The Most Terrifying Character in History | Judge Holden and Blood Meridian



In the whole of literature there is one character who captures the imagination of anyone that comes across him. He is a monster, and perhaps the most evil character in all fiction. This is Judge Holden, and today we will be uncovering the face of evil, and his pale, outstretched hand.

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00:00 A Portrait of Evil
01:46 A Modern Mephistopheles
09:01 The Gnostic Gospel of Cormac
15:31 The Eternal Trickster
24:28 The Magic of Interpretation

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30 thoughts on “The Most Terrifying Character in History | Judge Holden and Blood Meridian”

  1. Djinn is a certain "species" in islam. Iblees (islamic version of Lucifer/satan)is from that species so the term "djinn" doesn't mean satan.it's a group of beings created before humans to traverse in Earth according to Islamic mythology.( I said mythology because I don't believe in all this 😂)

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  2. Glad to see this video out. I haven’t watched yet but recently read the book and felt a lot of the higher themes may have been lost on me so excited to hear what you have to say.

    Also here to shill the musician Jesse Welles here on YouTube, who’s heavily inspired by this book in a few songs which is what got me interested in reading it. 😂

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  3. I liked the interpretations but I wish you’d covered more specific scenes in the book. In particular I felt the scene where the kid helps another member of the gang remove an arrow from his leg was monumental in the Judge’s loss. The act represents pure selflessness on the kids part, as he risks his life, perhaps unwittingly, to remove the arrow from his leg, when no other member, even the one he helps, would do the same for him.

    I also wanted to hear your interpretation on “the blood meridian” itself and how Holden discussed the true aim was to reach your zenith of power, then die in your most perfect form. The kid lives well beyond this to become “the man” thus Holden has to kill him, without any fanfare or apparent struggle.

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  4. if there's no god, everything is permitted.

    if there is god, everything is still permitted, yet deeds will be judged, will incur eternal punishment or reward.

    this is the stick and the carrot and the human-donkey, a non-rational beast with no conscience

    or ability to see or paint any bigger picture of impact of their choices on the world.

    i would ask what religion is, what is it's end aim? is it obtaining a personal blissful experience of eternal holidays or is it making this worldly world less of a squid game, in case of christianity and some other compassion-themed creeds or maybe a divine boost to tribal will to dominate this mundane game, as it was and is in the course of history viewed from 'cynical' point of view?

    in other words: do you really need big brother or big father to figure out that reveling in sadistic entertainment is wrong, because it is, in a long run, harmful to all parties concerned? to object, to subject and to the whole dynamics of this life?

    do you need heavy handed god to stop you from causing pain for your own pleasure and thrill?

    do you need god to reject the devil? do you really need god or even earthly justice to sacrifice your sadistic drives and power fantasies for the sake of sparing the other gratuitous suffering? do you need a main prize, the top prize imaginable, guarantied to refrain from kicking a puppy?

    and if so, is it the normal or an anomaly, a pathological and fairly rare occurrence?

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  5. Fun fact, McCarthy based the judge on the actual judge Holden of Texas that rode with the glanton gang. The judge being bald is a misunderstanding on how men called cleanshaven men bald back in the day

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  6. Fun fact the glanton gang were real as was judge holden ( though not much isknown about him) written about in samuel chamberlains autobiography my confession. Apparently the glanton gang was slaughtered by the yuma tribe in real life ( minus chamberlain holden and a few others) and the fairy story line was real to

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  7. Oh no, why does this theme feel like such a perfect reflection of our current system of capitalism and consumerism? The worship of money, the relentless drive for success (defined by the system as accumulating as much wealth and power as possible), all at any cost—this mindset pits people against each other, making them believe that competition is the only way to win while in reality, everyone loses while the system grows stronger and more powerful.

    And then I also reflect on my own thoughts and wonder what this says about me and my worldview…

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  8. to me the judge comes across as a carricature of the nietzschean übermensch and its inevitable consequence: a wake of destruction. the judge is the incomplete man that has not learned to create, but has become an expert in desctruction, crippling and corrupting everything he touches.

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  9. Blood Meridian is a lot like Lord of the Flies, Heart of Darkness and Moby Dick in not only its themes, but the seemingly countless meditations that unfold from its brilliant story and characters. It gets at the heart of the dilemma of being human in this cruel universe.

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  10. You touched on something that I don’t think any other creator who talks about Judge Holden or Blood Meridian does. Which is you need to check your own world view and apply it against the Judge’s, and then figure out what you come up with. Absolutely outstanding video.

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  11. The truth reveals itself within the juxtapositionality of all eventhood
    That the archon and the christ are two sides of the same spiritual coin
    Because they are emergent. Christ story is about all the rules for growth or self family community nation
    Satan story is death story

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