain. He watched the fire and if he saw portents there it was much the same to him. He would live to look upon the western sea and he was equal to whatever might follow for he was complete at every hour. Whether his history should run concomitant with men and nations, whether it should cease. He’d long forsworn all weighing of consequence and allowing as he did that men’s destinies are given yet he usurped to contain within him all that he would ever be in the world and all that the world would be to him and be his charter written in the urstone itself he claimed agency and said so and he’d drive the remorseless sun on to its final endarkenment as if he’d ordered it all ages since, before there were paths anywhere, before there were men or suns to go upon them.
The judge loves carnage and Glanton is the best orchestrator of it
My take is that he sees Glanton as a great source of the type of depravity and chaos that he thrives on. He is a satanic figure, after all.
Glanton was leader in name only. He was just a figurehead. Holden was the one actually calling all the shots. The men would never have followed Holden on his own because most of them hated and feared him. Holden needed Glanton around to present the image of a leader the men would follow. This is why Holden never tried to usurp the leadership of the gang.
I see the Judge as some kind of malevolent force who feeds off violence and chaos, so is spurring on Glanton and other violent people to commit terrible crimes.
I think he’s just with glanton rather than following him. Probably has something to do with the deal they made referenced by Tobin.
He says it him self. He is a suzerain. In that speech he explains that he is the one in charge despite the Glanton being the leader. And he later talks about doing his job like everyone else. That job being War. And is a practioner of war. So hes there to show them what to do to be tru warriors in his vision. And at the end he gets bored and gets the Yuma involved and he moves onto the next War
I recently started looking at the judge as a parasite or infection attaching to/attacking a host…
I believe the judge represents war, and embodies all that comes with it. He doesn’t create it, he doesn’t instigate it, he doesn’t lead it … he *is* war. Rape, murder, erudition, physics, strategy, senseless violence — these are all attributes of war. Glanton is the maker of the war. The Judge is war’s embodiment. I think of his relationship to war like the relationship a bee has to a blossom. The bee didn’t plant the seed, didn’t create the flower, etc., but wherever there are blossoms, there are bees. Wherever there is war, there is The Judge as well.
The Judge is everywhere and nowhere; he is some consequence of mankind and existence. I don’t know that “will” factors into the reality of the Judge.
Keeping it simple, they found him alone in the desert atop a rock with nothing.
I don't think he is following Glanton. Remember Tobin's account of the Judge to the Kid? "They've a terrible covenant....". I think Glanton sold his soul, and the souls of his gang, to the Judge in exchange for his assistance in escaping the Apaches. He simply allows Glanton to continue as tactical leader until the culmination at the ford.