re: True Detective S1E08 "Form And Void"

Nm I dumb

We do that in our recruiting threads bra, but never seen them do it in here...

ETA: Not directed at you UMRealist, but over the centuries, two main branches of Buddhism emerged. Theravada Buddhism is believed to be the oldest form of Buddhism. Mahayana Buddhism is a philosophical movement that proclaimed the possibility of universal salvation, offering assistance to practitioners in the form of compassionate beings called bodhisattvas.

I do not believe that Rust was expressing a Buddhist belief. He was expressing person shock at the notion that there is something after death. He was a philosophical pessimist and really didn't believe in an after life. That is why I labeled it as him simply finding God. It is really hard to know what theistic belief system he would now hold to but it has certainly openned his eyes to another realm of possibilities. By him suggesting light is winning and that in the beginning there was nothing but darkness, it implied him moving toward a belief in God IMO.

I think you guys are over thinking It. He lost his daughter and for a brief moment he found her again and has hope that he will see her again.


The one thing I'm so confused about and it now just seems like cannon fodder is the tape. How did the cult, and the horrible tape factor into the present day killer?

I don't think so; I think he gained a new perspective on the same basic situation.

In other words, he's telling a different story about life as it is. In the beginning was darkness, then there was light. This is not a religious statement (though it has biblical origins) as much as it is a statement of fact.

You could take that fact to mean the light is a cruel illusion falsely representing the true nature of things (Rust's despairing position); or you can take it to mean that even if the light is not ultimate reality, it's still real and worth defending (Rust's hopeful position).

These are two different "stories" we can tell about the stars. They run in parallel with other stories we tell about the stars--religion, on the one hand, and the satanism of Errol on the other hand. What these stories have in common is an overinflated sense of self. Both Christians (in Rust's view) and Errol believe they have found transcendence--they believe they have escaped the flat circle of time. But this is to believe you are something when you are in fact nothing.

Rust doesn't convert to either form of egoism. Rather, he recognizes that even though time is a flat circle, even though the ultimate destination of the self is to dissipate into a nothingness without definition, nonetheless the light and love that are part of the universe are not cruel illusions, but real.

This story is the "form" Rust finally imposes upon the "void."

I realize that this is an interpretation, but I think it's the best one given what Rust says in the finale and also given the added authority of NP's interviews that I posted earlier.

Go read countless stories of near death experiences or after life stories and you will find it changes someone on a basic foundational level. The problem with your explanation is that it leans too heavily on his philosophy and not his new experience. Keep in mind he just had given a testimony about his after death experience so anything he says about light and darkness especially in the context of biblical stories has more weight toward a move in that direction.

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I think you guys are over thinking It. He lost his daughter and for a brief moment he found her again and has hope that he will see her again. The one thing I'm so confused about and it now just seems like cannon fodder is the tape. How did the cult, and the horrible tape factor into the present day killer?

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I think you hit the nail on the head. Rust was in the darkness of believing he had lost his daughter forever and for no reason. Him having the experience brought him to the notion that she is not lost and they will be eventually reunited. His character can now move on. His despair and pessimism was hinged on the fact that what he cherished most was lost to him forever. He found out that is not true.

Regarding the tape. It is a shout out to the "yellow king" mythos that the writer used so much. In the "yellow king" there is a play that if you watch the whole thing you will go mad. For me that is why they made it such a big point for their maniacal screaming when Hart and Childress watched it. The tape was the play.

are we still talking about this finale?!!

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quote: Neither was Marty because guys without money don't have that type of pussy throwing themselves at you.

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Can't speak for Marty, but when a man has looks in the ballpark of Rust...he can get pussy with or without $$$

But you see that is not what Rust described. He did not describe an impersonal force of nothingness like nirvana. What Rust described was very much opposite of what you just quoted and it involves the personal presence of his daughter and his father as immortal beings in the afterlife.