History Headscratchers / Dogma

*** Also, remember that the killing spree is Loki's idea first, is targeting the Mooby board right from the start, and was meant to be his "atonement" for his sins. Bartleby actually doesn't go with the idea at first; he even calls Loki out on his ability to correctly "call" a human's sins because standards for serious sin have slipped since Loki was in the job of avenging angel: "I remember when eating meat on a Friday was a hellworthy trespass". It's only at the end of the movie that Bartelby's explicitly said to have completely flipped out and starts talking about killing ''everybody''. However, the entire Mooby board are guilty of real serious sins - everything from incest down to grand fraud. On balance it looks like Loki is either (a) fucking with the office girl's head when he threatens to kill her for not saying "God bless you", when he knows he simply can't, or (b) he's forgotten -- and is stopped by Bartleby -- that the sin she committed isn't a capital offense against God.

*** Nope, FridgeBrilliance again. Technically the United States ''was'' at war in the late sixties -- with North Korea. The Korean War ended in a ''ceasefire'', not a declaration of peace. That's why South Korea ''and'' North Korea both remain heavily militarized along their border. Elvis therefore ''did'' join up in times of war.

*** Or maybe she was talking about the Cold War. Presley served as part of the NATO forces in Germany.

*** Elvis was drafted into the army, but he made the choice to serve as a regular soldier; he could have joined the Special Services (basically the army's entertainment corps). Furthermore, he was also a wealthy and famous celebrity, the kind of person for whom exceptions to rules can easily be found so long as the right palms are greased. Instead of trying to wriggle out of it or taking a stand out of an anti-military conviction, Elvis chose to answer his country's call.

*** It's actually FridgeBrilliance that they don't kill for Original Sin. According to Catholic [[IncrediblyLamePun dogma]], Christ died to satisfy the punishment required by God for man's Original Sin. God doesn't hold Original Sin against human beings as a result. Bartleby and/or Loki calling someone out on Original Sin would be like a traffic cop pulling you over for unpaid parking tickets when your Dad has already paid them out three years ago.

** As Terry Pratchett said "If you have to look along the shaft of an arrow from the wrong end, if a man has you entirely at his mercy, then hope like hell that man is an evil man. Because the evil like power, power over people, and they want to see you in fear. They want you to know you're going to die. So they'll talk. They'll gloat. They'll watch you squirm. They'll put off the moment of murder like another man will put off a good cigar. So hope like hell your captor is an evil man. A good man will kill you with hardly a word."

** If ''God herself'' literally showed up, in person, to bail your ass out of not-existing at the last possible second, would ''you'' have the balls to give her a WhatTheHellHero speech? The movie also strongly implies that God mellowed quite a bit after she had a kid.

** It's not a bad idea ''in theory''. In ''practice'', though, the way Jay tries to pull it off is completely reckless, ill-thought out, grandstanding, done without consultation with any of the let's face it infinitely smarter people around him, and leaves the door wide open for Bartleby to completely succeed in his plan. So yeah, while the underlying idea might be sound, it's entirely valid for them to get on his case regarding the execution.

** Also, this whole exchange is occurring when Bartleby is within minutes if not seconds of literally ending the known universe, and it's largely because of Jay that this is the case. It is entirely understandable under such high-stress circumstances that they'd skip the calm and rational "I understand your position but here are some notes on your approach" discourse and just go straight to shouting hysterically at him.

** Also, this whole exchange is occurring when Bartleby is within minutes if not seconds of literally ending the known universe. It is entirely understandable under such high-stress circumstances that they'd skip the calm and rational "I understand your position but here are some notes on your approach" discourse and just go straight to shouting hysterically at him.

** It's not a bad idea ''in theory''. In ''practice'', though, the way Jay tries to pull it off is completely reckless, ill-thought out, grandstanding, done without consultation with any of the let's face it infinitely smarter people around him, and leaves the door wide open for Bartleby to completely succeed in his plan. So yeah, while the underlying idea might be sound, it's entirely valid for them to get on his case regarding the execution.

** It's not a bad idea ''in theory''. In ''practice'', though, the way Jay tries to pull it off is completely reckless, ill-thought out, done without consultation with any of the let's face it infinitely smarter people around him, and leaves the door open for Bartleby to succeed in his plan.

** Jay & Silent Bob, despite everything, how vulgar, crude and obnoxiously stupid at least Jay is, are still good people at heart, throughout all the films they appear, apart from Jays foul mouth, they never do anything outright "evil" I mean even at the start of the film, they leapt in and beat the crap out of the Stygian Triplets, sure, it was for hopefully RescueSex, but when Bethany refused, they seemed mostly to only mention it to try and change her mind, they never forced it, hell once the movie starts hitting them in the fact with actual demons and angels, they still don't back out despite them having no real reason to stick around, Loki couldn't kill them because they aren't bad people, just Jay is vulgar, they were also very welcoming to Loki on the train and attempted friendship straight away, which was nice.

* Bartleby as an angel was obviously too tough for our heroes to tackle. So wasn't the decision to make him human first - and ''then'' to kill/incapacitate him actually a way to go about it? If so, then the criticism of Jay's decision to shoot Bartleby's wings was not entirely warranted.

* Why exactly did Bethany die?

** The Catholic doctrine of Homoousis says he's unconscious on a life support machine