The Blacklist Refugees » My craziest pseudo theory yet

Tatiana · 5/24/2018 10:33 am

Hi all... I have not had a concussion, brain injury, bad pharmaceuticals or major life changes. But I am obsessed with a new idea that everyone will think is crazy (and I will subsequently delete for embarrassment of it) but here it goes:

What if this person floating about referred to as "Red" isn't actually a person? What if the cabal and the governments and the criminal underworld are actually powers? What if the wars have a little of the otherworldly about them?

What if all of this could be tied together if we really LOOK at this differently?

Here's a bunch of words, symbols, ideas that we've seen heavily portrayed in this show:

clocks; time; country; war; death; chess; graveyards; underworld; prisoner; ocean; ships, memory; truth; home; red; father/daughter; hospitals; body parts; bones; firebird (phoenix); fire; magic; mirrors/images; underground/buried/hidden; dogs/canine; theatre/plays/literature/philosophy; apples; royalty (knights, kings, queens, princesses, Lords, etc); serbia, belgrade; etc.

As Tuxie has said, you can find just about anything in this show.

When I look at all those words, I see ancient Greece and Rome; I see trickery of the gods; I see the underworld; I see a world where you can cheat death or play death; I see winged Victory of Samathrace, also known as the goddess Nike, facing Mount Olympus, the home of the (major) gods.

When I think of greek mythology, I think of the parable of the farmer or the myth of Sisyphus and how fickle are the gods with mere mortals. I think of 'deals' that were made from those in hell so htey could visit the land of the living.

Way more stuff to be said about this, but we're planning a long weekend. best to be going.

However, I'd love it if any of you would play with these ideas with me. You all probably know by now, I am in no way attached to any one theory, nor do I need to be right, nor do I think everything is black and white. Plus, in the field of fiction, everything is mutable :-)

One of the other reasons this came up is that we've been discussing the difference between the SECRET and the TRUTH. The secret is that he is not raymond Reddington, or that he's actually Katarina. But the TRUTH? Sounds like Greek tragedy to me.

I wonder i Red is actually in a state of death and life and cannot find his way home. I wonder if the cabal are the capricious gods who toy with mere mortals.

Maybe this will compel me to brush off my books on greek myths. And maybe, just maybe, I'll read The Illiad. we shall see.

Whatever you do, remember friendly banter is encouraged. Thank you!

Honey West · 5/24/2018 1:47 pm

Hmmm, that’s a good one, Tatiana. It could very well be looked at in the style of a Greek tragedy. Or maybe that is how it is being told. I’ll have to think about this. One of my favorite classes in high school was a semester of Greek Mythology, which I’d been reading since I was old enough to have a library card. Funny, because I was just brushing up on the story of Laocoön (both the person and the statue group) because of Laocoons post on the other thread. It’s been a long time since I read the Iliad and The Odyssey, maybe it’s time for a reread.

Tatiana · 5/24/2018 3:23 pm

Honey west, I'm glad you haven't committed me to the psychiatric unit hahaha!

Here's what triggered this thought process:

Liz who is alive, but looks like death, at her husband's grave and he's supposed to be dead but looks hale and hearty;

Winged Victory, aka Nike, the goddess of victory, both mentioned when he is in Paris and says hes.going to see The Winged Victory of Samothrace, and then makes certain to tell Smokey that the mercury dime has an image of winged victory and launches into recitation of The Snowman, a poem.

Odd, two mentions of Nike, aka Winged Victory, in such short time?

And we seem to have a fluidity to reality, sleep, the sense of time, timelessness, otherworldliness etc.

The Winged Victory of Samothrace was located in the island, depicted on the prow of a ship, overlooking the sanctuary of the Great God's. The statue was most likely erected to commemorate a great naval battle, rather than the purpose of honoring the god.

Eastcoast · 5/24/2018 10:16 pm

Tatiana wrote:
Honey west, I'm glad you haven't committed me to the psychiatric unit hahaha!

lol
That is an interesting take on things. I don't think anyone should get too attached to any theory because this show changes!
I do find it interesting that it has mentioned it 2 times now. Usually a reason for that on this show. Not too many kawinkidinks when it comes to TBL.

Tatiana · 5/25/2018 7:31 am

In ancient mythology, a "god" was often a personification of an abstract concept: death, victory, war, etc. This is closer to then thought process here.

Although, as Honey West pointed out, it could be that the style of story telling is in the grand mythology style.

Honey West · 5/25/2018 12:58 pm

I am also a Joseph Campbell fan.

Tatiana · 5/25/2018 1:29 pm

Honey West wrote:
I am also a Joseph Campbell fan.

Oh that is delicious!
Me as well. That would explain the understanding of Carl Jung and archetypal images.

Honey West · 5/25/2018 2:01 pm

Tatiana wrote:
Honey West wrote:
I am also a Joseph Campbell fan.
Oh that is delicious!
Me as well. That would explain the understanding of Carl Jung and archetypal images.

Not to mention the "Films of Alfred Hitchcock" class in college as well as one of my other favorite film studies classes that was called "Horror, Comedy, and Science Fiction". We looked at films like "The General" (I LOVE Buster Keaton!), "Forbidden Planet", "Nosferatu", "Cat People", "Bride of Frankenstein", etc. It was a fun class - learning about the iconography of those films and how they related to one another and other films that we didn't study directly. "Young Frankenstein" was still a fairly new movie at the time (late-70's), so it wasn't in the class, but we did talk about it. I know I took a class where we studied the films of Mel Brooks, but I keep thinking it was a separate class, although it could have been in the comedy section of the other class.

Last edited by Honey West (5/25/2018 2:13 pm)

IowaWatcher · 5/26/2018 10:23 am

What if this person floating about referred to as "Red" isn't actually a person?

Very interesting! That does open up some new possibilities. I'm not sure I understood exactly where you were going with your analysis, but it's certainly worth thinking about. Please don't delete it.

Tatiana · 5/26/2018 11:09 am

Yay! So glad you're willing to entertain some out of the box ideas, IowaWatcher.

*note: for simplicity, I revert to traditional standard English for reference to all of human kind by using the universal male terms. I"m just not adept enough to use all inclusive language

Art, literature, film (even tv shows) are not exempt from telling the tale of humankind's understanding of the world and trying to make sense of the senseless.
All that we see about us is the truth, or is real, as Red says to Baldur. It was an odd thing for Red to tell his nemesis. I feel death all around me and never was afraid before.why would he bare his soul like that?

"Who knows if to live is to be dead, and to be dead, to live? And we really, it may be, are dead; in fact I once heard sages say that we are now dead, and the body is our tomb …"(Socrates. Plato).

So there is an underlying need to make sense of life, death, loss, sacrifice, jealousy, love... all the abstracts. I began this post talking about the myths of Greek antiquity, because I sense that the character of Red could be otherworldly. The last episode especially, I had the sense that we might be looking at the dead as being alive adn the living as being dead. Now, I don't believe that's true, but what if ther'es some truth to it?

Red tells Liz that she is very special. When he sees the north star he says to her, that is how sailors found their way home, when I look at you I see my way home, you are my north star.

He's not the personfication of death, but I can't help but feel he's made a deal with death (not to be confused with the devil). What if the endless wait time in Glen's waiting room is like the plight of Sisyphus?

https://twitter.com/twitter/statuses/1000040851333148672

Tatiana · 5/26/2018 11:29 am

Red has said he is Liz's sin eater.
Wow.
That's a really weird thing to say in a serialized tv show.
Then he says, I didn't want you to turn out like me.
We assume he means like a criminal, and maybe that's the sole truth.
But maybe he also means I don't want you to be a sin-eater.
I'm not proposing a theory, because I don't have one here, but I am saying, there's a very unique style to The Blacklist which is and always has been puzzling (like that's a surprise?_

There's so many pieces of the puzzle and so much to the storyline, but sometimes there's a huge disconnect that makes absolutely no sense no matter how you try to contort it. Who scorched Liz's wrist then trie to tell her it was her talisman?
Why did Kate tell Raymond, "When you pu so tht her in my arms as a baby"?
What has happened to Raymond that he sees LIz as his North Star to go HOME?
Why does Red say 'I will always do anything to keep you alive" (paraphrased)
Gather your forces, we're at war. Except there's never anything like a war. What if it's the Great Gods, the Temple of the Gods, that Winged Victory, the goddess Nike, is decending because he is about to be part of the victory of the war of the Great Gods against the underworld or the characters of the blacklist or the CABAL

And why did they drop the repeated symbolic image on her wrist, the envelope, and tom's go box. The image that looks like the FireBird aka Phoenix (greek mythology).

So I am suggesting we think out of the routine tv writer show box. And I'm suggesting we go big.

I don't think there's a literal greek myth here, but I wonder if there's something kind of like one of these:

Fire night, it was Liz who was killed, but Red offered himself to be beholden to so that she would remain alive. He offered himself to the Fates. My life for hers. That's why when the show opens in the pilot, Liz wakes up to see that the power went out and the clock defaulted to 12:00. And there is very little of her history that is shown to us or to her character.

This line of thinking doesn't follow, but what if Red did die the night of the fire, but he made a deal with death, or whatever nebulous entity might fit here, and his deal (or damnation) was that he must protect Elizabeth to keep her safe so that some day, he can die/go back to his family/his family can come back to life. etc.

So those are the thoughts I have. No answers, just ideas to play with <3

It's a beautiful day, we're in the woods up north, and I must get out to paint. We have lots of time before TBL returns and I hope you , IowaWatcher, and Honey West will join me in this little diversion excursion on the Blacklist theories!!!

Tatiana · 5/27/2018 11:03 pm

Ok my husband told me my recent 'theories' are off the deep end (and they are!) So lest anyone think I've lost it, I'll back down.

But the minute anyone hints at twins, I'm outta here lol!!!

Eastcoast · 5/28/2018 1:16 pm

Tatiana wrote:
Ok my husband told me my recent 'theories' are off the deep end (and they are!) So lest anyone think I've lost it, I'll back down.

But the minute anyone hints at twins, I'm outta here lol!!!

Well, they might be to some people. Nothing wrong with throwing it out here on the table to look at. The one thing I have learned watching this show is nothing is as it seams. This show seams to have a thing for having us think one thing when it is another. like when it looked like Sinclair was going to make another Red and it was Garvey instead.

Tatiana · 5/28/2018 4:15 pm

Well, they might be to some people. Nothing wrong with throwing it out here on the table to look at. The one thing I have learned watching this show is nothing is as it seams. This show seams to have a thing for having us think one thing when it is another. like when it looked like Sinclair was going to make another Red and it was Garvey instead.

Nothing is as it seems should be the series subtitle lol!

lara1 · 5/29/2018 10:19 am

Tatiana - I don't think anything is out of bounds with this show. And I think they have lobbed some Greek mythology references to us along the way, the most recent being "Oleander". So elements of it could be in play. The challenge fo rme would be, how the writers would communicate it.

Patter · 5/29/2018 12:38 pm

"Here's what triggered this thought process:

Liz who is alive, but looks like death, at her husband's grave and he's supposed to be dead but looks hale and hearty;"

I had mentioned on the episode thread that Liz looked waaaaaay too beat up in that final scene. As if she had been involved in a far more serious scuffle before she made her way to the cemetery. Her eye is especially saggy, blackened, and barely moves. Something I expect more after her rumble with Garvey that did put her in the hospital and then in a coma for 10 months. Which makes me ponder the 10 months in which we still know nothing about. What happened? Ok, not going there.

I bet one of our sleuths could compare a side by side of Liz in the cemetery and Liz with Sutton Ross and Jennifer in the back of the warehouse. Just to see how bad her bruises/cuts/scrapes/bloodiness were. But with all things Blacklist, could have been a makeup and continuity error ....Wrist scar, anyone?

lara1 · 5/29/2018 12:48 pm

Hi Patter! I have been pondering the graveyard scene since the finale aired.

to me, Liz is more than beat up (though I agree with your comment about her looking way, way too beat up), but its her skin tone - pale and grey. To me, she looks like a corpse. As compared to Tom, who looks healthier than he ever has, although of course he's "not there".

What it may mean, I haven't quite settled on yet. I still need to re-watch!

Patter · 5/29/2018 1:31 pm

lara1 wrote:
Hi Patter! I have been pondering the graveyard scene since the finale aired.

to me, Liz is more than beat up (though I agree with your comment about her looking way, way too beat up), but its her skin tone - pale and grey. To me, she looks like a corpse. As compared to Tom, who looks healthier than he ever has, although of course he's "not there".

What it may mean, I haven't quite settled on yet. I still need to re-watch!

WELP, she's probably a zombie.

Tatiana · 5/29/2018 2:09 pm

Yep, definitely Zombie apocalypse. I just knew it!

Tuxie400 · 5/29/2018 6:40 pm

Tatiana wrote:
Yep, definitely Zombie apocalypse. I just knew it!

Some writer had been watching too much Walking Dead. LOL