What Fevre Dream tells us about A Song of Ice and Fire

What Fevre Dream tells us about A Song of Ice and Fire

By Alexander Imhof 

 

My last post here was about Sinners, a story about Vampires in the American South. After writing that post, I wanted to revisit a favorite novel of mine that has many similarities: Fevre Dream (1982) by George R.R. Martin. I hold a rather unpopular opinion that this might by George R.R. Martin's best work, though I absolutely adore A Song of Ice and Fire and would never have discovered Fevre Dream had it not been for the popularity of the epic fantasy series. When my brother visited Martin's bookstore in Santa Fe, he walked away with two signed books: A Game of Thrones and Fevre Dream, and gave me the choice of which one I would keep as a late birthday present. Suffice to say, it is that signed copy of Fevre Dream I just finished. 

Fevre Dream has often been described as "Bram Stoker meets Mark Twain" mainly following a portly steamboat captain Abner Marsh and his Vampire business partner Joshua York adventuring in the Antebellum Mississippi in a quest to reconcile Vampires and Humans. The novel is work of historical fiction, gothic horror, and political commentary on race relations rolled into one. On the surface, Fevre Dream seems very different from ASOIAF. ASOIAF is set in a wholly fictitious universe, has elements of horror - but not very much vampire horror, and is far more concerned with gender and religion than race or class. Upon my reread, however, I believe Fevre Dream's narrative can tell us a lot about the modern series. Importantly as well, Fevre Dream is the longest project Martin has actually finished, and might tell us about how ASOIAF might end, or might have been planned to end. There will be a lot of spoilers in this post, so be warned before proceeding.

Fevre Dream is named after the titular steamboat, the Fevre Dream, captained by the two protagonists, Abner Marsh and Joshua York. They meet in Saint Louis, Missouri in the summer of 1857, where York offers Marsh the money to build the Steamer of his dreams. All Marsh needs to do is obey York's infrequent commands, and not question anything he might deem peculiar about York. The shadow of the slavery and the looming American Civil War hangs over the novel, as Abner grows from an ambivalent bystander to abolitionist. The vast majority of the novel occurs in the deep south, and many of the arguments used for and against vampiric relations with humans are metaphors for slavery and the race relations within the United States. "Let the cattle create--life, beauty, what you will. And we shall take their creations, use them, destroy them if we choose. That is the way of it. We are the masters. Masters do not labor." Damon Julian says to Joshua York at their fateful dinner aboard the Fevre Dream. Some of the Vampires, like the antagonist Damon Julian, mirror the self assured perspective of the Antebellum slavemasters. Marsh develops into a staunch ant-slavery advocate by the latter half of the book after his experiences being disregarded and preyed upon by Damon Julian's coven. "Only I been thinkin’, and it seems to me maybe they was right after all. You can’t just go . . . usin’ another kind of people, like they wasn’t people at all. Know what I mean? Got to end, sooner or later. Better if it ends peaceful, but it’s got to end even if it has to be with fire and blood, you see? Maybe that’s what them abolitionists been sayin’ all along. You try to be reasonable, that’s only right, but if it don’t work, you got to be ready. Some things is just wrong. They got to be ended.”Abner Marsh says to the Fevre Dream's cook, Toby Lanyard. 

This is the earliest time I can find that Martin used the phrase "Fire and Blood" which would become the words of House Targaryen, and the title of his history book about their house. Just as it is said about Aegon's Conquest and the endgame for his descendant Daenerys, unifying the seven kingdoms "with fire and blood" is used to reference the American Civil War. We must also talk about the appearance of Joshua York, Marsh's partner and believer in Human/Vampire cooperation. He is described as tall and pale, with blonde-white hair, and cool grey eyes. It is easy to see Joshua York is physically reminiscent of Rhaegar, Daenerys, and other valyrians. The issue of slavery is critical in the Daenerys story of ASOIAF, though the system of slavery is very different than in real world history. In both cases, though, we have a protagonist from a traditionally "master" people - valyrians/vampires that has changed their mind about the ethics of racial superiority. While only one chapter of Fevre Dream is narrated by Joshua York, he shares several details of life reminiscent of Dany: both grew up as orphans, hunted for their class of person, and were traumatized by the loss of their first love. 

In the end of the novel, we cannot really say if Joshua York was successful in his quest. He commits to killing Damon Julian after witnessing the blood of the civil war in hopes of protecting his wife and uborn child (Rhaegar parallel) but it is unknown if the cooperation between humans and the night people continued after Abner Marsh's death in the epilogue. Despite the ending being ambiguous, I do think there are few things from this conclusion we should keep in and when discussing the end of ASOIAF and in particular the fate of Daenerys. Firstly, despite ASOIAF's antiwar message, Martin permits war and killing as a necessary evil in Fevre Dream. Second, not everyone on either side of the Vampire/Human debate sides with Joshua York; it is only his authority as leader of the coven that keeps some of the Vampires in line when he takes that role. And lastly, Martin believes in a "Temptation" by the powerful to be a master, and that it is noble to resist such a temptation. 

What does this tell us about ASOIAF? If we are using Game of Thrones as a baseline, I believe it tells us quite a lot. To the first point, Martin believes that fire and blood can sometimes be cleansing: Daenerys ends the series as a mad queen burning King's Landing. I suspect this will still happen, although the conclusion of Fevre Dream might spell this epilogue was necessary for a better Westeros. Just as the fires of war cleansed America of slavery in the Civil War, I think the epilogue will imply that the destruction of King's Landing and the war of dragons led to the end of feudalism and serfdom. We can debate if this is Daenerys' intention - but I think "fire" at the end is meant to be a creative destruction. Second, I think the way Daenerys is remembered will be different from the way the smallfolk or other POV characters remember her. Just as Joshua York is only considered a savior to some, the more feudal minded nobles and ravaged smallfolk may not see the "breaking of the wheel" as good. I think this put the Game of Thrones showrunners in an odd place, unnable to show multiples points of view as easily in TV format as Martin might be able to in he books. Lastly, we should talk about the temptation of being a "master". This conflict is one of ASOIAF's most important since the story of almost every POV character has them begin as a disadvantaged outsider and rise to become Queen/Lord Commander/Time-Travelling-God. Joshua York mirrors another character besides Daenerys very well - Jon Snow. It may be the case that in their final confrontation Jon Snow is the Joshua York to Daenerys's Damon Julian. In either case, I believe the final struggle of House Targaryen will mirror the struggle of the two most powerful vampires. 

There's a lot in Fevre Dream I did not cover - for instance, Abner Marsh having a connection to Bowen Marsh, why the Mississipi is a parallel to the Rhoyne and Volantis to New Orleans. There is something to be said about the Vampires fleeing Revolutionary Europe as the Valyrians fled the doom. Most of all, if i were to revisit, I would talk about the Others and how it would be odd for Martin to consider them either mindless drones of the night king, or to purposefully leave out their side of the story despite being named after the anthropological "Other". In many ways, I think this last piece is what has caused such a delay - Fevre Dream ends rather quickly because we understand the Vampires and their desires, but we haven't been given very much information on the others: who they are, their culture. Martin hates to half ass his writing, and I think is dissatisfied more with the story he set up in A Game of Thrones than the story he has been painstakingly trying to bend to in A Dance with Dragons. 

Sinners: Christianity and Colonialism

 

Sinners: Christianity and Colonialism

A Brief Analysis by Alexander Imhof 

 

I wanted to discuss the movie Sinners, and the themes of Christianity and Colonialism present throughout the film. Many others have already commented on this fact, either in articles or YouTube videos or in conversations with me. I have tried my best to avoid the existing commentary on Sinners, since I think I agree with the popular interpretation of the film, and don’t want this to stifle what little original commentary I may have to have to offer. With that out of the way, I will begin.

 

The main conflict of Sinners is not the vampires or even the rise of the Klan, but the internal struggle within Sammy Moore over whether he will live a life of virtue as represented by his father, or a life of "sin" as represented by the smokestack twins. I use "sin" in quotations as while the film presents the conflict as a struggle between Christian good and Satanic evil, the film resolves to subvert this conflict by having Sammy choose the path of "sin" and asking the audience whether this was truly sinful. Overall, the films main point is that "sin" and "sinners" don't exist, or are at the very least, a western-christian construction that is not used properly when describing the love of blues music, dancing, and partying. Some more explicitly defined Christian "sin" such as drinking, gambling, and premarital sex does occur at club juke, but we will get to that later, as Sammy is not shown to be a heavy drinker or gambler, and his "sinful" activities do not seem to make him seem like a bad person to the viewer. Sammy's choice at the end of the film to use his musical talent for himself also rejects the Augustinian struggle of god versus the devil by not lending his music to either Remmick (the devil) or his father (the Christian god). He chooses a third way, which is the rejection of the Christian moral framework.

 

So, now that we have established the central struggle has something to do with rejecting the Christian moral framework and the nonexistence of Christian "sin",  we can dive into the supernatural part of the movie. The film is structures in classic fashion where the first and third parts of the movie are set in the real world, with the second part being largely in the supernatural world. Likely not coincidentally, these parts are conveniently divided by the time of day - we are in the human world on the day before the club opens, supernatural events happen when the sun goes down, and we return to the human world when the sun comes up again. I believe part of the reason why the film chose to have a supernatural component is because the vampires have richer potential for symbolic meaning than normal human enemies (the other part is that vampires are cool).

 

So, vampires have symbolic meaning. I won't go through a history of vampire symbolism however it’s a very interesting topic and lots of authors and creators have covered this. Importantly though, vampires are almost always used to symbolize Christian "sin" rather than Christian virtue. Vampires typically symbolize sexuality and desire, and in some cases greed, pride, or envy. They are almost always portrayed as devilish or demonic. In Sinners, the vampires are a bit more complicated. There is certainly some "evil" in the way they turn people, and they do try to tempt the protagonists into leaving the building, however I contend these strengthen the argument that vampirism symbolizes Christianity and the events of the night are a telling of the forced Christianization of black people in the united states (although this could probably be generalized to the forced Christianization of any group, as we will see when talking about Remmick and the Chow family).

 

So, the night is a retelling of mass Christian conversion, lets walk through it. We start the night with Remmick, the sole Christian in a land of pagans. As any good evangelical, he wants to spread his faith to everyone he can (Vampiric need to turn others = Christian desire to evangelize). His first targets are two white people, relations of the local Klan leader - this will be important later. The vampires are then called to club juke by Sammy's music, looking to convert everyone there. We've already discussed the symbolism behind why Remmick and Sammy's father both want to use his music for their own ends, but to restate: Remmick wishes to use Sammy's music as Christian leaders have always wanted to use art and artists, to bring them closer to god and assist in the endeavors of the faith. The vampires are turned away at the door - representing how first attempts by whites to evangelize blacks were rebuffed. Stack and Mary contend the vampires will have money to spend at club juke - When the offer of faith is rebuffed, physical boons such as money and goods are offered. Mary is an interesting character as she represents the trusted white person that "got Christianity in the door" with black people.  Once Stack, Mary, Bo Chow, and others are all converted, the final offer is made - community and everlasting life. It should be pointed out that beyond the brutal way one is killed, the Christian/vampiric offer is not inherently a bad one. Remmick offers community and fellowship in the vampire horde, and very importantly offers to assist the remaining humans in killing off the KKK come morning. I say this piece is very important because black Christianity has long been a force that fought against white supremacy in the south. There is a reason why so many early civil rights leaders were Baptist reverends. I think most people see the vampires and the KKK as two forces on the same team, working against our club juke protagonists, however I contend these groups are actually in competition, much in the same way Christians have always been in competition with Colonizers, over what the proper policy on colonized people should be. Christians, such as Diego de Landa who was a priest in the 16th century Yucatan, typically offer oppressed peoples a benevolent yet assimilationist future - "you should be protected from exploitation, but you must become one of us" as opposed the more strict colonizers that wish to either exploit oppressed people for their labor, or simply kill them off. This story repeats over and over in colonial histories.

 

Sinners has Sammy and Smoke reject this offer, and we will go over why each of them does. Another important theme in Christianization is the way that families spark a wildfire of conversions. I have something of a running joke asking my friends "would you convert to your partner's religion" although its somewhat important in the context of sinners. Of the four couples at club juke, each has a different fate when it comes to one person being turned Christian/vampire. When Mary is converted, Stack follows her (The second dimension of race is especially important with them, as interracial couples probably face the most pressure to be on the same page religiously - "a black man dating a white woman better be an upstanding Christian" etc). Then there is Smoke and Annie. Annie tells Smoke to kill her if she is converted - Annie would rather die than give up her culture and become part of the vampiric/Christian covenant. Annie's death is part of why Smoke remains lives and is able to fight the Klan the next day. We will get back to Stack fighting the Klan soon. Remmick attempts to get Sammy the same way he got Stack, by turning Pearline, but he is too late. The Chows are the last couple, and the commentary here is that Bo and the vampires want to turn Lisa into Christian/vampire, which causes grace to sacrifice herself - "It’s a shame that Bo was converted, however she would die before she lets it happen to Lisa". In the end, the characters that survive the night are the ones that reject Christianity, largely by avoiding 'familial' contagion.

 

Before we jump into final thoughts I have a few more things to say about Remmick and Smoke. Remmick being an Irishman was a very purposeful choice, when he certainly could have been a white American or English vampire. I think his being Irish assists the argument that vampirism is Christianity as the forced subjugation of Ireland is well known and is one of the few majority Caucasian places with religious tensions. In a way, Remmick is meant to represent someone one step down of the chain: His culture and music were destroyed by Christianization, and he roams the world searching for a way back (through Sammy's music) but the only tools available to him are corrupt, since he took the Christian bargain [we are not told Remmicks origin of how he became a vampire, however he seems to like it, so we can assume his conversion is something like Stack or Mary's]. Lastly, to hammer home the idea that vampires are Christianity - Sammy recites the lord's prayer in hopes it will protect him, however Remmick knows the lord's prayer and it does not stop him because he is Christianity. Now onto Smoke. Despite Remmick's offer that the vampiric horde could be used to fight the Klan in the morning, this is a somewhat disingenuous offer since the vampires cannot operate in broad daylight when the Klan arrives. I believe this is saying that the tools of Christianity are insufficient to fight white supremacy. Christianity is a religion, not a gun, and so the work that can be done with it to fight the KKK and white supremacy is restricted to the shadows of changing policymakers minds, and by the rigidity of its own nonviolent principles. Christianity shrivels when the sun is shining (vampirism) because its moral framework is either not capable of, or not powerful enough to stand against bold face threats like the Klan. It's important then, that Smoke is a non-vampire (non-Christian) killing off the Klan with guns, because this type of violent resistance is not what Christian resistors typically advocate for. Anyway, smoke dies and goes to hang out with Annie and his son, leaving the smoke behind him. I will say this scene is particularly odd since smoke embracing his given name of Elijah seems kind of like accepting a Christian side of himself, however it probably has more to do with the conversation about fathers passing bad blood down to their kids and how smoke doesn’t pass his badness - his smoke - down to his kid - in this version of heaven.

 

So, final thoughts. The relationship between fathers and sons is incredibly present in the movie and this is also a very important theme in Christian theology. I hesitate to say the film is anti-Christian because neither the vampires or Sammy's father are good guys. What I will say is that the film very explicitly rejects Christian sin. The gut punch of it all: Sammy is a saintly man that hangs out with "sinners", forgiving and leading them, while having a strict father that presides over a hall with pearly white doors. Whom does this sound like? Yes, Sammy is Jesus. But I think this is done for the opposite reason most characters are analogized to Christ. Sinners sees both Sammy and Jesus for his mortal qualities, choosing to embrace love, humility, and eventually death - rather than becoming a Christian (in the "part of the Christian religion" sense) and thereby saying that Jesus would not be proud of the church that bears his name today, and reject its moral framework as Sammy does.

 

There is much more to say about this movie, especially characters I didn't talk much about like the Chow family or the other employees like Delta Slim and Cornbread. I think there's a lot of analysis to be had about Annie, the meaning of American Indian vampire hunters, or the meaning behind the twins time in Chicago. This was certainly the most thought provoking movie I have watched in 2025, and I hope you found this short review interesting or enlightening.

Sinners

 sin baby sin

 

 

 

 

Reset the Dial

     I get off work and quickly put away the laundry from the dryer before needing to head to the gym. Meticulously taking each piece of clothing and putting it on a hanger one by one. As I do so, I wonder why I felt such a need to do this task before leaving, the clothes would certainly wait for me to return no less dry than before. I find putting away clothes to be cathartic, but far more tedious than anything. Despite that, I know that I will be better for having done so now than later. 

    As a kid, I always hated chores, partly because of the usual child reasons of not wanting to do boring things but much more because I hated any task that would have to be done again. It's why I loved games that had you do boring everyday tasks because I knew that I'd only ever have to do them the one time and I would be done forever. So I avoided these tasks, rarely cleaned my room, and lived in chaos. Even though this was not an ideal way to live, I was very good at separating my surroundings from my state of mind, a tool I used far too much throughout my life.  The issue is that this always leaves you on edge, never quite allowing yourself to be where you are. 

    Now the tasks that need to be done have grown ever more, like a veritable array of dials all ticking towards doom less they are addressed and reset. The clothes need cleaned, dryer and put away. The food needs to be bought, made, eaten, and dishes cleaned. The floors cleared, swept, and mopped. All these tasks will need to be done again and again without ever ceasing. Yet despite that, I want to have them all done now more than ever. 

    My issue with chores was that they were never towards a greater end, no matter how many times they were done they would always come back. I saw doing them as time wasted, time that would never come back and if I could live a while longer without them then I should.  However, I found that I couldn't be at peace unless they were done. As I lay in mess my mind is a mess and time lies still.  

    As annoying as I find resetting the dials to be I need to do so.  For when the gas is filled, the clothes are clean and away, the pantry full, floors clean, I can take a deep breath and time can finally start to pass again as the dials start to tick away. 

Woman Moment

 To be a man is to have an excuse. 

Women are too difficult to understand. Their emotions are opposite their words. They laugh about womanly things – makeup, clothing, maybe – and exclude men. When they do consider men, it is from a negative perspective. They continually choose loneliness for men as they know that a man becomes small before the possibility of a woman’s interest. A woman might outwardly present as beautiful because she can wear appearance-enhancing products. She will use this mirage to manipulate a man. Her target will then wake up next to her and see hair on her cheeks and smell her unperfumed sweat.

There are many things that women are expected to do. These are not particularly unusual, but it would be socially irresponsible to ask any man to reciprocate these tasks. The man must leave the house and hunt prey. He has to sit in a cubicle chair or clock into the back-line. Here, the man will be busy being smart and very sneakily looking up his coworker’s skirt. He will also spend the day being innocuously stupid. He will accidentally say something crude in a self-proclaimed pathetic attempt at communication. He will leave the simpler tasks – throwing out used napkins, flushing the toilet – to somebody else, not because he wanted to be rude but because his mother, a woman, never taught him to do these things. He will spread his legs on a bench or train or bus because his ass is sweaty. If acknowledged, he will close his legs and sit in quiet discomfort like a woman should, but he will be embarrassed to be womanly.

The man should never clean dishes. In fact, a woman shouldn’t teach him how to do dishes. He must stay focused providing for them, for their children. The man has earned his time to sleep in and take long showers. This time is limited if he were to clean the home he occupies. Thankfully, most women know not to ask men anymore; even asking is a waste of the man’s time. And no, it’s not that the man doesn’t care. He wants a clean space but is simply too dumb to create it for himself. He is innocent! The woman never asks him to help, so he doesn’t. His mother never taught him to vacuum or sweep, so why would a woman expect him to just be able to do it now? When a woman demonstrated to him how to run a load of laundry, she did a poor job and he wasn’t able to retain the steps. But even if she had, even if he knew, even if he could – why? Why would he? A woman does these things. A woman can. A woman should.

To be a man is to put your head in your hands because your wife, who is having a pitocin-induced labor with a failed epidural, is making too much noise for you to sleep after a long shift. To be a man is to take a nap when she asks you to watch your newborn while she cleans up the puke that has set into the carpet – the same puke you saw last night while you peed on the rim of the toilet. To be a man is to call yourself a father when you put on television for the baby who has shit itself in the high chair that you’ve left it in all afternoon, walk away, and then immediately complain about the smell to your wife who just got home from the store because you were too confused by the baby formula aisle to determine what food to feed the  child that you “father.” To be a man is to get upset when your wife mentions the way in which you bastardize yourself as incompetent and useless in order to be a lazy man. To be a man is to require a woman to tell you all of this to have it cross your mind. That's your excuse.

Mac Reviews Articles: Extroverts, Your Colleagues Wish You Would Just Shut Up and Listen

Extroverts, Your Colleagues Wish You Would Just Shut Up and Listen, by Pamela Reynolds is a review of several recent Research Studies conducted by Harvard Business School to assess how well Extroverts are rated for listening ability. I've linked this article below:

Extroverts, Your Colleagues Wish You Would Just Shut Up and Listen

The motivations for the review and these studies (and my blog post) are that many people both in these studies but also anecdotally, feel that extroverts are worse listeners. People often feel as if extroverted people are "acting" and "creating a socially acceptable persona" rather than having a genuine interest in what their colleagues have to say. I wanted to review this article since myself and many of my friends are extroverts, and since having read X+Y: A Mathematician's approach to understanding Gender, I have been quite curious about ways to create a more Congressive society, or a more collaborative society and workplace, a more understanding society and workplace, and a more attentive society and workplace. To get a better definition of what this term means, try to find chapter 3 of the book mentioned above online. So, digging deeper into this Article:

"Since feeling seen and heard is important, extroverts who seem to focus on themselves may lose credibility with colleagues, the findings suggest. The research has ramifications for workplace relationships, especially as teams try to rebuild trust after two years of pandemic-related stress. Teams are often reconnecting through online platforms like Zoom where it can be harder to read social cues."

This is true. The pandemic had many ramifications for schools and workplaces -- though I would be so bold to wonder if these lines present something further. It's not just the pandemic that has brought us further into the digital world where education and business takes place, and I wonder if communication methods like emails, group chats, or other Covid-era digital communication systems have created this effect. In the past, It has been hard for me-- someone normally extroverted, but introverted online-- to break into hanging out on discord servers during the pandemic, where reading social cues to have a full conversation is minimized. 

“It was a little counterintuitive, considering that extroverts are viewed as very socially capable and gregarious people,” says Collins. “I assumed that they would be seen as good listeners as well, because, in my mind, that's part of being sociable.”

We cut to the heart of why this result is perplexing: Do extroverts come off as sociable, or do they come off as obtuse? Being both affable and a bad listener is an interesting combo to actually speak about, though it does make sense when considering many of the extroverts we all know. The only way I can reconcile this in my own life is that often when I am with extroverts (And I myself do this) Introverts are given the cues of being listened to, but then the conversation shifts back to whatever the extroverts were talking about. On one hand, I think this is understandable since people naturally want to converse with people that are the same speed and mirror speech patterns of themselves. Granted, this can be hard, since we often put it to the introverts to keep up with the extroverts, and this often pushes introverts away. From my time in MUN, recruiting and retention in general has been heavily dependent on how extroverted someone is, and whether they can keep up with everyone else in the club which has always been fairly extroverted.

"The researchers conducted six studies involving nearly 2,500 subjects. In their first study, they surveyed about 150 MBA students about the listening skills of their classmates. After ranking themselves on a personality scale, students were asked to answer four questions, including: “If you were having a conversation with [classmate], to what extent would he or she … ‘listen to what you have to say, give you a chance to speak, remember what you had said the next time you see them, and be focused on things other than the conversation at hand.’”

Responses revealed a significant, negative relationship between an individual’s self-reported extroversion and group members’ ratings of that individual’s listening behavior. In other words, more extroverted individuals were seen as worse listeners.

In a second study, the researchers investigated whether the same perception would hold true in interactions among strangers. The researchers asked 655 participants recruited from an online participant pool to think about a “familiar stranger”—someone they had seen a few times in the last couple of months but never interacted with, like a fellow passenger on a train.

Participants assessed how extroverted they thought the stranger might be, and then imagined a conversation with this person, predicting the extent to which this stranger would pay attention and listen attentively, or steer the conversation toward themselves. The researchers found that when participants rated strangers as more extroverted, they also said they were more likely to be poor listeners."

So we have these results, and they align with everything else we've been talking about. The article then goes on to give several tips about what extroverts can do to give the appearance of being more attentive, but I feel this is disingenuous. I think what may be an unpopular opinion but one I think is right is that we really do just need to create a more introvert friendly society and workplace; to take a few notes from the book that was mentioned far above, some changes that could be instituted in the workplace, or in somewhere that i have a bit more experience, higher education: (1) getting rid of open forum type discussions with one person speaking, replacing them with small group discussions (2) less emphasis on speaking assessments in general, either replacing with emails or reports where ones listening ability and attentiveness is directed toward writing that can be referred back to and (3) including more women in pod-type discussions, since men are considered to be more 'extraverted' (Akbar, 2016) and having a majority of 'introverts' would likely increase the amount of attentiveness in a discussion pod.

Overall, this was good little read for the morning, and I liked making the connection to that book I've kept mentioning. I think the extraversion-introversion spectrum is a really interesting topic, and usually doesn't get enough light in the sun because people shirk these terms off saying things like "we're all extraverted and introverted in different ways" and dismiss the spectrum, though these are widely used terms and are useful for describing archetypes in a social setting. Have a read of this article and let me know what you think.

Mac Reviews Movies: Revelation Road

 The Philosophy of Revelation Road

Revelation Road: the Beginning of the End is a 2013 religious movie about a special operations veteran turned traveling salesman in the backwoods of southern California during the rapture. This analysis hopes to look into two major questions: What qualifies for entertainment in Evangelical America (of 38 IMDb reviews, self-described Christians ranked the movie an average of 8.2/10 whilst non-Christians gave an average of 1.4/10) and what lessons does Pureflix want to teach its viewers? (The movie is a top staff pick at Pureflix, and stars David A.R. White, a producer and actor for most Pureflix media). So, with those two questions in mind, I’ll try to dissect the first 84 minutes of this film. I’ll try to be as unbiased as I can in my analysis, though I am not a Christian, and would describe myself as an agnostic that believes in a non-supernaturalist objective morality.

We are introduced to the main character, Josh, who was an ex-government assassin, now a traveling salesman that sells some kind of body armor. Josh is married to a loving wife with a young daughter, but has felt disconnected from her because of his PTSD and his wife’s Christian faith. Traveling in some small town in rural California, he meets several characters that help him understand his past, his wife’s faith, and his role in the rapture. 

Josh’s introduction is that of an incredibly bland, white knight character, that stops on the side of the road and is hit from behind by a truck with two angry townsfolk. After stepping out of the car, the townsfolk want Josh to pay for the damage to which he responds “I could be wrong, but I think you hit me” and then “Hey why don’t we just exchange each other's information”. Josh is seemingly saved from a major beating by the Biker gang known as “The Barbarians” who berate the townsfolk (more on these guys later). Josh then drives into town and tries to sell some armor to Frank, a gun store owner. Frank asks Josh three questions, and if he likes the answers, he’ll buy from him: “Are you a family man?””Do you believe in God?” “Would you trust God or this armor to protect your family?”. Frank leaves to get something from the back, and Josh is pickpocketed by Frank’s daughter, Elizabeth. After Frank tells Elizabeth to give Frank his wallet back, three of the Barbarians try to rob the store. In a series of weird PTSD induced split-personality deus ex machina, Josh hulks out and takes down the Barbarians, killing 3 of them after one says he wants to “take” Elizabeth. 

So right off the bat, the movie’s primary commentary seems to be the use of violence to protect. Even though this is a religious film, Josh is not shown to be very religious for most of the movie, and the two Christian role models in his life, Frank and his wife Rachel, take a backseat for the first half of the movie aside from the gun store scene and the barbecue scene. In actuality, we are presented with the common narrative that “Josh is a good man that avoids violence like on the road, but is not afraid to use it when people like Frank and Elizabeth are in danger.” I think we can all agree this sounds a lot like the “Good guy with a gun” narrative (Interestingly, this exact scene happens where a store is robbed and is prevented by Josh, a good man with a gun). The main problem with this message is that in this world, villains are cartoonish enough that they randomly rob gun stores, and that they are psychotic to the point of wearing over the top biker gear, talk about “taking” Frank’s daughter, and seemingly have no other motive for robbery besides just being wicked. And this really strikes at the heart of why it’s easy for Christians to get behind this “Good gunslinger” myth and why it's so hard for everyone else to. Villains like the barbarians don’t really exist in real life, but exist all the time in Christian and conservative media where antagonists aren’t often portrayed as having human motives and are overtly evil, because of their connection to sin or the devil. Evangelical media wants to imitate the stories of Augustinian Christianity by portraying wholly good characters like Josh and (mostly) wholly evil characters like the Barbarians, and Josh’s violence against them is justified because they’re so over the top evil. In most real life robberies or break-ins, the robbers usually don’t want to spill blood, want to be in and out as quickly as possible, and don’t dress like (in a Christian POV) Satan loving bikers. Keep in mind as well, Frank specifically owns a store selling firearms, a realistically bad target for a heist since everyone will be theoretically armed. 

Afterwards, Elizabeth thanks Josh and Frank invites him for lunch. Frank calls the Sheriff that brings him down to the station. The Sheriff asks him about his time serving in the military and they have an actually pretty interesting conversation about PTSD and taking a life. The Sheriff questions Josh along the lines of “Most people I know that have killed a man are shaking, but you’re as stiff as whiskey”. Obviously, this alludes to the fact that Josh has probably killed many people, and has blocked off his connection to his past, but “hulks out” with gut reactions whenever someone attacks him or threatens violence. 

After leaving the Sheriff, Josh goes and has lunch with Frank, his wife, and Elizabeth. After the barbecue, Frank takes Josh aside and laments that people are so desensitized to fighting, and thinks about how it was hard for him to return to the United States after fighting overseas. He says “the one thing they don’t train you for is coming home”. He then tries to evangelize Josh, telling him Jesus can help him overcome the rift between him and his wife, and help him deal with his trauma of hulking out during stressful situations.

Meanwhile, the leader of the Biker gang mercy kills the last gang member that survived the shootout, and says they’ll get revenge on Josh, Frank, and his family. At the Biker layer, the bikers have recreational fights, and the female Biker challenges one of the Bikers, but the leader Biker says “you’re too important.” In the end, he agrees to send her and his best lieutenant to go after Frank and his family.

So this part of the movie has more to say than the first part, talking about the use of faith in overcoming one’s problems. We are introduced to Josh’s marital problems, and that he doesn’t really remember or understand what happens when he “hulks out”. The message in these scenes are that it’s possible to heal through Christ, but that Josh has to decide for himself to heal. So I’ve known a few veterans, and I won’t say it’s improbable that you can find healing in religion. I also think it’s very interesting commentary that Frank (and the Sheriff) laments about the effects war has on his psyche, but then turns around and owns a gun store and is completely unphased by violence occurring in his store. The character of Frank is kind of a hypocrite then, since he both preaches anti-violence, but is very much man capable of and ok with violence going on around him. Seemingly, the only difference between him and the “Barbarians” is that he’s just not the aggressor in violent encounters, and doesn’t get involved in revenge. 

The most interesting thing about this couple of scenes is that Josh rejects Frank’s evangelizing offers— not what you would expect from an evangelical movie. And then you might ask “well won’t he still convert anyway at some point?” And the answer there is probably, yes, he will likely become Christian before the end of the series. However, his “journey” to faith says a lot about what watchers and producers of Pureflix think about faith. To them, Josh rejecting faith is ok, and it’s ok for him to become Christian later. This is very perplexing, since for the most part, evangelicals are quick to pass the judgement of eternal damnation on certain communities like the LGBTQIA+ or Democrats or people that have Abortions. In Revelation Road however, characters like Josh or Elizabeth can take their sweet time accepting Jesus, seemingly because of their “intrinsic goodness”. The problem with this message is that if Josh and Elizabeth are “intrinsically good” and can choose at any time to accept Christ, why during the rapture do they remain on earth? There’s probably a long conversation here about determinism vs. free will, and whether or not it is possible for every single person to be saved, but I’ll do my best to cut right to the heart of what I think. Because Josh and Elizabeth can eventually convert and join the other good souls in heaven, Pureflix believes that (most) anyone can achieve God's grace as long as they eventually do acknowledge God, which is in opposition to the Christian belief of unforgivable sin. When the rapture happens in Revelation road, good people get turned to ash and go to heaven, but those who haven’t acknowledged God, including good people like Josh and Elizabeth, are left alive since they still have a chance to go to heaven. In a way, this subliminal messaging is actually really interesting, essentially saying it’s never too late to have faith in God, and by extension, even those “sinners'' can still achieve eternal glory. 

The last part of the movie has Josh retire to a hotel where he meets a hotel owner that is sad about an ongoing war between the US and Iran, saying “They don’t even know what they’re fighting for” and then tries to help a domestic abuse victim after her boyfriend hits her. He almost kills the boyfriend and then only stops when their daughter shows up and pulls him out of his “hulking”. Josh and the woman talk about people not being able to change, and then he goes and has a conversation with the biker leader. The biker leader seems to believe that strong men don’t exist in the world, and one day the “Titans” will come back and rule the world. Josh disagrees, and says that the “Titans” are the “Tyrants” despite being the man who has killed the most people in this entire movie so far. Meanwhile, the rest of the gang attacks Frank and his wife, and the female biker helps Elizabeth escape. Josh finally calls his wife and maybe finds god? Then the rapture actually happens, and all the “good” souls are turned into white balls and go to heaven. The bikers try to chase down Elizabeth, but she runs into an Angel that helps her avoid the bikers.

Picking up where we left off, Josh's story seems to be much more about dealing with a hard past than anything specifically Christian. He goes and tries to help the domestic abuse victim, who decides she doesn’t want his help but later comes to him begging for money. He doesn’t give her any and then fights off her boyfriend. We see three sides of the more broken parts of human life: substance abuse, domestic abuse, and more living with a past of violence. The fundamental lesson to take away from this encounter is that the couple Josh attempts to help (before beating them up) are sinners like Josh and that he, either as a human or a fellow sinner, is unable to really help them. Now, you might say the lesson is “only Jesus Christ can help them” but remember at this point Josh isn’t yet a Christian. See, the part of this movie that actually makes it somewhat compelling is the fact that what stops Josh from “hulking” is the arrival of the couple's daughter— and eventually the feeling of finding God Josh experiences is heavily associated with the love he feels for his wife. I think the main surprise of the movie was that it wasn’t really Jesus that helps Josh in the end, but his love for his wife (that maybe helps him eventually find God). 

Another important piece of philosophy in this film is the conversation between Josh and the lead biker. Ironically, this is a great example of the conservative view of Authority: The biker leader wants “Titans to rise” to which Josh replies by considering them Tyrants. Ironically, Josh himself is a Titan-like violent man that can fight as well as any biker. Conservatives often rant against Tyrants despite republicans and Christians being quite common among the people that run the USA. I can only assume that this scene is there to demonstrate the evil of the biker, and how Josh is committed to defend who the biker considers the common people. Again, this makes no sense in reality where both good and bad people run society and the “Titans” often find themselves in power.

Lastly, when the gang attacks Frank and his family, Frank is shot many times and is also bearing a gun trying to kill, but then asks for the bikers forgiveness right before getting vaporized. It’s off that Frank is one moment trying to kill the bikers and the next begging for their souls to be saved. This is typical of evangelicals that often think more about peoples eternal souls than their lives on earth. 

In the very end of the movie, Elizabeth escapes and meets an Angel who tells her some of God's plan. We don’t actually get to hear what he says, but this scene seems to mostly exist to show that Elizabeth is good and needs to be god's instrument. Why is this important? I’d probably have to watch the second movie in the series but if I had to guess, Elizabeth needs to help save Josh.  

So, all in all — the movie has some ups and downs, but isn’t the worst. Looking back to the two questions I wanted to answer: what qualifies for entertainment in Evangelical America? Well, guns for one. This movie is fervent in its use of firearms, and outside of the few anti-war sentiments, usually thinks violence is righteous if it’s defending someone else. For two, evangelicals seem to enjoy characters that have to discover God. The two protagonists, Josh and Elizabeth are on the path, but have yet to find god. And three, uncomplicated villains. Even though the movie seeds some complications for the main biker, the gang is primarily depicted as a bunch of godless robbing Satanists. And why does Pureflix think this is one of their best works? Well, this is actually a good question since there seems to be two opposing answers: a) it works because it lionizes violence when it’s used by the righteous or b) is about giving up violent ways for god. It could be a bit of both, but I hope if I ever watch any sequels it is about the latter. Anyway, watch the movie and let me know what you think.