FORKNI-L
Digest - 18 Jan 2007 to 19 Jan 2007 (#2007-14)
Fri, 19 Jan 2007
There is 1 message totalling 85 lines in this issue.
Topics of the day:
1. Suicide and the Pipe Bomb from OtLo
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Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 01:51:32 -0500
From: gwatson2 <gwatson2@r.......>
Subject: Suicide and the Pipe Bomb from OtLo
Amy wrote:
> So what does that pipe-bomb possibility bring to your
> mind? Might Nick have thought the pipe bomb would kill him, or would
> he have known it wouldn't?
Now this is a very interesting point. Not one I had previously thought of
either, I should add. And yet, if you think about it, there is something
very odd about the whole pipe-bomb incident--*unless* Nick assumed the bomb
would kill him. (And--going anachronistically out of order here--it is
usually taken as implicit in BB2 that Vudu's final bomb killed the Inca when
he flew off with it. So, if Nick *were* to have made the assumption that
the pipe bomb would kill him, it wouldn't be at all a dumb thing for him to
assume.)
So what's the "something very odd" about the pipe-bomb incident? Well, when
Nick threw himself on it, he must have known that a bomb like that would
cause terrible damage (whether fatal or not). He must have known that he
would *look* dead. And he'd been a cop. He'd know that his "corpse" would
be taken to the Coroner's Building to be autopsied by a pathologist.
Would he then dare take the risk of presuming that the pathologist
in question would not be a resistor? Would *Nick* dare? Another vampire
might, and then simply kill any doctor who turned out to be unhypnotizable.
But our Nick would never want to do that.
There would be no risk of this if he were really dead. The COD
would be so obvious--extreme trauma caused by bomb damage--that the chance
of anyone bothering to do further tests that might reveal his vampire
condition would be tiny.
So, if Nick were assuming he'd survive the bomb, he'd be acting out
of character. Only if Nick were indeed assuming that the bomb would kill
him, would he be free to take the risk of his corpse being autopsied.
But, of course, if Nick were assuming that the bomb would kill him, the
question then must arise as to motivation: why would he sacrifice himself
like this. And the answer surely does lie in the word "sacrifice".
There are, after all, attested historical instances of people
throwing themselves onto bombs to save others. Usually in wartime,
resulting in posthumous medals. (And we should never forget that Nick was
trained as a knight, and recently worked as a cop. "To serve and protect",
in other words.)
>the daringly atypical supposition that he was on some
> level seeking to go out in battle, to find an honorable end, as it
> were
Or perhaps more than a merely *honorable* end.
Given that "Near Death" (and its visions) are Season II, this is maybe a bit
anachronistic: at the time of OtL Nick had not had his second near-death
experience, with its revelation of his metaphysically rotting soul.
But--isn't that what he has always suspected of the vampire state, even now,
that it condemns his soul?
But what if he died to save others? Surely such a sacrifice would
be redemptive?
Or, at least, surely throwing himself on the bomb might be seen *by
Nick* as being (hopefully) redemptive. Even as he threw himself forward,
there might flash through his mind that hope that his death would redeem his
soul to a sufficient degree that--even as his corpse went to autopsy--his
soul might go to heaven.
One should never forget that, in his mortal life, Nick was a
crusader. The crusader of the middle ages was like the jihadist of today:
sure of salvation if he died in the cause of righteousness. Nick's cause
may have changed; but there is still a good deal of the original man
remaining in the vampire, even after all the intervening centuries.
In truth, there is nothing redemptive about the end of LK: Nick
seeks his death in suicide by proxy, at a time of despair. (And despair is
the ultimate sin, in the Christian faith.) It makes more sense that the
line, "Not by my own hand", should be interpreted to mean "by the hand of
another, in battle (or the equivalent), on the side of right, saving
others".
Greer Watson
gwatson2@r.......
http://ca.geocities.com/gwatson2@rogers.com/index.html
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End of FORKNI-L Digest - 18 Jan 2007 to 19 Jan 2007 (#2007-14)
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