I’m still on my bullshit thinking about The Butcher and it still haunts me that the two good decisions Collins tried to make end up in him dying.
During the finale of season 4 when Collins chose to help Noel instead of leaving him to die (saving a life instead of taking one) Kayne ends up killing him. The alternate version of Collins too in the Dark World once Arthur used the lighter helped patch Arthur up and offered to show him back to where he was camping only to end up being killed by Arthur because of his deal with the Dollmaker.
I’ve talked at length about The Butcher’s ties to unprocessed trauma and cycles of trauma, recurring trauma, and violence but it’s still so heartbreaking to me that the couple times his character does break these cycles it ends in death. These are just my own observations not a canon analysis it’s closer to a headcanon/personal speculation but still the thought just haunts me.
This is going to be a really long post I have been dying to write. Spoilers for Malevolent part 56 The Parting Glass!
The Butcher is deeply tied to trauma and living with unprocessed trauma.
An I wanna really dig into how he is used as an allegory for trauma and how Collins has dealt with it, and some personal headcanons about him, as well as a broad character analysis. So, TWs for talk of trauma, a lot of this is based on personal experience. I'm no therapist.
This is going to be A LEVIATHAN OF A POST fr- read at your own risk, it's so LOOOONG, but Collins is my favorite character and I want to yap about how this episode changed my brain chemistry.
Also, all this is just things I have noticed; I'm not claiming Harlan intended this character to be read like this. I just think this is an interesting way of reading his character.
Sorry for misspellings, this post is literally lagging my computer, so editing is hard <3
I will try not to get too personal with this, but this episode genuinely hit me hard in a way I did not see coming. I have CPTSD, and the way Collins' character arc has ended and how Harlan wrote it genuinely means so much to me. I never thought I would relate to this episode or this character- oh boy was I wrong.
So, where do I even begin with Dennis Collins and this analysis-
I had a suspicion The Butcher would excel in the Dark World, John has stated multiple times that it 'brings out the worst in you,' and Collins was a killer from the start. Even The Dollmaker stated that Collins seems to 'enjoy his time' in the Dark World. However, Collins later on in The Parting Glass he tells Arthur that the Dark World is "It's a living hell, this place". These contradictions in how people perceive The Butcher in the Dark World and what he says about it are worth noting as most of this post hinges on small things like this.
I think Collins has 'enjoyed' his time in the Dark World because for him, nothing has changed. He has remained in a perpetual state of the way he was his whole life, even in the world that is supposed to 'bring out the worst in you'. I expected we would get a maniacal version of Collins that was ramped up to be even more murdery in the Dark World. However, we got something very different, and how I read this change broke me.
Nothing changed about Collins because this is the worst in him, this cycle he is stuck in.
What is that cycle? Lemme explain- for people with trauma, especially severe or prolonged repeated trauma, it puts your brain in a constant state of 'survive or die', everything feels like life or death even if it isn't. Your brain is doing everything in its power to keep you 'safe', which makes it very easy to fall into damaging patterns and form habits. It's why people with trauma sometimes end up in abusive relationships again or don't leave abusive homes. Over time, the brain becomes used to always being in a state of fear, and suddenly, the things that upset you previously become normalized and tolerable. If you grew up in an abusive home with screaming parents, eventually the screaming starts to become normalized; it doesn't make it right, but it becomes normal. For a brain stuck in a constant state of recurrent trauma, 'normal = safe'. When all of your energy is focused on survival, the idea of leaving the traumatic situation can become daunting and unbearable. Change to a traumatized brain seeking normalcy looks like a threat, even if it's for the better, which leads to getting locked in vicious cycles that trap someone experiencing trauma in the situation or causes them to repeat similar cycles, retraumatizing them; it's sometimes called trauma compulsions ( here's an article if you want a better jist-).
How does this relate to The Butcher?
In the Dark World, this version (he's not the one from S4) of Collins is stuck in a state of reliving trauma. He's trapped there, unable to move forward, because he was unable to move past what happened in his childhood, his father perceiving him as a failure, among other things, I think.
The older Collins guides the boy through the same hunts his father once took him on. He's simultaneously being the father he never had to a younger version of himself and perpetuating the cycle of trauma onto the boy that made him who he is. He is deadlocked. The suffering isn't outwardly apparent because it's internal, it's psychological. The Dark World's running theme is that it fucks with people's heads in some way, and this is what it is doing to Collins.
To Collins, being trapped in this cycle is 'a living hell' because he cannot break it, no matter how he tries, since he's inflicting the same trauma over again on himself without realizing it, doomed to repeat the cycle. The boy represents the first time Collins ever killed (I think) the start of the cycle and the thing that ignited the trauma, (even if Collins didn't realize it at the time) and The Butcher is the representation of repeating of subconscious cycles that felt normal but lead to retraumatization over and over again... he's been in that cycle his whole life and now in the Dark World, nothing changed.
Being trapped in trauma compulsion cycles, unable to break out, is a personal hell; it's torture, speaking as someone who's trapped in these cycles and is struggling to get out.
This is where we are with Collins in The Parting Glass, it's an observation of trauma, cycles, and the end of that cycle.
But in order to get into where all this is coming from, we have a lot more post to go....
The Butcher's Father, Childhood Trauma, and the Fox...
TW for discussions of child abuse and spousal abuse.
Collins had a rough childhood, I have no doubt. There are a few references to the fact that his father did not love him, even in season 4. Collins even admits it willingly; it doesn't come as a shock, implying a recurring pattern of abusive behavior.
S4: The Butcher
S4: The Deal
In both those lines of dialogue, Collins confirms this, but not in an angry way, just in a 'matter of fact' way. It's also clear Collins loved his father; he said so himself in S4, and it's clear in how he recalls the hunt he went on with his father in S6. The entirety of episode The Parting Glass is peppered with mentions of the hunt, and Collins recounts this time spent in it with his dad almost reverently.
However, there is clearly something deeply wrong here, as there is a major discrepancy between the love he held for his father and the unsurprised tone in which he says his father did not love him. Something like that should come as a shock to him, but it doesn't.
It's also strongly implied in S4 that Collins might have killed his own father...
S4: The Deal
So clearly something went wrong for him to have (presumably) killed his father, someone whom he claimed to love. It's never directly stated or implied what Collins' father did to him specifically; however, this line Collins says in The Parting Glass, "No, this… this was a strong drink from my dad’s wineskin… only it wasn’t wine. It was sweeter, smelled like me dad’s breath on a cold winter’s night, when he was raging at me Ma. Like burnt wood and foul meat." His father would yell at his mother, probably at Collins too, and physical violence isn't off the table either I bet, especially in this time period.
Collins is also warned by his mother not to be seen crying when he returned from the fox hunt, "When I entered… the blood still on me face… me Ma had seen the lines my tears drew and… she grabbed me by the shoulder and warned me… not to cry. I didn’t even know I had been. I stood there, once she left." This warning feels urgent to me, like if his father had seen Collins show weakness, he would have 'raged' at him too, whatever that looked like...
Arthur also acknowledges in The Parting Glass in a thread of dialogue referencing the events before going to the Order of the Fallen Star that he and Collins have more in common than he thought, and I think that the thing they have in common is childhood trauma, or at least familial trauma.
Collins wanted to please his father and for him to be proud of him, something natural for a child his age. I believe he killed the fox primarily for his father's validation, not because he enjoyed the killing, contrary to what he says immediately after. I think as a boy, Collins confused the desire to kill the fox with the desire for validation.
S6 The Parting Glass
Killing the fox is what his father wanted. His father's expression, however, is described as a 'cousin of fear' immediately after Collins killed the fox, perhaps it was a look of disgust. In spite of doing what his father wanted, he didn't receive the validation he craved. It was too short-lived due to Collins taking things too far.
Perhaps the aftermath of this hunt was the turning point in his relationship with his father souring.
The title The Butcher feels comforting because it's what Collins is good at; the killing is familiar. This fox was only the first in a long life of killing. It brought Collins joy initially because he was accomplishing what his father wanted him to do. The Butcher is a title that inherently links to perhaps the last positive memory Collins has of interacting with his father before things soured.
Collins wanted his father's approval so desperately he was willing to kill for it... and I believe this fox was the proverbial lynchpin setting off Collins' trauma...
S6: The Parting Glass
This dialogue tells me a lot, and I will occasionally circle back to it. Collins was praised for being a "good follower". This becomes a recurring theme with him throughout his life, following orders.
As The Butcher, he follows orders from people like Larson to kill targets and receives validation for his work in the form of money and acclaim. All of these killings are instances of Collins repeating a similar cycle of what happened on that fox hunt, except this time, he does not face disapproval for doing what he's told, only praise.
It's a comfortable loop he's fallen into, reliving the 'good' parts of the hunt and the relationship with his father without resolving or confronting the underlying trauma that the man inflicted on him by rejecting Collins' attempt to please him.
This is why failure as an adult bothers Collins so much. We see it happen multiple times in S4....
S4: The Butcher
When Larson points out his shortcomings in this exchange, Collins slaps himself for failing after hanging up the call. Something he never does again. Larson questioning his abilities and remarking on his failures to kill a target caused a very visceral reaction from Collins. This did not stem from seeking Larson's approval as Collins holds no regard for Larson, and no loyalty to any one employer. It goes deeper than that.
S4: The Butcher
Collins, in this exchange, points out how Arthur made him look bad, calling out his failures himself. This further proves that personal failures tied to his work bother him significantly, at least enough that it's a concern of his. Where little to nothing ever seems to concern Collins.
S4: The Deal
John is even able to see how much failure affects Collins, especially when Arthur ties it back to his relationship with his father. It gets to him so much so that John describes him as frantic. Collins lashes out in a way inconsistent with his usual self-control; this REALLY got under his skin, especially when Arthur uses 'boyo' against him. My theory is that it was something Collins' father called him at one time.
This, to me, directly links Collins' issues with failure to his father and being perceived as one by him in some way, and perhaps that ties back to that fox hunt...
I think Collins, in some small part, might have regretted killing that fox as a boy... and that is what his father perceived as his failure.
We get these lines in The Parting Glass when Collins talks about the aftermath of the hunt, "When I entered… the blood still on me face… me Ma had seen the lines my tears drew and… she grabbed me by the shoulder and warned me… not to cry. I didn’t even know I had been. I stood there, once she left. The parting glass in me hand. Its tiny lamb head staring up at me...."
Collins was crying when he returned, and why would he be if he were truly as happy about killing that fox as he said he was?
I think the killing of that fox was extremely traumatic in multiple ways...
Collins killed that fox with a knife, very up close to the death itself. At the time, it felt great because it was what his father wanted, but he ended up disapproving of it. Collins only killed the fox in the first place because his father wanted him to, and now that reason was made pointless. That matters.
S6: The Parting Glass
To do something so drastic as to take a life up close with a knife, to seek his father's approval because he wanted Collins to kill, only to be met with disapproval, is a huge blow to a young child. At that age, your parents are your world, and the figure you look up to most, looking at your attempts to please them with a look like disgust (probably) is absolutely going to be taken personally by a child. A child who won't know what they did wrong because they did exactly what was wanted of them, and it still wasn't good enough.
The realization that not only had he garnered his father's disapproval somehow, but had also killed an innocent creature for a pointless reason, maybe deeply upset young Collins so much it made him feel remorse, and that's what brought him to tears on the way home. The idea that a creature died a meaningless death at his hands. Perhaps his father learned he felt remorse for killing the fox and saw that emotion as weakness, thinking Collins a failure of a son, leading this to become an extremely traumatic event.
That is A LOT for a boy under the age of ten (as John describes the younger Collins in the Dark World, which the elder says he was around the age of at the time) to process.
The line, ".... And I realized… it wasn’t for us. For me. That morning. We didn’t toast to our hunt, not really. We had that drink for the fox. It was he we was toasting that morning. For he was the one who gave his life. That’s what the parting glass is. A toast. For the ones who don’t realize what everyone else has… that they’re already dead." hit me like a ton of bricks because this is exactly what trauma feels like for me at least.
When Collins killed that fox at the time, it didn't seem like a bad thing, despite his father's disapproval; other men had approved 'teasing and jestin'. It wasn't until later that the weight of what happened set in that everything came crashing apart.
The death of that fox had been pointless, and Collins ended up perhaps losing the love of his father for it indirectly.
"For the ones who don’t realize what everyone else has… that they’re already dead". You can't always predict what is going to be a life-altering, traumatic event before it happens; you only learn after the fact when you are left to cope with how it affects your psyche. You don't realize you have killed a part of yourself forever until it's too late; this is EXACTLY what trauma feels like.
Collins didn't realize that in killing that fox, he killed the boy he was, and eventually lost his father's love until it was too late and the deed was done.
An to me, that read on the fox hunt recalled in Collins' memories is fucking tragic... and it gutted me realizing the potential weight that scene has.
The Snarling Dog and Agency...
The Butcher is often compared to a dog, especially by Arthur when pointing out how he's merely following orders, though sometimes Collins even makes the comparison himself.
S4: The Butcher
Collins owns the title of being a dog, not allowing Arthur to use it against him. However, in this instance, he mentions being wolf-like, an important distinction as wolves imply something feral and less domesticated than a dog; it's something aggressive, not something compliant.
It subtly contradicts Arthur's point that Collins only obeys orders; it snatches agency back to Collins because if he wants to do the things he does as he claims, then he's not a victim of a cycle and just doing the same he's always done. It's a way of fighting to get back control of how you perceive the cycles you are trapped in (at least I do this-).
I think this distinction is important to Collins' sense of identity as he takes issue a few times with being a 'follower' his whole life, like a dog. It calls back to how he had followed his father's instructions, hunting to seek his approval, much like a dog, and how it ended badly.
S4: The Butcher
This exchange stood out to me because it follows the previous one with Arthur calling him a dog. Only now Arthur implies it doesn't take much to make a dog happy, and Collins punches him. This insinuation got under his skin because it hits too close to the cycle Collins finds himself trapped in and trying to fight against. The cycle of seeking validation through killing because he's good at it, but being trapped in that cycle because no validation will fix what happened in his childhood.
I think Collins realizes he's trapped in a cycle as well, but cannot figure out how to break it because he refuses to acknowledge that what happened in his childhood was traumatic and not just part of becoming "a new man". Acknowledging what happened as traumatic would rob him of the identity he's built up around that event, which led him to become The Butcher. It would mean that becoming who he is was no longer entirely his choice, but partially forced on him by factors outside of his control. Being robbed of agency over your own identity is terrifying. It is much easier to say, "I am who I am because I wanted to be this person" than acknowledging, "I am who I am because of things that happened outside of my control," even though BOTH things are true about identity.
This is possibly why Collins is so nonchalant about the fact his father didn't love him, because he refuses to acknowledge it affects him, even when Arthur poking at it CLEARLY affects him. Ignoring the trauma does not make it go away; you can't heal from something you bury. Becoming The Butcher did not change what happened to Collins, but it's given him a way of burying it and not reopening old wounds, provided he can keep the facade together, which he is very good at being The Butcher.
Arthur's words got too close to the truth of trauma's influence on The Butcher, and it pissed Collins off subconsciously since he lacks the awareness that the events surrounding the fox killing were traumatic. Collins isn't a "new man"; he's still repeating traumatic patterns that stemmed from his childhood unknowingly.
He does take issue with having been a follower his whole life and repeating the pattern. We learn this in S6 too.
S6: The Parting Glass
This is a different Butcher from a different timeline where Noel stayed behind instead of Collins, but the event that this Collins is talking about is consistent with Arthur's timeline. He got tired of not making his own choices.
Many people who experience trauma feel that it rules their lives and every single decision they make. You can feel like you're not in control of your life and are stuck, unable to change it.
This ties back to my theory about how Collins' career as The Butcher is linked to childhood trauma. I don't doubt the older Collins when he says it wasn't cause he didn't love the killing, I think he does because of the validation it brings for being good at it. The killing became normalized in his life and is now no longer a traumatic thing, effectively concealing that the fox was a traumatic moment in his childhood. He took away that trauma's influence over him. It's not gone- but it doesn't rule him. He doesn't think about it in his every waking moment, despite how it influences things he does in small ways. So the trauma goes unacknowledged.
His father wanted him to kill, and Collins became a killer. Now, each time he kills, he's doing in small part what the man wanted, except now he's validated for it. It fills a void from that childhood he's not even aware exists.
That feeling of being stuck without being able to recognize how is so prevalent in both of the Dark World Collins'. It's not stated openly, but it's the subtext I read from how this episode was written. It's a theme we see in other characters too: John saying he was trapped in the Dark World and Friedrich (Marie's son) being trapped in a WWI hellscape.
We know characters are trapped in the Dark World, so when The Butcher seems to be having an easy time here, that leads me to think it's something internal that's trapping him, and with this hunt's memory being so prevalent alongside other themes, it leads me to childhood trauma.
The Boy and The Butcher...
Ok, so let's pull back a bit and focus on just the boy and The Butcher, or young Collins before the age of 10 and older Collins.
S6: The Parting Glass
John states that this is the Butcher from two separate timelines, and that's true, this is not our Butcher from New York, that one I believe is permanently dead VIA Kayne. This Butcher is from an alternative timeline where Noel stayed behind to fight off the creatures in The Order I & II and died, leaving him to survive with Arthur. The kid Collins is clearly from another timeline, though we don't get a clue as to which, and if it is from the same timeline as this older Collins.
However, the fact that there are two versions of Collins in the Dark World also sounds to me like an allegory for trauma.
It's common that when something traumatic happens, your sense of self can become fractured. Your mind can become stuck in the way it processed things before the traumatic event. You can be an adult and have something trigger a traumatic memory, and suddenly you regress back to feeling like a scared child again, maybe even engaging with things that helped you cope at that age. Trauma can even cause you to form separate personalities and identities within yourself if it shatters the sense of identity you once held.
I think that is what these two versions of Collins metaphorically represent. 'The boy' is Collins before the killing of the fox and everything it represented and was tied to. The Butcher is what became of Collins after the trauma when he reconstructed his sense of identity.
What is going on with Collins in the Dark World is a metaphorical representation of his childhood trauma and his inability to escape it or heal from it, becoming trapped by perpetuating the trauma. That fox hunt shattered Collins' sense of identity after it changed his relationship with his father. He became a "new man," because a split occurred that clearly separated the child from the adult Collins, which I suspect is due to that incident with the fox.
S6: The Parting Glass
Collins is described as behaving fatherly towards the boy, trying to be the father he did not have, so it stands to reason that after the fox hunt, something shifted, and Collins' father was no longer there for him like he should have been. Collins had to grow up fast because of this, most likely, and it caused his childhood to be cut short, forcing him to become the man he is because no one would be willing to care for him. (Maybe his mother, but she was being abused too, so she might not have had the capacity to.)
Explaining to us that killing the fox led him to become a man is the kinder way of saying that the trauma caused by that hunt forced him to become an adult at a young age because he had to.
For many people with childhood trauma who were forced to grow up because of negligent parents, it's painful looking back at who you were as a child before it all went wrong. They didn't know what was coming. They were blindsided, and sometimes you just want to grab them and shield them and guide them to repair all the damage that trauma has done to you...
I think that is how this older version of Collins feels.
He wants to guide and protect that child, giving him what he did not have, but instead of helping, he's perpetuating the traumatic event onto the young version of himself because his sense of fatherly care and protecting is warped by growing up with an abusive parent.
He doesn't know that what he's doing is damaging because he has normalized it, so the cycle continues.
That's what I think this hunt in the Dark World represents: the cycle of trauma left unresolved.
The older Butcher has imprisoned the younger in this trauma cycle by accident, through wanting to protect and guide him, 'being the father he never had'. "The boy’s a good lad. Shaping up to be just like me." Collins doesn't even realize that this is bad because the killing is so normalized to him now. He's even told Arthur back in S4 that no, he doesn't hear a conscience, he only hears music.
Collins' sense of morality has been severely skewed by childhood trauma. He's not completely devoid of virtues like wanting to help people, but it's rare.
There's only two times I can recall where Collins has helped others for no personal gain. Once with Noel in S4 and here with Arthur in S5.
S6: The Parting Glass
S4: The Order Part II
In the first set of dialogue, we can see that the boy is confused by The Butcher's actions because it's simply not something Collins does. It's a change that defies the repeating cycle of normalized killing that started with the fox.
It's also interesting because it shows vulnerability. Like I said earlier, a traumatized brain treats change like a threat, and in both instances of helping, Collins left himself vulnerable, and in both instances, he was killed.
In The Order he was killed by Kayne shortly after carrying Noel to meet Arthur and John. Had he quietly slipped away, he might have lived. In The Parting Glass he uses the bandages on Arthur's wounds and when he has his back turned, Arthur slits his throat.
This is another interesting parallel to how change to a traumatized brain is perceived as a threat. In these instances, Collins briefly broke the cycle of trauma, but in both instances, it led to his death. A common fear with people experiencing trauma is that "if I try to change something BAD could happen". In Collins' case, it did. The theme of subconscious trauma cycles is reinforced.
Breaking the Cycle...
S6: The Parting Glass
The boy, being a prisoner, also points to Collins being an allegory for trauma this season for me because of what Collins' death represents. It's the breaking of the cycle of trauma.
I don't think there was any way that The Butcher was ever going to truly break the cycle himself and be able to truly move on; that's just not in his character, and he's almost completely unaware that there is an issue to begin with.
For Collins' character arc, the only solution to it both times was death. The boy is appreciative of Arthur killing The Butcher because the boy is no longer forced to relive the hunt and the memories tied to it. He is freed, no longer forced to live in a perpetual reenactment of the events that led his life to be irreparably damaged forever.
The Butcher is the cycle of trauma the boy is perpetually imprisoned by. Collins' death is the end of that cycle for the boy.
He's able to leave it all behind and become a different man, and part of me really wishes we could know who that version is.
John describes the boy as being fearful and searching for an 'unknowable answer' I think the answer the boy was looking for is what he did do wrong back then in his father's eyes. Perhaps the boy expects Arthur to have a similar reaction to his father, that he is the problem somehow, and when Arthur tells him this business isn't about him and he can leave, it's like telling that boy it's not your fault. (However, all of this is HUGE speculation on my end.)
(There's also probably some parallel here about mercy killing and euthanasia of rabid animals, I'm not going to get into here because this post is already SO LONG.... ANYWAYS!)
The Wolf and the Lamb...
The wolf and the lamb symbolism is heavy when we meet The Butcher in the Dark World. I think it has multiple meanings when applied to Collins, especially when the motif is present at the hunt within the Dark World.
Lambs are the animal representing innocence, an easy parallel to the boy who is Collins before the killing of the fox. Both the wolf and the lamb being present on the hill represents the two different versions of Collins as well.
The relationship between the wolf and the lamb has MANY interpretations.
It sometimes represents reconciliation between enemies. This could be interpreted as the reconciliation of trauma throughout how this episode played out in the Dark World. It could be that the wolf is imprisoning the lamb, signifying how The Butcher traps the boy in the cycle of trauma. Sometimes the wolf is shielding the lamb as well, calling back to how Collins treats the boy in the Dark World, trying to be to him what his father was not to him.
Regardless of how you interpret the wolf and lamb motif, the wolf certainly represents the older Collins for pretty obvious reasons. A snarling wolf representing the anger that possibly drives Collins' actions that Arthur has mentioned a couple of times in S4. The wolf could also be a more violent and angry evolution of the dog, one that signifies a feral fighting against the cycle Collins has repeated in life. The wolf could also be a violent shield that is a byproduct of trauma.
(I don't think any one answer is correct here, I just like pointing out all these little possible interpretations.)
Momento Mori...
The literal translation of Momento Mori is "Remember you must die" and I think this is Collins' way of rationalizing his killings and normalizing the trauma surrounding killing the fox and its subsequent pointless death.
S4: The Butcher
Bringing back this screenshot again because it's one of a few instances where Collins refers to Momento Mori when referring to his killings. I think the idea of Momento Mori might have helped a young Collins rationalize the death of the fox because the idea of it dying for nothing was too much for him as a child to handle on top of the perceived failure from his father.
Remember you must die... everything must die eventually, so really it does not matter when or why it happens. This is an easy way to rationalize the fox's death and alleviate whatever guilt that young Collins might have felt for its death. This could have been his way of making it feel better as a child when the events surrounding the death of the fox were very scarring. It doesn't undo the damage done by the trauma, but it gives it an explanation that's more palatable than a creature died for nothing to please his father, who still managed to find issue with it even though Collins did as he wanted.
This is also a slippery slope though, because it removes the feeling of guilt and remorse from the future killings Collins commits if this is his way of rationalizing them. Why should he feel guilty if his targets will inevitably die anyway?
It's almost nihilistic in its approach because it makes his targets' lives seem utterly pointless, dehumanizing them. This tracks with how he treats Arthur in S4 and Grimbard in S6, hunting them like animals, not people. Dehumanizing them, comparing them to animals, perhaps even that fox he killed as a child, that he's rationalized the death of with a simple Momento Mori.
(I know it's a stretch, but it seems at least plausible to me.)
ANYWAYS... So that's a Wrap-
All of this is extremely subjective, and a lot of this analysis is deeply tied to my own connections with and interpretations of trauma so am I projecting my own problems onto fictional men again? WHO KNOWS! I'll never tell-
Anyways this has been fun for me, and these thoughts have been racking my brain since I got early access to the episode on Patreon.
Collins' character has become my favorite because of this episode and how I could relate to it through reading it coming from a lens of trauma. It was both cathartic and heartbreaking for me in a way that totally blindsided me. I never expected to relate to Collins, I always thought he was a awesome, well-written character, but I never thought anything other than that until I started thinking about The Parting Glass through this lens and OH MY GOD did it destroy me.
Anyways! I'M SO NORMAL ABOUT THE BUTCHER- RIGHT GUYS!?!?!
If anyone wants to use any of these ideas in malevolent fics or fan art, go ahead, it's free real estate! Maybe just give me a mention or tell me beforehand, but if you don't it's chill.
Something that has still really stuck with me about Ghosts long after watching it is just how healthy Alison and Mike's relationship is... That was the first time I saw a couple in media I consume that I thought had a genuinely healthy relationship and it is still shocking.
Part of what made Ghosts for me was Alison and Mike's relationship. If they had been written to be a couple that fights over money, are constantly at each other's throats about house renovations, and the setbacks they face it would have made them unbearable to watch.
I genuinely felt a connection to them and I love their relationship as characters. Alison and Mike struggling to start out felt so relatable, instead of them both having pre-established careers and stable lives. I loved the messiness and chaotic nature of their lives and seeing them grow as people. Alison and Mike had their conflicts but in the end, they always worked it out! The only real times they had any genuine fights that I can recall were when Mike almost got blown up by a literal prototype mine (honestly valid- I would have been mad too king-) and over Bear Grills. Even then their fights did not end in tears or saying regrettable things or worse coming to blows, they handled it in a very healthy way.
Mike cares so much about Alison and is so supportive of her, her dreams, and her weird ghost things. Mike genuinely puts up with so much from the ghosts for not even being able to see them and can hardly interact with them. He would get annoyed at times and rightfully so but he would never be extremely resentful or hateful to Alison for the ghost's behaviors.
They are genuinely the best couple I have seen in media, granted I don't watch much but STILL.
IDK where this ramble came from but they linger in my head quite a lot.
"...But that’s not what this is about, is it? This isn’t about saving the world, it’s all just some power play against him. I might not know exactly what’s going on, but I don’t think I want any part of this. However much I want to kill him… I’m out."
Honestly, same Martin- I wouldn't wanna be caught in the middle of whatever the fuck Peter and Elias have going on either-
John Doe truly is the perfect name since it’s used to identify missing persons and or a general indicator of anonymity and John as an entity is missing what defines ‘humanity’ developing a sense of self over the course of the podcast.
Everyone knows this already but I think about it a lot.
Small headcanon, I like to think the trench coat Noel wears used to belong to Roland. He found it after returning to their office still hanging where Roland left it. Noel wears it as a reminder of their time together, and a way of feeling less alone in his experiences in the Dreamlands. It’s a constant small source of reassurance.
Edit: @butch-columbo this is too good to be left in tags.
Ooooooooh boy Harlan I’m invoicing you my therapy bill and a strongly worded comment about how much I fucking adore your podcast even though it hurts me-
This is going to haunt me in my fucking sleep it will not let me rest.
Spoilers for Malevolent Episode 52 / S5 finale.
POOR JOHN HOLY SHIT-
I feel so sad for him. There was no divorce this ep (at least I don’t consider so) but FUCKING HELL Arthur Lester. To be told that Arthur basically wishes they had never met is heartbreaking after all they have been through and having such a deep bond. I get Arthur’s sentiment of ‘if that didn’t happen no one would have been dragged into this to suffer’ but the way it was phrased. John has been trying SO HARD he’s made SO MUCH progress, to say something like that so callously it reminds me of how Yellow was treated.
Arthur makes up for it by forgiving John for what happened in the dark world and accepting John as he is and assuring him he did what he had to do to survive. Which was just so heart wrenching for all the right reasons. Arthur accepting that not all things about John can be ‘fixed’ is such a huge step forward in the right way especially considering how he had treated Yellow and how throughout the podcast he’s always made it his personal mission to push John to change. It’s nice to see something different and a sense of understanding that John is who he is and he did what he had to. That understanding probably stemming from Arthur’s time in the prison pits and the Faust situation.
All of John’s talk of humanity and hope was so visceral and so impactful. He’s learned so much and he values life for its flaws. He’s truly become as close to human as he can get without BEING a human or having a human form which I don’t think he needs but that’s another post for a different time. I’m just floored for the character development and writing John received in this episode. IT’S SO GOOD!!!!
However this has genuinely brought me almost to tears. That ending is HORRIFYING for John. Like imagine being stuck in his position. He couldn’t do a thing. He’s bound to Arthur and doesn’t have full control over his body and is nowhere near strong enough to stop Kayne. He can only serve as Arthur’s eyes and he’s forced to witness Arthur being TORN APART by Kayne screaming in absolute AGONY. That’s HORRIFIC.
He can do nothing to stop it nothing but watch and eventually he couldn’t even do that either because Kayne stole Arthur’s eyes, John’s eyes. Kayne tore off Arthur’s limbs meaning also John’s limbs. The only thing he could do is beg and that’s just heart wrenching. He went from being a god, to being a fragment of one, to losing and finding himself again and all throughout that journey Arthur was there. Arthur inspire him to become something more, to rebel against the King in Yellow and be his own person. They have such an indescribable deep bond that has stood the test of time (and SO MANY divorces-) and John can’t do anything to save him. Arthur who is so important to him who he cared about deeply. what else could he do? An of course Kayne wasn’t going to stop.
John was probably left there by Kayne in absolute agony having to experience the pain in the limbs he has control of, now robbed of his sight in COMPLETE darkness with no autonomy, no way to help, forced to listen to Arthur choke on his own blood and draw his dying breaths.
Arthur has almost died/died MANY times before but this time? This time was HARROWING. I can’t imagine what John is going through, completely helpless everything having been taken from him. That was such a visceral, heartbreaking sequence of events. An where do we go from here? Where can we go from here?
This is all assuming that John didn’t die with Arthur. He’s survived before but he was cut off abruptly with Kayne’s final strike which has me worried like you wouldn’t believe.
