I won´t ever forget such awesome film greatest job by Adryan Lane. After following the show 3 seasons already, I find possible that the whole show is in Daniel´s mind moments before he gets the lethal injection. The scene with Kervin in the green landscape after being executed, made me think about such possiblity. Also Daniels have said to people serveral times, he believes he is not REAL. I know it sounds crazy but it is possible right?
It is inevitable, no matter what the movie or TV show or drama, that someone will put forward a version of "It was all a dream," typically "just before he dies."
I name this rule, if it does not already have a name, Whatlarks Rule.
"You must not judge what I know by what I find words for." - Marilynne Robinson
Maybe what larks folly. I remember a famous civil war story where the soldier is about to be hung on a bridge over looking a river. He breaks free and dives into the water swimming away to safety.
Spoiler alert. We follow him down the river until suddenly we go back to the bridge. He is still on the bridge he dreamed his escape. Then he gets hung.
It goes to show you never can tell.
Wasn't that in The Twilight Zone? An Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge?
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It would be a cop out, in my opinion.
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Don't understand why you keep watching this show (and coming here to do nothing but constantly spread your negativity) when you obviously detest it.
Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.
It would be one of the benefits with such ending, but it never was my first thought when I write this post. The more closely to the end of the show we are I am more positive that I well predicted. He is in his own purgatory and wondering how his loved and non loved ones will become after him leaving for good. Imagining the camera travelling off his face till we see his body lying in the chair while being injected with the lethal mix, will become like a hammer hitting our souls.
shareI hate "it was all a dream" endings. Just because it worked for The Wizard of Oz does not mean it works for everything else.
shareSt. Elsewhere snowglobism, I call it. :)
Awesome short story. Read it 40 years ago in college and it remains a favorite to this day.
I enjoyed this version of "it was all a dream." The finale of Bob Newhart's 2nd TV series:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwYw2i2icNg
"You must not judge what I know by what I find words for." - Marilynne Robinson
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I forgot about that one. Thanks for the link. I liked that "it was a dream" finale too. I think most fans did. It worked and was hilarious.
shareAfter following the show 3 seasons already, I find possible that the whole show is in Daniel´s mind moments before he gets the lethal injection
What would be powerful is if Daniel did kill Hanna and McKinnon maintains his stance that the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment. It is easy to make the argument when an innocent life is on the line. However, most people on death row have actually murdered someone (usually first degree and premeditated). Would you still have empathy for Daniel even if it turns out that he murdered Hanna? Would you still not want him to be executed? I have thought about this a lot and I think I still would. I have so much empathy for him that I don't even think the revelation that he did, in fact, murder her would stop that. I think. He's clearly not a psychopath like Trey Willis.
At the same time, empathizing with the perpetrator often feels like a betrayal to the [murdered] victim. But if it does turn out Daniel killed her, he was still a victim, too, right? I don't know.
I feel like Trey did it, especially after "Pineapples in Paris," but he is the easy answer.
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Oh, you are crazy.
My post was not about "libtards." I am liberal, and I am saying that if it happens that Daniel did, in fact, murder Hanna, will I still have the empathy that I have had for him all along? The reason why it would be more powerful to me is because I would have something to reexamine about my morals and beliefs. That being said, I do see the death penalty as cruel and unusual punishment, whether or not the person is innocent or guilty. The moral question for me is could I allow myself to feel empathy for a perpetrator without feeling as if I have betrayed his victim. Even if Daniel did commit murder, he was still victimized by an unjust system. It is a conflict of my own emotions. Or is it?
If Trey is the murderer, as I strongly suspect he is, Daniel is a perpetual victim: of his classmates, of the criminal justice system, of the townsfolk, of even his family, of so much. I do not have to compromise my morals or even think about them if Trey is the murderer because he is an obvious psychopath who I have never empathized with. He seems the most likely perpetrator and has from the start.
Even if Daniel did kill Hanna, I still would not say he is a psychopath, and you have a strange obsession with what he did to Teddy in season 1.
This show is still excellent if Trey is the murderer. Most of the gratification I get from this show is not from the mystery but from just watching these characters deal with this situation and interact with each other. It will still be a rewarding experience.
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Goodbye, troll.
shareThe moral question for me is could I allow myself to feel empathy for a perpetrator without feeling as if I have betrayed his victim.
I find that a very interesting question. (It makes for good dilemmas in dramas...) We feel what we feel, which sometimes doesn't accord with morality, a more abstract construction.
You might be interested in these perspectives:
Bud Welch, President of the Board of Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights, who lost his daughter in the Oklahoma City bombing:
"There are a lot of victims’ family members here in Oklahoma City that I know, because I spent 13 years on the board of directors and the Oklahoma City National Memorial, and they were looking for the word 'closure' at the time McVeigh was executed, on June the 11th of 2001. And I had been telling many of those people that the day that we would take Tim McVeigh from his cage and we would kill him would not be part of their healing process. And they learned that after his death.And Renny Cushing, Executive Director, Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights, whose father was murdered in a home invasion:
"Many of those people have come forward now and said, 'It was a mistake for us to kill Tim McVeigh,' because what it did was revictimize them all over again. One of the ladies, that had two little grandchildren that were killed in the day care center—and I will not mention her name, because the whole country knows her name—she has evolved so much that she is now on the board of directors of the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. And that’s how it has changed her completely.
"I’m reminded, every time something like this happens, that the punishment of the death penalty is nothing more than revenge. I went through almost a year of revenge after Julie’s death. Revenge and hate. One cannot go through the healing process at all when you’re living with revenge. That’s all the death penalty is, is revenge. It is not a deterrent. It doesn’t, as the media says, bring closure to family members."
"So many people assume that survivors of murder victims automatically support the death penalty, but I know that isn’t true. I know it not only from my own experience but also from the experience of the many victims’ family members I know and work with throughout the world."http://www.mvfhr.org/home
Thank you for that. It does ease my troublin' mind, and I don't think that being against the death penalty necessarily means that you empathize with the victim's murderer. At least the quotations above do not give me the impression that they are against the death penalty because they feel it is too cruel of a punishment for the murderer. Rather it seems they see it as useless because it neither deters nor brings closure to the victim's families.
In the case of this fictional show, it is different. I know there's nothing that will make me favor the death penalty, but that does not mean I have ever empathized with a murderer in real life. I think Truman Capote did when he researched for In Cold Blood and as I read that book, there was a point where I was beginning to see how life circumstances could lead to someone doing something so stupid, unthinkable, and heinous (like killing an entire family over 14 bucks). But it's nothing close to what I feel for Daniel. I empathize with Daniel completely, and if it turns out he killed Hanna, I think at some level, empathizing with him feels like the betrayal, not opposing the death penalty.
Yeah, just those quotes are about so-called "closure." As for how they feel about the DP strictly in terms of cruelty, I can hazard a guess because you can't separate these two things. I mean, if they didn't think the DP was unacceptably cruel then there wouldn't be an issue about revenge getting in the way of healing. Revenge can only have value if the punishment is expected to be satisfying, and a cruel fate would be that. So I would guess they'd feel the punishment was unacceptably cruel.
I think at some level, empathizing with him feels like the betrayal, not opposing the death penalty.
I hear you. How do you reconcile feelings of both empathy and betrayal? On a smaller scale, for example someone has an affair. Or cheats in some other way. "There but for the grace of God go I."
I haven't empathized with a murderer in real life, but I know I could. I can catch a corner of what that would be like from empathizing with much smaller-scale acts that caused serious damage to someone. Not necessarily physically.
I guess this is why I'm fascinated with Truth and Reconciliation Commissions in different countries. And the subject of what justice is, really.
"You must not judge what I know by what I find words for." - Marilynne Robinson
I hear you. How do you reconcile feelings of both empathy and betrayal? On a smaller scale, for example someone has an affair. Or cheats in some other way. "There but for the grace of God go I."
I haven't empathized with a murderer in real life, but I know I could. I can catch a corner of what that would be like from empathizing with much smaller-scale acts that caused serious damage to someone. Not necessarily physically.
I guess this is why I'm fascinated with Truth and Reconciliation Commissions in different countries. And the subject of what justice is, really.
I once read that we live in a warrior culture where it is easier to empathize with the perpetrator than it is the victim.
Interesting. That ties in with an observation in a fascinating book I read on the nature of evil. The "informants" include maximum security inmates:
"Much evil in the world today is an attempt to avoid the terrible helplessness of passivity, the terror of paralysis in the face of doom. Better to be the evildoer than the victim if one has to choose, as so many feel they must. It is why almost all informants identify with Eichmann, not his victims. The terror of passivity is made worse by a failure of cultural memory, the sense that to be a victim is to be forgotten forever. Victimhood is meaningless...- What Evil Means to Us, C. Fred Alford, Cornell University Press, 1997.
"Informants identify with Eichmann not because they want to, but because identifying with the meaningless deaths of his victims is too terrible to contemplate. In such a disordered world, power is the only currency. Victimhood can have no meaning when there is no one to witness, remember, or understand. We live in a world of executioners and 'dead meat,' as one puts it. Not all the time, but when push comes to shove."
That passage perfectly explains what I meant. It is easier for many to understand why someone would be cruel, to rationalize evil acts, whether small or large, than it is to understand why someone would "let" themselves be victimized.
shareI may be wrong but I don't think there's a difference to those opposed to the death penalty. They see it as murder by the state and think the nature or level of the crime is immaterial. No one should be put to death is their position. So, no, it wouldn't change anything if Daniel is guilty....and in fact, might point up their belief even more that it's not about mistakenly executing someone who might be innocent, but that even the guilty should not be put to death.
shareI agree that no one should be put to death and that is the belief of most of those who oppose the death penalty, but if Daniel actually murdered her, it will definitely change the degree to which people empathize with him.
shareI read your and Whatlark's posts with great interest. I'm in an abyss of confusion regarding the DP and I credit some of that with this series. Maybe that was one of the goals of Mckinnon? I don't know, but I will admit that I was aways for the DP to be done to someone that has taken a life. But having said that, I have never been in the position of losing a loved one from murder, and hope and pray I never will. So it's hard to say what my feelings would truly be.
I also feel much sympathy for Daniel and that confuses me. Unlike you though, I have never felt empathy for people that have caused hurt and/or pain. As a matter of fact, I have always felt contempt for someone of that nature. Perhaps you're just a better person than I am.
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I don't understand why you think Daniel and Kerwin were lovers. They were separated by a wall and communicated through a vent. They enjoyed talking, exercising, and playing games through the vent and became good friends. Yes, people in their situation can fall in love like that, but I never interpreted their friendship to mean that they were in love. And there's nothing wrong with homosexuality (I'm not saying you implied that it is). Romeo and Juliet? I honestly don't know if you're just having some fun at the expense of others.
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As I stated in my previous post "there's nothing wrong with homosexuality." I just don't share your view about Kerwin and Daniel. Maybe some other viewers do.
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Theirs wasn't a romantic love, of course. There was no indication of it. Daniel loved Kerwin as one loves a best friend, but in this case with the depth, the intimacy, that best friends who've lived through hell together and helped each other survive would share.
"You must not judge what I know by what I find words for." - Marilynne Robinson
Exactly. Two men can love each other because of what they live through and have gone through. I have seen this with "war buddies." My nephew did 2 tours in Iraq and last year I went back to my home state to visit with him and have a dinner at a nice restaurant. His close buddy who served with him was also traveling to meet up with us at the restaurant and when he walked in, and they embraced, I cried.
That is how I look at the relationship between Daniel and Kerwin. And it's like I said in my other post that there's nothing wrong with being gay, but I just never got that vibe from Kerwin and Daniel. But then I get accused of subconsciously being against homosexuality, so I'm done explaining myself. No matter what I say, it's a lost cause. I thank you for your reply, I knew I couldn't be the only one who saw Daniel and Kerwin as friends who loved each other in a non romantic way.
ETA: WHOOPS. I said Iraq, but it was Afghanistan.
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Yeah, that's how the story presents them.
As for your being accused of subconsciously being against homosexuality, there's only one good answer: starve the troll, mickeymyhorse.
"You must not judge what I know by what I find words for." - Marilynne Robinson
I agree, Mickey. I think Daniel and Kerwin came to love one another very much as brothers in war do. They kept one another sane, relatively... that was no small thing, and it both required and created true devotion.
"It's JUDGE Bitch!"
What would be powerful is if Daniel did kill Hanna and McKinnon maintains his stance that the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment. It is easy to make the argument when an innocent life is on the line. However, most people on death row have actually murdered someone (usually first degree and premeditated). Would you still have empathy for Daniel even if it turns out that he murdered Hanna? Would you still not want him to be executed?
I understand what you are saying but, you are missing the point he was just 16 and if Daniel would have killed Hanna it could have been in a rage act while being in love with her and after finding out she was promiscuous. Irrational act but possible. Was it all premeditated? I don't think so.
shareIt would be very sad. Especially if his memory returned while he is about to get the needle, last-minute appeals denied. What would be sadder is, same scenario, and Daniel remembers he is innocent and no-one to tell about it.
shareIt is just what I am affraid of. I am sure he is innocent and he has been torned apart into pieces trying to put them back together which is almost mission impossible. in chapter 6 this season his conversation with his mam saying "mama let me go" puffffff it might mean 2 things, one which we know, and the second "when I leave for ever, cut the bond" let me go in peace...
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