(SPOILERS)
1. Errol
(the scarred man) was not the Yellow King. He was the “green-eared spaghetti
monster.” As far as I know, he never referred to himself as the Yellow King,
and anyone else who spoke of the King didn't refer to him as the King. It's
never even established that he was the leader of the cult of child-killers.
He's simply a deeply insane relative of those in power who were involved in the
cult. Certain scenes may have implied that Errol was the Yellow King,
but he turned out to be nothing more than a sad, sadistic man who is never
shown to have power over anyone but his crazy half-sister. I don't think anyone
involved in the cult ever explained who or what the Yellow King actually was.
[If I'm wrong about this, please let me know.] One of them said, “he's the one
who eats Time.” Errol's half-sister said, “He's coming for you. He's worse than
anyone.” But she probably wasn't referring to Errol. She loved Errol, and Errol
didn't seem “worse than anyone.” He was pretty strong, but they took him down
with one shot to the head.
2. The
Yellow King could be a pan-dimensional demon. Dora Lange's journal says
she “closed her eyes and had a vision of the King in Yellow moving through the
forest.” It's never made clear whether she picked up this image from the cult
or whether it came to her in the same way that Rust's visions come to him. Rust
says he sometimes felt like he was “mainlining the secret truth of the
universe.” If his visions are real, then the Yellow King may be a real
supernatural force that pervades the world, eating Time and the blood of
children. Rust's final vision could be of this force. This interpretation would
conform to the narrative of the show's literary source: Robert W. Chambers' The
King in Yellow. Chambers' stories describe the King as a “phantom of
truth,” a herald of evil and destruction. In Chambers' stories, the King exists
within a fictional play that drives anyone who reads it insane. It's implied
that people who read the play learn the truth of life and that the only solution
is to go mad or kill themselves. It could be that the members of the cult are
reenacting this play in some way, or they may simply be driven insane by the
truth the King has revealed to them. It's left ambiguous so that the viewer can
believe in a supernatural explanation if they want to.
3. The
Yellow King is most likely not meant to be taken literally. Rust was on a lot
of drugs over the years and doesn't trust his own visions. His final vision of
a glowing cyclone hanging in the air would probably be glowing yellow if he
were meant to be seeing an actual demon called the Yellow King. Instead, it's
glowing blue, which probably means he's just seeing a distorted version of the
empty circle of sky at the top of the room he's in. The episode is called “Form
and Void,” and Rust is seeing form where's there's actually void. That's his
whole problem throughout the series: he sees darkness as a form – a
quasi-sentient pattern of evil that preys on the living – instead of seeing
darkness as the void of chaos and random violence it really is. As a detective,
he's trained himself to see patterns, but he begins to see them even when
they're not there. As he himself says, “Be careful what you get good at.” The
mythology of the Yellow King provides a corporeal figurehead for him to pursue
when he's really going after the metaphysical ideas of death and evil.
4. Rust
has served the Yellow King his whole life. When Rust enters “Carcosa” in the
final episode, he hears a voice speaking to him. However, that voice isn't
Errol's. Errol is running away through the tunnels. The voice sticks close to Rust,
following his every move. Errol is never shown speaking to Rust except when he
stabs him and says, “Take off your mask” (I don't think we even see him saying
those words – his mouth is out of frame). When Rust enters the tunnels, we see
a shot of just the top of his head and his eyes as he looks around and the
voice begins to speak. This is a clue that the voice Rust is hearing is
entirely in his head. It calls him “little priest,” implying that he's been an
acolyte of the darkness all along. He's been evangelizing for the darkness,
telling anyone who will listen about how meaningless and horrific life is. The
pain of losing his daughter turned him into a servant of the Yellow King
(symbolically). His whole world became Carcosa (symbolically). On some level,
he knows this, and the voice in his head is his own mind telling him how far
he's fallen (unless you believe the Yellow King is real, in which case, it's the
Yellow King – a personification of the darkness – telling him how close he is
to madness). Whether figuratively or literally, Rust has let himself become an
agent of evil. Remember the scene where he told the woman to kill herself
without a hint of remorse? His true accomplishment at the end of the series is
using his intelligence and skill to track himself down, realizing what an
obsessive and hollow monster he's become, and seeing through the darkness to
the love that waits beyond. In a sense, he does take off his mask.
5. True
Detective is all about storytelling. In the interview that frames the show,
the two detectives tell their own version of what happened in 1995, keeping the
real story a secret. They tell stories to each other and to themselves about
what's really going on. Marty tells himself stories about how he can keep his
life in balance by cheating on his wife. He tells himself a story about how
he's a good man with rules that make sense. Rust tells himself stories about
how empty and evil life actually is. He tells himself a story about how all men
are bad men and humans are just evolutionary mistakes. Robert Chambers' notion
of a play that drives people insane relates to this theme in the show. Both men
tell themselves stories about themselves that ultimately drive them crazy and
destroy their lives. However, there's hope at the end when they are able to
change their stories just slightly – enough to allow a sliver of light to creep
in. Marty is able to reach out to his family and tell them that he needs them
rather than pushing them away. Rust is able to admit that love exists somewhere
in the universe and that he may be able to find it again. In the final scene,
Marty reminds Rust of the stories he used to tell himself about the stars in
Alaska. Rust says he made up those stories because he had nothing else to do.
Marty and Rust are both lost in the darkness with nothing else to do but make
up stories. By working with, fighting with, and talking with each other over
the years, they're able to see some good in themselves. They bring down a few
evil men, leaving thousands of other evil men out there in the darkness doing
horrific things; but because they recognize that they themselves can be good
men, in their small corner of the world, the light is winning.
6. INTERESTINGBONUS
TRIVIA: Rust explains that he experiences synesthesia – the condition in which
the brain confuses input from one sense with the input from another sense. The
famous artist Wassily Kandinsky also experienced synesthesia. He wrote a play
about it called The Yellow Sound.
From Wikipedia:
The Yellow Sound is a one-act opera without dialogue or conventional plot, divided into six "pictures." A child in white and an adult performer in black represent life and death; other figures are costumed in single colors, including five "intensely yellow giants (as large as possible)" and "vague red creatures, somewhat suggesting birds…."
No comments:
Post a Comment