hear me out, platoon civilian au where chris comes down from his parents' house in new england to stay in tennessee with his beloved grandparents for the summer
So one of their earlier notable interactions is when Chris is shot and gets sent to hospital. (Which is not included in the movie) Lerner is there too but all he does is talk about his divorce
First he brings one of Chris’ book that he took when Chris was carrying way too much in the jungle walk (and fainting)
This scene in the movie is one of my favourite, not sure why. Elias basically offers to help him carry his stuff and pretty much makes an invitation for Chris to speak to him again and interact with him.
This is pretty easily readable as platonic, it’s a book, I think it’s a more personal gift though as he specifies it’s a book of Chris’ grandmother’s stories, but it’s never said if Elias knew this.
his other gift was one of Elias’ own purple hearts in a box, there’s a note addressed to Chris that says:
‘Taylor, take a close look at this thing. It's one of mine. Purple Hearts are made out of plastic, but they sure as hell ain't cheap! One is all you'll ever need.”
Again, this could be platonic depending on how you see it. But a war medal is a pretty big thing to gift someone platonically
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Now, the underworld scene
First, it states Elias ‘leers’ at Chris. Typically, leering at someone is checking them out.
And after the leer, the shotgun scene commences. Chris thought that Elias wanted to shoot him (phrasing it “Blow him away” which is pretty funny to me)
Then he shotguns from Elias and it describes Chris feeling ‘a warm flush from his head to his armpits’, but I think that’s the weed
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Next is one of my other favourite scenes. This is the ‘we’re gonna loose this war’ scene, but the novel has way more detail
So first off Elias grips his shoulders, keep in mind through this they’re both not high (from what I can tell with the context)
Then Chris notes a look in his eyes, describing it as ‘riveting yet demanding’ And ‘softened by a strange supplication’ Which I feel like is a very specific way to describe a man looking at you
[Supplication; the action of asking or begging for something earnestly or humbly.]
[Riveting; completely engrossing; compelling]
So they’re alone together in the middle of the night, and Elias is holding onto him and looking at him with a begging look. Riveting implies it’s compelling to Chris, which I took as Chris wanting to keep staring back.
Im not sure of ‘demanding’ but it feels in the same vain of ‘supplication’. A sort of plea?
Also mentioned is ‘There was an eerie flash in the man's eyes. It was deep .... back beyond the pupils where no one sees but anyone can feel.’
Which is just before the staring and after he grabs his shoulders, a flash of what is never mentioned, but I’m sure it means something
Then, Elias slowly moves his face closer and closer to Chris.
‘Chris froze and watched Elias's face as it moved slowly to within inches of his own. The move had been slow and determined, enlarging to fill his field of vision like a subject seen through a zoom lens.’
Which, is like something out of a romance movie. If Chris was a woman this would’ve been taken way different, when I read it I half expected them to kiss
‘He was reminded of the fierce glare Elias had used to halt Barnes in the ville.’
A fierce glare seems wrong for the situation. like Chris was mistaking some sort of intense stare for the angry glare he gave Barnes. This is backed up by the previous description of his staring, the ‘flash’ and the ‘supplication’
After that Elias says that ‘Maybe a piece of me's in you (Chris) now...’ and lets go of Chris who scoots back a bit. Then he smiles and decides he’ll come back as a deer (This is an important tool we’ll use later on)
Chris nods and ‘touched Elias lightly on the shoulder’ before getting up, but Elias grabs his hand’
It is never mentioned that Elias lets go of his hand
Again, if this was a woman and a man it’d be considered romantic. Chris mentions a shooting star
Then Elias tells him to go to sleep, and that’s the end of the charged scene
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Now, the end of the book
It’s after the huge final battle, Barnes freaks out and loses it and Chris gets a bomb dropped on him.
He wakes up covered in alot of blood and sees this
‘a buck deer with mossy antlers and a snowy white bib tucked beneath his pointy chin. How could anyone with such soft, liquid eyes dispassionately rule the depths of hell? At the sound of roaring engines and creaking tracks, the deer lifted its ears, twitched its nose and bolted away into the brush. The animal moved with fluid grace, Chris noticed, as Elias had moved before Barnes killed him.’
First off, Chris describes the deer as lucifer. The devil, even though it’s implied to be Elias paying a visit.
Now if you really want to analyse it, I think you could look at it as Chris considering Elias a sin or something along those lines
‘How could anyone with such soft, liquid eyes dispassionately rule the depths of hell?’
Someone, not something like you would with an animal. Or, to me. ‘how could someone like Elias go to hell?’
With the context of the 60s/70s there’s a high chance he grew up religious, and especially being told homosexuality is a sin. But Elias showed up and apparently flipped it, he’s struggling with it. Elias gets killed and he thinks he’ll go to hell for his drug use or something along that line (and maybe his gay vibes idk) but then he thinks, how could someone as amazing as Elias go to an eternal fire pit, be tortured and all that.
It’s well known everyone loves Elias, he’s considered pretty friendly and all that. Not a stereotypical evil sinner
‘he decided the devil truly defied stereotype. Lucifer looked like a buck deer with mossy antlers and a snowy white bib tucked beneath his pointy chin.’
Now, this would seem like a pretty mystical sight. But Chris rejects it and decides that it’s the devil. Again, I’m not sure where I’m going here but it feels like it means something.
Then, the deer bolts. Just like how Elias ran from Barnes’ attack And Chris is rescued by the medical team or something of that sort (can’t remember the exact way they described them, but they help him)
And (a little after that) the movie ends.
Elias is long dead by then so we get nothing. Chris never sees his body or says goodbye to him, just a ‘I move faster alone’ (which, Chris doesn’t want to leave him alone. He wants to go with him, and he’s the one who wants to go back to get him or retrieve his body)
And he kills Barnes in revenge. He’d already fought him over it, he even wants to frag Barnes. Now we all know Barnes is a murderer and war criminal but ‘I’ll fight and eventually kill the much more experienced and stronger man for you’ seems like a lot. He could’ve reported Barnes and taken it through the court martialing (although that might not have worked) but he chose to revenge kill him.
