#existencialism

Philosophy - Dmitry Kochanovich, 2019 (1st) Oil on canvas, 100x120cm

Through the whole book, we have these little details, characters and else that break the classic (and very structured) rules of writing. In literature, it is known that every character and every interaction is forced to have a weight on the narrative, however, in the book we find characters that are there or things that happen just because. The person following Bunny and Henry on their trip, or the character that lied about seeing something the day of Bunny's murder.

Now, this is only in the way the book is structured, however, if we look closely, we find the perfect example of why this falls in the absurdism. You see, Camus was a firm believer that things don't have to happen for a reason, that nothing matters because at the end, we all are going to die, and that it doesn't matter what we do.

Henry (and I would say Camilla and maybe even Francis) follows this idea after the bacchanal. It is the result of the bacchanal.

The murder, which is a mere concept that fall in the category of terror by humans, is an act of destruction, one of the worst transgressions (if not considered the worse one). Death is only allowed if it happens because of some sort of destiny, divinity or deity, death is a transgression for humans, the thin line. When they murdered the farmer, they crossed this line, clearly, the main strenght in this, is Henry.

When he's the main responsable of this death, he crossed the line. And then, he got away with it. So, this bringed in him the idea that, actually, nothing matters. Nothing matters because he alredy killed someone, and nothing changed. He still got up, got to study, got to live as he wants.

He described that he often felt like life was meaningless and bland, but after killing someone, he noticed that life is actually meaningless, yet, this as well means he could do whatever he wished.

Written in an Austenian structure.

Let's always keep that in mind, please.

Hence, a happy ending for Carmy that depends on the choices he could only make once he finds his true purpose (leading with the ❤️), is the only possible closure to this existential story.

That is the "What will happen", and IMHO it's not up for debate.

What we can debate about is how will it come to be. Sure!

Due to the foreshadowing Storer gave us in 3x7, or what I call the Legerdemain ep, I think it will happen like this or something along these lines:

There is no version of the story where Sydcarmy doesn't happen.

Whether Storer will give that endgame the airtime it deserves, is a whole different argument I don't wanna have until I see all the promos and teasers. The crumbs they released this week are only the tip of the iceberg, I need more to rule out the Lalalaland ending I fear sooooo much and that is absolutely in the cards, unfortunately.

But as I always said, I will settle for ANY variation of Sydcarmy endgame, even Lalaland. That being said, we, truthers, have an ace up our sleeves. If you wanna know all about it please tune in to our UNDER THE TABLE SYDCARMY PODCAST

next Sunday 16th and find out exactly what I mean by "a Lalaland ending" 🤮 (the extended version) and what is our strongest line of defense against any Lalaland curve balls Storer could throw at us. Don't forget the final draft of the series finale is still in the WR and the final 2 eps of S4 HAVE NOT BEEN SHOT YET.

Neil: existencialism, specifically absurdism. Basically, life has no meaning, so you can either accept it or not. There is no greater goal or anything. Includes thinkers such as Camus or Sartre.

Todd (mostly at the start of the movie): determinism, which is kind of the opposite of existencialism, since the idea is a 'everything was planned out before and you cannot change it' type of mindset. It excludes freedom of choice, since your decisions have very little impact over everything. You're just in a boat in a storm and you have very little control over anything.

Charlie: hedonism, which is the pursuit of pleasures and the avoidance of pain. According to this idea, you'd take action depending on how much pleasure or pain you'd get from it.

Cameron: utilitarianism, or acting in a way to maximize happiness for the biggest amount of people. Includes philosophers such as Bentham or John Stuart Mill. Examples of utilitarism could be: if you were a train conductor and you had to either

stay on tracks, do nothing and hit a group of people that were on the rails

change your trajectory and instead hit one person

what would you do? Well according to utilitarism you would change trajectory, as it would benefit the greatest amount of people.

Meeks: rationalism and consequentialism. Tbh I don't really understand rationalism, but from what I know, its basis is that reason is a source of knowledge and stuff. Consequentialism is interest in the consequences of one's actions; realistic consequences. So before you act you think of the consequences kind-of-thing.

Pitts: solipsism, according to which the only thing that exists for sure is the thinker. I don't really get how it's different from Descartes 'i think therefore i am', but so solipsism would mean that you can only be convinced of your own existence.

Knox: idealism; reality, perception, ideas etc are all linked, and ideas represent a reality. I didn't really listen during this part of the lesson tbh -which is why I have to revise now using things like this post-.

Mr. Keating: stoicism; accept that some things are out of control, and act in a way so to do right by others and stuff. A stoist philosopher was, for example, Crysipus, who died laughing at his own joke.

Chris: eudaemonism, which is similar to hedonism, except that happiness is seen as a logical finality and it's basically a fact that most people want happiness. So it's happiness instead of pleasures that is pursued, with philosophers such as Epicurus.