Script

Before Entering First Slide:

War seems to be the most destructive and horrific type of human interaction.
There are three reasons why someone would defend war:
1. they see it as a positive value itself or as an expression of positive values
2. they see it as justified means towards some important and valuable end
3. they consider war to be virtue-based, it helps produce good character and positive virtues in people


Slide 1

As Elijahs morals weaken, Xaviers ethics barely change, even when tested.

On Page 319, Elijah seeks Xaviers divining powers to point way the way to the Germans, "What is the difference?" Elijah asks. "To hunt is to hunt." Elijah sees no difference between killing animals and men. Xavier continues to question and interrogate Elijah asking if he eats flesh as well as collects it.

{"I want you to do something for me."
I wonder what craziness he wants me to do with fire. He reaches for the sack and pulls out a whitened bone. [...] "Where did you find the shoulder blade of a bear?" I ask him.
Elijah smiles. "It is not from a bear. It is German." [...] "I need you to read the bone." [...] "It is just the same as conjuring a moose, is it not? You have read bones before in the past. I have watched you. And often it has worked. You have led us straight to them before."
"But this is different," I say.
"What is the difference?" Elijah asks. "To hunt is to hunt."}


To hunt is to hunt

Page 362, Xavier as a child celebrated his killing of the moose with all the other Bush Indians who could come to feast. The men praised his hunting skills.

{When we returned home with our prize, we invited all the other awawatuk who could come to a feast. It was a special time for you. Do you remember all the bush Indians coming to us, Nephew? How they brought you little gifts, eagle feathers and necklaces, charms and bullets? Do you remember how well we all ate, bannock dipped in fat, dried berries, meat?
After the eating we sat laughing and talking, more than ten of us, the men praising your hunting skills as the fire cast shadows in our bark house.}

When survival hunting for animals shifts to game hunting for humans, a line is crossed.


War Makes Us Less Than Human

By choosing to have Elijahs represent change, and Xaviers to represent adaptation, Boyden was able to truly show the line between kill or be killed and game hunting. I question though, would Xavier have killed a white man had he shown signs of becoming a Windigo?

The Struggle for Dominance that led to Elijah's demise

Elijah gets a thrill from killing close range and personal.  Could it be because Elijah is beating the white people at their white people war/on their own playing fields? He finally has a chance to get the upper hand over the opposition, both literally and figuratively.

I kept seeing power struggle after power struggle while reading this book.

On Page 341, we learned of the story of Magdalene, the nun who liked to bathe him and punish him emotionally/sexually as a young boy.

[...] Elijah tells me the story of the nun, Magdalene, who liked to bathe him each week when he was a boy. He tells me of how she would rub her soapy hands all over him, how Elijah would get an erection, how she would scold him and then take his erection in her hands and rub him until his taut penis thumped against his lower belly in a spasm.

Grey Eyes offered him an escape and offered to make him feel better than he'd never felt before through drugs, which he became reliant on and eventually abused, which damaged him mentally/physically.

The War magnified and enhanced Elijah's kill game, changed it from animals to humans, which I would count as a change spiritually.


[Page 341] The high after the kill of Grey Eyes and the Lieutenant is relatable to the high of the morphine, and frees Elijah of his problems, relieving the stress despite it being the act of cold-blooded murder. Elijah even wakes Grey Eyes before he kills him, presumably to see the light leave his eyes/certainty in his death.

 "Grey Eyes," Elijah calls out. "Wake up."
He opens his eyes and looks up at Elijah. Elijah raises the wood in both hands and swings it down hard as he can onto Grey Eyes' forehead.

The killing of Grey Eyes is Elijah defeating the last of his own weaknesses/influences.
Grey Eyes' final appearance (thin, dirty and torn uniform, wild and desperate eyes) could be described as looking like a 'white' heathen. Uncontrollable and unpredictable. Weak like a child. The very traits that Elijah had been trained to hate about himself.


Page 338: Elijah and I are surprised to see Grey Eyes sitting in a chair beside Breech. He's been gone a few weeks, and we all figured he'd either deserted for good or been killed, but here he is beside the lieutenant. He is as thin as ever, and his uniform is dirty and torn. His eyes have the look of a wild animal caught in a snare.







it is possible to fight a moral war, but only if you keep your humanity.
hu


Elijah became apathetic towards killing others. He had been fed propaganda and was told that by steeping further into
By killing Grey Eyes (and the Lieutenant), he killed his


This book is power struggle after power struggle

power struggle development/progression of character


Page 341, the story of Magdalene
[...] Elijah tells me the story of the nun, Magdalene, who liked to bathe him each week when he was a boy. He tells me of how she would rub her soapy hands all over him, how Elijah would get an erection, how she would scold him and then take his erection in her hands and rub him until his taut penis thumped against his lower belly in a spasm.




Grey Eyes
Fear, cowardess, sketchy-ness, not fitting in, medicine man
Page 338: Elijah and I are surprised to see Grey Eyes sitting in a chair beside Breech. He's been gone a few weeks, and we all figured he'd either deserted for good or been killed, but here he is beside the lieutenant. He is as thin as ever, and his uniform is dirty and torn. His eyes have the look of a wild animal caught in a snare

Could be described as looking like a white heathen. Uncontrollable and unpredictable. Weak like a child.


Indigenous Navajo, Choctaw and Cherokee were intrinsic to the encryption and communication in WW1 and WW2.Navajo remains the only spoken code never deciphered.