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StoicJackal (3)
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It's inconsequential to the plot. The purpose of the scene is more thematic.
Prometheus defied the gods in being a light-bringer, by giving fire to mankind. He was punished by Zeus in having his liver ripped out by birds, having it regenerate, only for the birds to return to rip it out again. This would repeat over and over again for all eternity.
The island and Sisyphean duties on it are obviously purgatory, an eternal place of torment, for having murdered his fellow logger before assuming his identity. But he does not learn from his behavior. He kills a gull, then murders his fellow lighthouse employee, and is punished for all eternity, having his beans spilled to be eaten by the gulls.
I'm not entirely sure yet how the roles of the psychosis, megalomania, mermaid motifs and other imagery are to fit. Probably something to do with the Lord of The Flies archetype, where desperate men slough off the airs of civilization and will resort to their baser natures, susceptible to meaner temptations like lust, murder, drunkenness, pleasure-seeking and fits of rage and lack of self-control. Insanity, as you know, is like gravity. All it takes is a little push. Bring a man to the edge of his comprehension and the end of his nerves, and watch him become an animal in both destruction and self-destruction. Much like Ahab's pursuit of the white whale culminating in his own doom.
The white light is an uncompromising truth, too rich for man to possess. For the men on the water, they know to steer away from it in order to live. For the keepers of the light, they bear the burden and the sacrifice of temptation and self-destruction into madness, wanting to possess it for themselves. But power corrupts and we should be careful about what we wish for.
You're right. I tend to naturally interchange the bureaucratic facets of the American fascism. Cesspools all look the same when you're standing on the shore.
The CIA did not bug the entire hotel, but only the Honeymoon Suite, which is why the agent was entirely insistent on booking that particular room. The viewer is allowed to fill in the gaps, and infer that a particular intelligence mission had occured in that room in the past and, after so many years, this agent was sent to tie up loose ends and clear out the bugs after the coast had been clear.
It is assumed that his side-plot is a direct reference to the shady activities of the CIA during (and since) the Nixon era, most notably the wire-tapping scandal at the Watergate Hotel.
It was only while he had been collecting the agency's bugs, that he noticed similar bugs planted by the hotel staff, which suggests that they were not in place during the initial bugging of the room by the CIA.
The presence of all of the other characters were purely incidental to his mission and coincidental to his arrival, save for him being a relatively moral individual who decided to rescue a kidnappee, and save for the concierge who had an obvious connection to the reason the agent stuck around after completing his mission - the extra surveillance and secret passageway which peaked his interest.
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