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* HollywoodAtheist: Doyle seems to be this, seeing as how he's incredibly hostile towards Karl's Christian beliefs. He never outright says he doesn't believe in God, but he does say that he "doesn't understand" the Bible and immediately after asks Karl "Just how retarded are you?"

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* HollywoodAtheist: Doyle seems to be this, seeing as how he's incredibly hostile towards Karl's Christian beliefs. He never outright says he doesn't believe in God, but he does say make clear that he "doesn't understand" thinks that the Bible is filled with nonsense:
-->'''Doyle''': Believe in the Bible do you Karl?
-->'''Karl''': I don't understand all of it, but I reckon I understand a great deal of it.
-->'''Doyle''': Well I can't understand none of it. This one begat that one
and immediately after asks Karl "Just that one begat this one and lo and behold someone says some shit to someone else - just how retarded are you?"you?

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* HateSink: Doyle is an abusive, violent, foul-mouthed, and bigoted man with no apparent redeeming personal qualities.

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* HateSink: Doyle Quite a few, to the point where the film borders on WorldOfJerkass:
**Doyle
is an abusive, violent, foul-mouthed, and bigoted man with no apparent redeeming personal qualities.qualities.
**Charles Bushman is even more despicable. He likes to brag about the various women he raped, kidnapped, tortured, and (probably) murdered, and delights in tormenting the other asylum inmates in petty ways.
* Karl's father and (late) mother, who abused and neglected him by forcing him to spend most of his childhood locked up in a shed.
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* DropTheHammer: [[spoiler: Karl sure does want to, right on Doyle's head, but he had horrible timing. He changed his pre-emptive strike into the BLAM mentioned in YMMV.]]
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The story's about a mentally challenged man named Karl Childers who, around the age of 12, butchered his mother and her lover with the titular sling blade, because he had always learned from his parents that having sex was wrong (a detail shown [[AllThereInTheManual in the script and seen in the short film]]). He was put up in a state mental hospital in Arkansas; our observation of Karl begins 25 years later when he's about to be released.

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The story's about a mentally challenged man named Karl Childers who, around the age of 12, butchered his mother and her teenaged lover with the titular sling blade, because he had always learned from his parents that having sex was wrong (a detail shown [[AllThereInTheManual in the script and seen in the short film]]). He was put up in a state mental hospital in Arkansas; our observation of Karl begins 25 years later when he's about to be released.
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* MentalHandicapMoralDeficiency: mostly but not fully averted. Karl is a mentally handicapped man who spent most of his life in a mental institution. While Karl is kind and caring towards people who reciprocate his friendship and has a traditional concept of morality and justice, his only solution to major moral problems in his life (whether it's his adulterous mother or his friend's abusive stepfather) is to murder the offending individuals.

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* MentalHandicapMoralDeficiency: mostly but not fully averted. Played with. Karl is a mentally handicapped man who spent most of his life in a mental psychiatric institution. While Karl is kind and caring towards people who reciprocate his friendship and has a traditional concept of morality and justice, his only solution to major moral problems in his life (whether it's his adulterous mother or his friend's abusive stepfather) is to murder the offending individuals.
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* BigFancyHouse: [[DeletedScene (Not in the theatrical version, but in the extended directors cut)]] Where Karen Cross lives, with her parents and their maid. We only see the outside, and a little bit of the foyer, but it's enough to see it is the richest place in the film, a deep contrast to everything else. It may not even be in Millsberg proper.
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* ArmorPiercingResponse: "Bible says the same thing about killin' others, too." ["If you do that, you go off to Hades..."]
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* MassOhCrap: When Doyle kicks his band out, at first everyone just sits there, stunned at how suddenly angry and loud Doyle is being, so Doyle has to be more physically and verbally abusive. The Johnson almost seems on the verge of tears when telling Doyle off. There may also be a bit of a ThousandYardStare effect as everyone tries to avoid losing it themselves at the withering abuse, having experienced it before, but it's shocking every time it happens.
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* InVinoVeritas: When Doyle is deep into his drink, he lets his truths come out quite strongly. Nowhere is this more evident in the scene when his band is hanging out at Linda's house; he does show a bit of TranquilFury at the beginning, saying that he would prefer some peace and quiet while he's "hurting" - but when the band seems oblivious to this, eventually he springs up and throws his bottle through the window and screams at them, giving a withering ReasonYouSuckSpeech to everyone present, along with claiming he is the OnlySaneMan and some pretty horrible threats, before kicking them all out.

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* DeathGlare: Frankie gives Doyle an angry, disbelieving stare all through his speech about [[BlatantLies how he's sorry, that he's going to change, and how it would be better if he was over with Frankie and Linda more often]].

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* DeathGlare: DeathGlare:
** When Frankie first takes Karl home and meets Doyle, Frankie doesn't like how Doyle continually insults and belittles Karl, and when he isn't actively telling Doyle to stop (being instantly verbally smacked down), he's giving Doyle one of these.
**
Frankie gives Doyle an angry, disbelieving stare all through his speech about [[BlatantLies how he's sorry, that he's going to change, and how it would be better if he was over with Frankie and Linda more often]].

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* ComicallyMissingThePoint: A very dark example here: Charles mistakes Karl's grunts and headshakes as amusement at his perverted stories. Fortunately, Karl [[spoiler: [[TookALevelInBadass is able to set him straight by the end]]]].
** Karl frequently misses the point due to his limited intelligence and tendency to take everything literally. For instance, when Jerry mentions to Karl that he'll have to tell his future boss about his [criminal] history, Karl responds by saying that he never was very good at history in school.

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* ComicallyMissingThePoint: A ComicallyMissingThePoint:
**A
very dark example here: Charles mistakes Karl's grunts and headshakes as amusement at his perverted stories. Fortunately, Karl [[spoiler: [[TookALevelInBadass is able to set him straight by the end]]]].
** Karl himself frequently misses the point due to his limited intelligence and tendency to take everything literally. For instance, when Jerry mentions to Karl that he'll have to tell his future boss about his [criminal] history, Karl responds by saying that he never was very good at history in school.

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