History Literature / BloodMeridian

** He has an [[RedRightHand unusual appearance]], with seemingly supernatural strength, stark white skin that never burns despite spending years in the desert (although it is said to burn later after he goes through the desert following [[spoiler: the massacre of most of Glanton's gang by the Yumas]], and doesn't seem to age.

** He has an [[RedRightHand unusual appearance]], with seemingly supernatural strength, stark white skin that never burns despite spending years in the desert, and doesn't seem to age.

* ArtisticLicensePhysics: [[spoiler:Black Jackson decapitates White Jackson with a single swing of a Bowie knife. Needless to say, this is next to impossible in real life.]]

** The entire novel is a massive deconstruction of western stories, particularly ones that focus around MightyWhitey and TheSavageIndian. Rather than a noble group of outlaws or lawmen, this story follows a group of state-sponsored mercenaries as they travel around Mexico exterminating the Indigenous. Rather than the West being glamorized as a true frontier for manly men, it is a hopelessly brutal place where people die in violent, excessively gory ways. Rather than the white protagonists being treated as heroes for their conquering of the Native Americans, they are portrayed as viciously brutal, inhuman monsters who rape and kill for pleasure and profit. Essentially, the entire story shows the true viciousness of human nature and the capacity for evil found within ''everyone'', even our protagonists. After all, Judge Holden is described as being particularly pale, [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything meaning the whitest character in the novel is also the most evil]]. [[spoiler:It also challenges the classic ideas of good versus evil in westerns by having the judge get away with everything as a major KarmaHoudini, while the protagonist faces an UncertainDoom at his hands.]]
** The novel also picks apart the idea of Westerns being used as a form of historical revisionism and whitewashing. A lot of modern world nations portray their founding as honorable, ethical undertakings, often downplaying or ignoring their sordid pasts. This tends to bleed into their media- notice how many American movies about the Wild West portray cowboys and settlers as heroes, as just one example. The novel chooses to instead focus on America and its history of genocide, showcasing the American/Mexican conquering of the frontier as ''absolutely horrific'' instead of its usual depiction as a just undertaking. Men, women and children are mercilessly killed and defiled all for a small amount of money, and the protagonists degenerate from mercenaries killing for profit to maniacs killing just to kill. If the American Dream and Manifest Destiny crushes people underfoot, then the novel shows you what remains of their broken, crushed entrails in horrific detail.

* EqualOpportunityEvil: Glanton’s gang recruits blacks, Mexicans and Delaware Indians, and everyone is treated equally. The whites are still racist, however, particularly against Native Americans.

** Black Jackson takes [[spoiler:White Jacksons]] head off in one clean stroke.

* VirtueIsWeakness: Judge Holden certainly believes so, and [[spoiler: the Kid’s propensity toward acts of kindness and mercy]] is one of the few things that seems to make him genuinely angry.

* AdaptationalAttractiveness: Inverted. In his book, Samuel Chamberlain describes Judge Holden as "hairless," but this means that he had no beard. Chamberlain drew the man with a full head of hair. [=McCarthy=] exaggerated this description to depict the judge with no hair on his body whatsoever.

* GainaxEnding: The ending is unusual and open for interpretation. In a nutshell: [[spoiler:Judge Holden surprises the kid in an outhouse and does...''something'' to him, which is apparently so horrible that people can only stare in awestruck horror at the aftermath]]. This is abruptly followed by an epilogue of...[[spoiler:people drilling rows of holes on the prairie]]. Figure it out.

'''Judge Holden:''' You speak truer than you know.

* DeathByRacism: The story has multiple instances of this, with arrogant white men meeting gruesome, undignified ends at the hands of "savages" who are really no worse than themselves.
** Captain White gathers a small ArmyOfThievesAndWhores to pillage and conquer the Mexican state of Sonora for the United States. The column is wiped out by a Comanche warband in a brutal CurbstompBattle and White himself, after making an initial escape, is subjected to a DecapitationPresentation by the same Mexicans who he'd earlier disparaged as weaklings and cowards.
** [[spoiler:White Jackson]] gets beheaded in one stroke by Black Jackson after the latter grows tired of his racist tirades.

* GainaxEnding: The ending is unusual and open for interpretation.

* AdaptationDecay: The Naxos audiobook is guilty of this. Some of the more verbose passages are trimmed, including cutting away most of the "war is god" speech (arguably the most memorable piece of dialogue in the book). Much of the violence is also [[{{Bowdlerise}} downplayed.]] And although Robert G Slade narrates reasonably well, he decided to give the Judge a southern drawl, TV-preacher accent, which is just silly and doesn't fit him at all.

* BlastOut: There's several instances where a single act of violence escalates into mass bloodletting. The Judge accusing a preacher of vile crimes works the crowd into such a rage that they start killing each other after the preacher is shot dead. Later on, a drunk at a cantina visited by the Glanton gane stabs one of the gang, which results in the Judge shooting the attacker dead, which results in a massive gunfight that kills dozens.

* PedoHunt: At the beginning, Judge Holden gets a preacher lynched by falsely accusing him of raping a little girl ([[BestialityIsDepraved and a goat]]).

* TheSavageIndian: Zig-Zagged: some natives encountered by The Kid and the various gangs he joins are this to a T, most notably the [[TheHorde Comanche warband]] and the [[WouldHurtAChild Delaware trackers]]. However, other native groups such as the Gilenos and the Tiguas that the Glanton Gang massacre are [[NobleSavage mostly peaceful]]. Still other native peoples are portrayed on a scale of savage to noble, such as Karakawas who are rumored to be [[ImAHumanitarian cannibals]] but [[ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything aren't actually shown doing anything untoward]], and the Yuma band who are shown as being respectful if wary of the gang at first but absolutely willing to [[LetsGetDangerous resort to brutal violence]] for aims both [[PragmaticVillainy political]] (controlling the ferry) and [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge revenge-based]] (following their heavy losses in the ferry battle).

* SpiritualSuccessor: Shared same themes and elements to ''Literature/OuterDark'', [=McCarthy=]'s second novel.

* ViewersAreGeniuses: If you get the many references, it's RuleOfSymbolism instead of FauxSymbolism.

Hillcoat announced that a film adaptation had finally been confirmed in [[https://theplaylist.net/blood-meridian-john-hillcoat-says-cormac-mccarthy-is-writing-the-adaptation-of-the-bloody-bleak-western-20230602/ June of 2023]], with a screenplay penned by [[SelfAdaptation McCarthy himself]].

-> "Your ideas are terrifying and your hearts are faint.
-> Your acts of pity and cruelty are absurd, committed with no calm, as if they were irresistible.
-> Finally, you fear blood more and more.
-> Blood and time."

--> ''[[{{GainaxEnding}} He is dancing, dancing.]] He says that he will never die.''

--> [[{{GainaxEnding}} He is dancing, dancing.]] He says that he will never die.

--> [[{{GainaxEnding}}He is dancing, dancing.]] He says that he will never die.

Your acts of pity and cruelty are absurd, committed with no calm, as if they were irresistible.
Finally, you fear blood more and more.
Blood and time."

-> "Your ideas are terrifying and your hearts are faint. Your acts of pity and cruelty are absurd, committed with no calm, as if they were irresistible. Finally, you fear blood more and more. Blood and time."

-> [[{{Epigraph}}"Your ideas are terrifying and your hearts are faint. Your acts of pity and cruelty are absurd, committed with no calm, as if they were irresistible. Finally, you fear blood more and more. Blood and time."]]
-->- Paul Valéry, as quoted

-> "Your ideas are terrifying and your hearts are faint. Your acts of pity and cruelty are absurd, committed with no calm, as if they were irresistible. Finally, you fear blood more and more. Blood and time."
-->- Paul Valéry

-> [[Epigraph Your ideas are terrifying and your hearts are faint. Your acts of pity and cruelty are absurd, committed with no calm, as if they were irresistible. Finally, you fear blood more and more. Blood and time.]]

->This is my claim, he said. And yet everywhere upon it are pockets of autonomous life. Autonomous. In order for it to be mine nothing must be permitted to occur upon it save by my dispensation.

->I dont see what that has to do with catchin birds.

->The freedom of birds is an insult to me. I’d have them all in zoos.

[[caption-width-right:350:''[[{{Arc Words}} They Rode On.]]'']]

* AnyoneCanDie: The only major characters that are still around by the climax can fit on one hand. [[spoiler:By the final page, only the Judge remains.]]

** Tobin the expriest. There is some in-universe confusion about just how much of a priest he really is/was (he claims to have only been a seminary student and no real priest, while the judge says he used to be a "respected Doctor of Divinity" at ''Harvard''), but he's still pretty faithful to the Christian God in his own way, and doesn't really show the typical traits of the SinisterMinister.

* BigBad: While Glanton is the leader of the gang it's clear that the Judge is the one that's [[DragonInChief really in charge]]. [[spoiler:He fills this role in a more traditional way after Glanton is killed.]]

* ComingOfAgeStory: For the Kid. He begins the story as a violent youth who runs away from home, joins the vicious Glanton Gang, and eventually [[spoiler:grows out of his lust for violence, rejecting everything Judge Holden stands for before WalkingTheEarth. Though it's strongly implied that it doesn't end well for him.]]

** The Comanches absolutely obliterate the Captain White's filibusters early on. The Indian tribe suffers no casualties and only a handful of survivors escape. The kid is the only one alive by the next day.

* DeathByRacism: Multiple instances of arrogant white men meeting gruesome, undignified ends at the hands of "savages" who are really no worse than themselves.

** The entire novel is a massive deconstruction of western stories, particularly ones that focus around MightyWhitey and TheSavageIndian. Rather than a noble group of outlaws or lawmen, this story follows a group of state-sponsored mercenaries as they travel around Mexico exterminating the Indigenous. Rather than the West being glamorized as a true frontier for manly men, it is a hopelessly brutal place where people die in violent, excessively gory ways. Rather than the white protagonists being treated as heroes for their conquering of the Native Americans, they are portrayed as viciously brutal, inhuman monsters who rape and kill for pleasure and profit. Essentially, the entire story shows the true viciousness of human nature and the capacity for evil found within ''everyone'', even our protagonists. After all, Judge Holden is described as being particularly pale, [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything meaning the whitest character in the novel is also the most evil]]. [[spoiler:It also challenges the classic ideas of good versus evil in westerns by having the judge get away with everything as a major KarmaHoudini. The protagonist ends the novel in UncertainDoom, potentially being raped and murdered by the judge in an outhouse in the middle of nowhere.]]

** The judge has an [[RedRightHand unusual appearance]], seemingly supernatural strength, white skin that never burns despite spending years in the desert, and doesn't seem to age.
** The judge's backstory is mysterious. He simply appeared in the desert, waiting for Glanton's gang.
** Everyone in Glanton's gang (except for Tobin the expriest) recalls meeting the judge at some point before he joined the gang.
** The judge displays a dizzying array of knowledge and skill, from remarkable works of chemistry to seemingly impossible tricks of prestidigitation.
** The judge makes sermon-like speeches about worshiping war as God.
** Being called "the judge" evokes Biblical judgment.
** The scene in which the judge makes gunpowder is an allusion to Satan doing the same in ''Literature/ParadiseLost''.
** Towards the end, when the judge says that if humans have no free will, then some other entity must be pulling the strings. The judge remarks "I know him well," which, assuming that the entity is the Christian God, strongly implies that Holden is Satan.

* EitherOrTitle: The full title is ''Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in the West''.

* EstablishingCharacterMoment: The judge is introduced falsely accusing an innocent preacher of raping children. He admits later to having done it ForTheEvulz.

Hillcoat announced that a film adaptation finally been confirmed in [[https://theplaylist.net/blood-meridian-john-hillcoat-says-cormac-mccarthy-is-writing-the-adaptation-of-the-bloody-bleak-western-20230602/ June of 2023]], with a screenplay penned by [[SelfAdaptation McCarthy himself]].

I dont see what that has to do with catchin birds.

The freedom of birds is an insult to me. I’d have them all in zoos.