In many John Wick circles and discussions, this scene is referenced either for its sincere intensity or for insane people like me, who simp over John Wick watching the light in a man's eyes fade away. However I haven't heard or seen anyone really analyse what this scene means in the context of the wider narrative, and John's 'Fall from Grace' (where he is pulled back into the world of assassins) or WHY this moment is so iconic for fans of the franchise.
To do that, let's refresh on has happened thus to our titular character, John Wick.
●He managed to escape the Assassin World against all odds to live a normal life with his Wife, Helen
●Helen Wick dies 5 years later, leaving him a puppy as a final gift. This is the starting point of the movie
●The puppy is murdered by Iosef Tarasov, his favorite car stolen, and his house smashed up
●He has managed to track Iosef down to the Red Circle Nightclub where there are many guards/assassins trying to keep Iosef safe.
In essence, John Wick hasn't worked as an assassin for 5 or so years and he's had a taste of civilian life but more importantly by staying OUT of the assassin business, no-one has come calling. Winston even warns him prior to his departure to the Red Circle about how risky it is to be hunting Iosef:
"You dip so much as a pinky back into this pond... you may well find something reaches out and drags you back into its depths"
The movie by this point has established two things;
1. John's need for revenge both as a genuine desire to kill Iosef and to cope with the grief over Helen's death
2. Exacting this revenge may very well (and later does) force him back into the assassin life he fought hard to escape from, making his efforts and sacrifices to get there for nothing.
Up until this point in the movie, you can argue that all the killings John Wick commits for his end goal were in self-defense (the kill squad sent to his house) or part of said end goal (Iosef's buddies in the washroom) but that is lost the second he is inside The Red Circle.
Here you are greeted with two quick kills of security guards that are only tied to Iosef via proxy of his father, which then leads into the scene I'm talking about. The third security guard, just like the other two, has nothing to do with John Wick. They did not break into his house, kill his dog and steal his car. Their only crime was that they went to their job that day and were obstacles placed in John Wick's warpath.
John Wick knows this.
It is in this moment, that the 'old' life he left behind looks at him through the eyes of the dying man and John can do nothing but stare back. One could argue that in this moment rather than John being unable to look away, he instead chooses not to. He HAS to watch this nameless man die for he knows that he will be one of many to come. John Wick does not shy from the gruesome truth before his eyes and faces it head on. He watches the light fade, and his past self revive in the same moment. A man's death gives life back to the Assassin 'Baba Yaga', a life that John the Man had chosen to kill in order to live as a husband to Helen. That is, until Helen dies.
This is one of if not the only scene where John is intimate with his kill. Even the framing, the lasting seconds given, allow the moment to breathe. It is a shot that does not occur again because doesn't need to. This single moment encapsulates John's full commitment to Assassin and everyone else (excluding assassins or characters he has history with) is as nameless as this man when it comes to fulfilling his goals.
At the same time, the physical sensations that come with fighting, overpowering and killing someone must be coursing through his veins. Even if he, at this point in time, still believes he can return to the quiet civilian life he built (despite the audience being aware that such a thing will not come to pass) his body does not recognise such a future belief and muscle memory is not to be underestimated. In this moment, his body HAS to be in the heightened state that comes with being an assassin. So he pauses. He takes a moment. To watch a man die. To feel his own body coursing with adrenaline and memory of all those years spent killing. He looks into the eyes of death and it asks
No spoilers summary: a fun romp, but, depending on how you interpret it, could break the themes of the canon in a really severe way. OR could be amazing! Just depends how you read it.
Spoilers Below the Cut:
We’ll make this a compliment sandwich. First, I really liked Eve. I know some people thought she was a bit of a blank slate, or too similar to John, but I thought she was great! Most characters in John Wick are a bit of a blank slate, with few lines, and are mostly open to interpretation based on the imagery associated with them and the way they carry themselves. With that in mind, I read Eve as curious and open to life in a way that John is not. She wants to find her place in the world. There’s vengefulness, but I don’t see the same shame and fear of being a monster that he exhibits. She’s not afraid of herself. She’s ambitious rather than just ruthless and she wants to make something of her life for her own sake, not the way that John found his self-worth through Helen loving him. But she does still have that animalistic quality, like the way that she carries herself shows that she was raised away from ordinary people and is hypervigilant.
That said: the film suggests something that would break the whole series if true.
The idea that “the door is still open” when John first talks to Eve, that she could have left the Ruska Roma, and that John himself could have left when he was younger, is antithetical to the entire conflict of the series. He is a man who was raised in violence, by a system he could not escape, and began trying to escape only once he became conscious of his potential to be more than that, and even then, he got out only in the final moments of his life. They all were raised that way. They are all trapped. That is the point of the High Table. The idea of creating a second group that is more controlling, where people are somehow more trapped, to make the High Table look better…it undermines the main conflict of the series in my opinion.
And it is all in service of creating this notion of choice, that Eve “has a choice.” As if she needs to be empowered by the Ruska Roma instead of examining and exploring the ways such an organization would in fact disempower her, and the way her loyalty might be misplaced. The conversations with Winston and The Director at the beginning, where they speak to Eve so formally and give her a choice to join or not, strike me as shying away from the reality of how a child would need to be controlled and indoctrinated from the beginning in such an organization. And the fact that Eve’s best friend could leave, knowing so much about the Ruska Roma…no. She would be killed, based on everything else we know about the series. It rings false, it seems sanitized and hollow.
However, we can interpret all of this “choice” business as false. Maybe John blames himself for not leaving as a teenager, when in fact, he never could have left, both because of the violence that had already been ingrained in him mentally by that point, and because there would have been a lot more backlash than he assumed if he tried to go. Maybe Eve’s sister is right when she says that the Ruska Roma really doesn’t give people a choice either. And the main villain (I forgot his name already) is definitely right that these systems will go on even if one person dies or one person escapes.
Eve doesn’t even really have a choice in her fight with John, at least not of her own accord. If the film wanted her to have full agency in that fight, she should’ve been given some line that persuaded him to spare her or done something that pulled at his heartstrings, but no. She really didn’t. He just…beat her in a fight and then chose to have mercy. It was out of her hands. Her only choice was to take the opportunity he offered her and go ahead and keep trying to get revenge. But whether she got that opportunity in the first place? That wasn’t up to her, it was up to John.
That is a much darker world than the “you have a choice” that seems to be explicitly intended. But I actually like it a lot better.
When read that way, the film does hold true to its themes: that perhaps you are trapped, that perhaps the world is full of people stronger than you who would seek to use you as a tool, but the choice you have is whether to keep fighting despite your own damnation, clawing for freedom to the very end, and if it kills you, so be it. Even within systems too large to take down, which threaten to destroy you, you can hold onto self-love and love for others and do your best. That…that I really enjoy. If that’s the meaning, I loved this movie. I had to twist the lines around in my head to get to that interpretation, but shhhhh, I’m thinking of it this way now.
💙🖤 John Wick x Santino D'Antonio Ship Overview/Analysis 🖤💙
I did this for Santino and Michael in my crossover stuff and now I want to do this for Santino and John as well!!
So, why are they so compelling?
Canon divergence AUs for this ship are full of possibilities because we have so many moments in the timeline to choose from. They knew each other in the early days of John's work, but that is left completely open-ended so it's very fun to explore that time period. What if they never split up? And if they did split up, then they had some period of Santino presumably pining for John after the Impossible Task (angst!!) and then they were reunited. It's easy to imagine a world in which that reunion went differently and one of them showed the other a lot more compassion - what if Santino hadn't betrayed John? What if Santino had thrown away his marker as a sacrifice to show John how much he loves him? What if John had ACTUALLY refused to kill Gianna, even after his house was blown up? What if John had forgiven Santino instead of shooting him? I haven't written all of these possibilities yet because there are just so many.
Although a lot of people assume that they're toxic with one another (continuously fighting, stalking, taking revenge on each other, etc.), they can also be written as an exploration of anger management and conflict resolution in a way that's very sweet. John's careful emotional control and devotion allows him to be patient with Santino and make him feel safe enough to express his pain through means other than violence. Santino's stubbornness can be put towards a determination not to hurt or control John. They demonstrate a seemingly miraculous victory of love over possessive rage - but a victory which is actually won through a lot of hard work and emotional growth.
Their sexual dynamic is SO HOT. Messy brat constantly teases stoic dom. Need I say more? No, but I will. It's not just that Santino is teasing John, it's that he feels safe enough to tease John. He wants to know 1 - that John is strong enough to put him in his place, and to just feel and enjoy John' power. And 2 - that John actually going to be gentle and forgiving with him no matter what he does. He watches John shove him around, manhandle him, do kinky stuff with him...but never actually traumatize him the way that he was traumatized growing up, no matter how much Santino annoys him. It's this constant proof that he is loved.
And then the hurt/comfort dynamic!!! Santino keeps poking at John there too. He ignores his health, he pushes himself to the limit, he gets into reckless situations. It's like he's constantly asking John, "Do I even matter? Do I even deserve to be saved?" And John is constantly stepping in, saying, "Yes, you do." I adore this even more when John gives him long-term solutions - things he can do instead of self-harming, routines that help him fix his sleep schedule, help getting off of his addictions.
And how about John's role in all this? He sees himself express tenderness. He sees that he is capable of that. He learns that he is capable of patience, that he is not just a killer. Every time Santino pushes him and he doesn't push back, every time that they playfight and it doesn't turn to real fighting, John begins to trust himself slightly more. And when Santino expresses concern for him, and turns his own caretaking back on John, John has to learn to value his own life as well.
So Santino and John both slow heal. A beautiful recovery arc is at the core of the John x Santino ship and I love that for them.
Actually, I was quite satisfied with the analysis I previously wrote on Caine, but then I just rewatched the first John Wick movie and now I have even more thoughts to add on the subject matter.
So buckle up because this is going to be another long post.
Tagging @evren-sadwrn, @chaoticgardenbread and @jotunvali02 again. <3
In my last analysis, I have already compared Caine with Cassian due to how similar they function in relation to John within the John Wick universe. This time, let us compare Caine with the next most similar character to him in the John Wick franchise: Marcus.
On the surface level, Caine and Marcus have similar arcs within the movie they appeared in. They are both friends of John Wick who were recruited by the villain to hunt and kill the Baba Yaga but deep down were secretly on John Wick's side.
While Marcus agreed to Viggo's contract out of his own free will whereas Caine was blackmailed and threatened by the Marquis, they would eventually forsake the job given to them and choose to give John a helping hand in a moment of crisis, a decision they were willing to die for.
(The sad and tragic part of it is that only one survived and got to live out his happy ending and the other was punished for it and died.)
The more I think about it though, the more I feel this is where the similarities end.
For one, Marcus looked way older than John, likely closer to Viggo in age. Even so, he hadn't retired from the business, and was living quite comfortably in a large apartment in New York alone. (It's almost as if Marcus is an alternate version of John if he didn't choose to marry Helen and had continued to live on his life as an assassin.)
By comparison, John was retired, and while he had a large bungalow in the New York suburbs to live in, the large wide empty spaces of his home seemed to amplify how lonely John felt after losing Helen.
Marcus: How're you holding up?
John: I kept asking why her.
Marcus: There's no rhyme or reason to this life. It's days like today scattered among the rest.
As much as his comforting words were sound, Marcus was content with his own life, and John clearly wasn't. On top of the implication that Marcus didn't have any family whatsoever, you can see why John immediately questioned Marcus about his intentions of visiting him after Helen's funeral right after the quoted dialogue above.
John was too drowned in his grieving for his wife's passing at the time that no one's condolences, not even Marcus (the person who Viggo claimed John was close with), could truly comfort him.
Because John wasn't done grieving while he was alive, when Iosef killed Daisy, John went on a rampage to avenge his dog. When Santino burned down his house, John shot him on Continental grounds, the supposedly safest haven in the criminal underworld. When John sacrificed his ring finger to the Elder, he rebelled against the High Table's forces head on alongside the New York Continental.
You know what finally made John Wick stop running, accept his death and find his peace?
It was when Caine comes into the picture.
For the first time in a long time, John had found someone who's similar in age as him and in a position similar to him mentally and emotionally-speaking, more so than anyone else in the franchise.
Just like John, Caine was also retired. He was discontent with his life, and he was lonely, due to the sheer fact that Caine wasn't allowed to get close to his daughter.
Despite being on opposite sides, John and Caine were equally caged by a strong sense of helplessness internally. (Where John acted upon it with defiant rage, Caine responded with palpable fear.) That's why we're rooting for both of them to get their unconditional freedom, and why the sunrise duel is so important not just for plot reasons.
Unlike Marcus, Caine had an innocent family member at stake, and because John intimately knew how it felt to lose a loved one, he ultimately sacrificed his life so to prevent Caine from having to experience the same grief John had painstakingly gone through for four entire films.
And that's something John was finally willing to die for.
(It's unfortunate that within the same movie John had unknowingly created another John Wick in Akira, but that is an entirely different story altogether.)
Caine as John Wick's Mirror: A Somewhat Coherent Analysis
What is even a 'mirror' exactly, narratively-speaking?
A mirror character is someone who reflects the hero, usually by highlighting similarities, and is therefore used to help enhance the themes being explored in the story. They can share personality traits, values, skillsets, even goals and narrative arcs, but how the pair of characters differ in their approach to these commonalities is what makes this literary device so interesting.
Caine as a character in the John Wick universe is so fascinating to me (not many people are able to go toe-to-toe against the Baba Yaga himself) and while a lot of my fascination and enjoyment can be attributed to Donnie Yen's performance and his chemistry with Keanu Reeves, what I want to talk about is the writing of his character, and how well Caine served as a mirror to John Wick, the protagonist.
I think to analyse Caine as a character, we need to first look back at another character who most closely served a similar function as Caine towards John Wick: Cassian.
Cassian and Caine are the only two people in the John Wick movies who fought John Wick squarely in a one-to-one match as equals, and got a gracious send off by John in return. Neither of them wanted to or asked to be made an enemy of John Wick (in fact, it was John's actions that caused both men to pit against the Baba Yaga), but each of them took up their role within the story with much dignity and fairness, and in the end were rewarded with John sparing their lives.
Cassian provides lovely contrast to John in Chapter 2. He is the first to show us a character on the same playing field as John Wick who could sit next to the legendary Baba Yaga and share a drink and enjoy a conversation before Caine or anyone else did.
Cassian and John respected each other, knew each other's preferred drink and promised to make the other's death quick, but it seems that's all there is to their relationship, and the moment they stepped out of the Rome Continental all bets are off.
Their motivations are widely different at this point in the story, and Cassian as a character feels more like an obstacle in John's way that John had to face eventually.
Speaking within the confines of the individual movies that they first appeared in, I will argue Cassian from Chapter 2 aligns more closely with the Tracker/Mr. Nobody from Chapter 4 when it comes to his place in the overall narrative, and it is Santino who's on the same level as Caine, because Santino had history with John, asked John about his wife, knew John personally and was the reason John broke Continental rules and would eventually go up against the High Table.
To add onto this, Cassian more importantly serves as a greater parallel to Ares being bodyguards of the D'Antonio siblings with the way John left his opponent's knife in Cassian's chest and kept him alive because John respected Cassian vs John pulling Ares' knife out of her chest and letting her die because John couldn't respect Ares.
At the end of the day, John and Cassian are both men who were ultimately bound by their loyalties to Santino and Gianna respectively, whether that be out of a Blood Marker or out of a sense of duty.
On the other hand, the relationship between John and Caine is the literal heart of Chapter 4.
Yes, Caine has parallels with other characters too. He and Koji were fathers trying to protect their daughter if it meant throwing away their shared brotherhood, he and Mr. Nobody were pawns under the Marquis' thumb tasked with hunting John Wick, but these parallels take a backstage to the parallels between John and Caine.
They are retired hitmen who were forced back into their old life and pitted against each other in a duel to the death through circumstances out of their control. Neither of them had any love for the High Table, and neither of them wanted to hurt or kill the other either. They have the physical evidence to show of their past/present servitude to the High Table (John's ring finger and Caine's eyes), and in contrary to the Marquis' own evaluation of their character, both men had someone to live for, die for, and kill for.
Where they differ is that, one is driven by a sense of loss to remember his dead wife, and the other is driven by a sense of protection to keep his daughter alive. (It's interesting to note that Helen's death had nothing to do with the High Table at all whereas Mia was only alive thanks to the High Table's grace.)
This dilemma of choosing between their loved one and their past friendship is key to Chapter 4's theme of what it truly costs to obtain freedom. It reminds us that John isn't a perfect martyr for rebelling against the High Table with how much trouble and pain he caused to those around him, including Caine. But it also doesn't absolve Caine from the bloodshed he's responsible for despite his hands being tied by the Marquis, or the fact that killing his friend is wrong.
Caine: We are damned, you and I.
John: On that, we agree.
I think that Chapter 4 introducing Caine early on in the movie, definitely much earlier than Cassian in Chapter 2, tells us how important Caine's role is to John's goal of achieving freedom and peace. (The most notable example is Caine helping John up the stairs of Sacre-Coeur after he got kicked down these very same steps by Chidi.) In the same vein, Caine wouldn't have gotten his happy ending if John hadn't made the ultimate sacrifice of saving his last bullet to shoot the Marquis.
Not only that, Chapter 4 also shows us several instances of genuine camaraderie and companionship between John and Caine underneath their antagonism, not just how well they worked together and understood each other when they had a common enemy in sight (first in the Berlin nightclub with Killa, and eventually during the sunrise duel with Marquis de Gramont) but also how much they cared for each other deep down.
John and Cassian are colleagues, but John and Caine are close friends. And I think that's why Caine makes for such a good mirror to John Wick, and is the one most deserving to send off John Wick for good in the final chapter of the franchise, that is until John Wick 5 comes along. :(
Tagging @evren-sadwrn, @chaoticgardenbread and @jotunvali02 <3 <3
In the JW world what do you think is the general attitude of assassins, the High Table and so on toward psychiatry? I feel like they would totally dismiss it…they’d consider it pseudoscience for ordinary sheeple. Because otherwise they’d have to admit that pretty much everyone under the Table has some kind of personality disorder, PTSD, family issues, sociopathy etc. And they’d much rather think of themselves as superior to the rest of humanity, rather than inferior or damaged. So they have surgeons and probably physical therapy and so on, they’d be fine with self-medicating with alcohol and recreational drugs…but no shrinks, and you’ll get scornfully laughed out of any Continental bar if it gets out that you’re seeing one. Wdyt???
I've thought about this quite a lot (not because I've imagined giving every single one of my JW blorbos therapy or anything hehehe) but I mostly agree. I do think it's probably considered very shameful and isn't something most of them would even consider. But I think it's not so much that they see it as pseudoscience, rather an admission of weakness. I can't imagine it's common to admit to any illness within the High Table (anything more chronic than a bullet wound at least), because there's such an effort to hold onto power. If you're ill, then you're not in top form and this is a good time for an assassination attempt or for others to question your fitness to rule and start massing a mutiny against you. In the case of emotional vulnerability, that would include an opening for emotional attacks. I don't think the Table members are above sending hate mail or intentionally triggering someone's phobia or substance abuse issues as a form of punishment/manipulation. Psychological vulnerability is just one more thing that can be used against you in a fight.
On top of that, there's the confidentiality issues. A therapist holds knowledge of all of those psychological pain points, and a lot of people would want to buy that knowledge for a handsome price or torture it out of them. Imagine knowing how to make John Wick or the Marquis de Gramont have a breakdown at exactly the right time. Their enemies would definitely want that info. I think all assassins and especially Table members are taught not to reveal that much about themselves to anyone, because it's a security risk. So if you talk to a therapist, it's seen as reckless and foolish.
And then finally, I agree that they pretty much all have issues, and were raised by people who have issues. So they were taught that their issues are normal, and would have to admit that the way they were raised was really messed up if they're going to change. That's hard to do. This quote really sums it up: "they’d much rather think of themselves as superior to the rest of humanity, rather than inferior or damaged." When seeking help feels impossibly dangerous, and it would mean condemning your entire way of life anyway, it's easier to just pretend that nothing is wrong and that the dysfunctional parts of one's life are actually the superior parts. Therapy is for other people. Weak people. People who don't have bigger concerns, like staying alive and ruling. That's the average High Table stance, I think.
vincent and john are soooo opposites to me. quite literally sun and moon. they’re mirrors of each other. it’s highly theorized vincent’s backstory was riddled with hardships. and i think, if they go with that path in explaining vincent’s backstory, it would just make an even more tragic character. john—he grows up horribly, he had absolutely NO ONE in his life. his life was the ruska roma. his life was nothing but the horrors of life. he was forced to be a child soldier. he was built to be a stoic man. and then, the same sort of horrible backstory for vincent happens. and i think it just makes him more of a tragic character because unlike john; who WINS, who gains his peace, who manages to have some semblance of life and happiness—vincent doesn’t get either. vincent dies in the middle of his moment in his life where it’s his happiness (for john, his moment of happiness is helen and for vincent, it’s his time as marquis) and honestly fuck. vincent being a still developing character that DIES is so audhshzbsjsdhe
Wait, I can make it sadder. We don’t even know if Vincent was having a moment of happiness as Marquis. Maybe he never really knew what true happiness was, and was caught up in power struggles and stress and hardships even during his reign. Plagued by memories of his childhood and wondering why the present life wasn’t giving him the fulfillment he expected. It’s always the next big thing that will make him happy - gaining a Table seat didn’t work so he must need to become Autem Imperator. That didn’t work so he must need to kill the legendary John Wick. Then he’ll be happy…right? He was never given the kind of moment of happiness that saved John. Helen’s memory got John through the worst of times and helped him make the right decisions, but Vincent never experienced anything like that so he didn’t know what was possible.
There’s just one part that’s a little off here: Vincent doesn’t die. I don’t know what you’re talking about. John is his Helen! John spares his life and protects him while he slowly learns what true happiness feels like and what it means to be nurtured and how to direct violent urges into productive avenues like righteous revenge ^_^ Who said anything about death? Vincent gets his moment of happiness in John Wick 5: Beyond Judgement - *gets dragged off the stage*
