10-24-2010, 12:00 AM
I don't believe there is such a thing as true evil, for always in any being there will be a glimmer of love for something...others, self, even the love for oblivion to escape suffering (love of self relief).
"The Joker’s alluded worldview is that good behavior and civilization are the joke, and that just below the surface everyone is as brutal and vicious as himself."
I think he's just, in a twisted way, seeking what Buddhism calls Sameness. He feels others judge him and so it brings him relief to expose them as being the same as him, which in his view removes their ability to judge him as different. Its like he's saying "you all think you are so much better then me, but I know different." His pleasure would come from seeing the acknowledgment on their faces that in fact they are no better than him. He just did not understand from the get-go that he was never any worse.
"No one seems to have considered what don Juan's motives were in forcing CC into that state."
I considered this quite a while ago. Carlos was very dependent of JM at that time. He looked up to him as a leader, a man without flaw and whose power was impenetrable. When DJ transformed into a frail old man, it shook Carlos out of the leader-follower mode, and made Carlos consider his own frailty as a response....in other words, if the invincible JM could falter, then all of humanity was doomed. So Carlos had to face that sense of despondency and doom that he had been avoiding and instead was using JM as a crutch as a "super nagual" that could be emulated which gave him hope, and humanity in general hope. But such hope was complacent and DJ wanted Carlos to experience for himself getting beyond this doom that approaches when facing mortality, death, which Carlos was not doing at the time and was instead buffering himself via his teacher. So knowing that when faced with utter collapse, something else kicks in (survival mechanism) provided Carlos with his first taste (perhaps) of independence from his teacher.
"The Joker’s alluded worldview is that good behavior and civilization are the joke, and that just below the surface everyone is as brutal and vicious as himself."
I think he's just, in a twisted way, seeking what Buddhism calls Sameness. He feels others judge him and so it brings him relief to expose them as being the same as him, which in his view removes their ability to judge him as different. Its like he's saying "you all think you are so much better then me, but I know different." His pleasure would come from seeing the acknowledgment on their faces that in fact they are no better than him. He just did not understand from the get-go that he was never any worse.
"No one seems to have considered what don Juan's motives were in forcing CC into that state."
I considered this quite a while ago. Carlos was very dependent of JM at that time. He looked up to him as a leader, a man without flaw and whose power was impenetrable. When DJ transformed into a frail old man, it shook Carlos out of the leader-follower mode, and made Carlos consider his own frailty as a response....in other words, if the invincible JM could falter, then all of humanity was doomed. So Carlos had to face that sense of despondency and doom that he had been avoiding and instead was using JM as a crutch as a "super nagual" that could be emulated which gave him hope, and humanity in general hope. But such hope was complacent and DJ wanted Carlos to experience for himself getting beyond this doom that approaches when facing mortality, death, which Carlos was not doing at the time and was instead buffering himself via his teacher. So knowing that when faced with utter collapse, something else kicks in (survival mechanism) provided Carlos with his first taste (perhaps) of independence from his teacher.