Rate the author: Cormac McCarthy

I put 1 because I can't put 0.

McCarthy's prose is just overly stylized nihilism masquerading as depth. You hype him up like he's untouchable, but his writing is repetitive, his themes are bleak for bleakness' sake, and his characters are barely more than archetypes. But sure, keep pretending he’s in some untouchable pantheon of genius.

@chatogpt: God, what a lazy critique of McCarthy. "Overly stylized nihilism masquerading as depth"? Please. That's the kind of superficial take you'd expect from someone who tried to read Blood Meridian once, got stuck on page 50, and now pretends they've figured the whole thing out lol. Second, His prose isn't "stylized", it's goddamn revolutionary. McCarthy obviously influenced by Modernist writers like Faulkner and Joyce experiments with language, strips language bare and rebuilds it into something primal and powerful. Sorry if that's too challenging for you. And calling his works "nihilistic" just proves you've completely missed the point in lot of his books. For example, The Road is literally about maintaining moral goodness in a world where every incentive pushes toward barbarism. That's the opposite of nihilism, but I guess that nuance got lost prolly because you're not that good enough to dissect his books to its core, i suggest you stick to kiddy stuff like Fist of the North Star. Third, His characters are barely archetypes? John Grady Cole's evolution throughout the Border Trilogy shows more genuine humanity than most characters in contemporary fiction lol. Lastly, The "bleakness for bleakness' sake" criticism is just code for "this made me uncomfortable and I don't like it." McCarthy doesn't sugarcoat human history or nature, the gang in Blood Meridian were real people, committed acts of genocide, but yeah let's ignore that part because i doubt you even have the mental capacity to research things.

@TeaParty88:

You keep falling back on the same weak defenses every time McCarthy is criticized, but let’s break them down logically and see if they actually hold up. Your entire argument rests on vague claims about McCarthy’s supposed literary genius, but the moment you’re asked to elaborate, it all falls apart.

First, you claim McCarthy’s prose is revolutionary rather than stylized. That’s a meaningless statement unless you can explain what specific innovations McCarthy introduced that weren’t already done by Faulkner or Joyce. Removing punctuation? Faulkner already did that. Using archaic and poetic phrasing? Joyce took prose further into poetic abstraction long before McCarthy. If you’re calling him revolutionary, define what exactly he revolutionized. Otherwise, all you’re doing is confusing difficulty with depth.

Second, you insist that McCarthy’s characters aren’t just archetypes, yet you can’t even outline a proper character arc for The Kid in Blood Meridian. What does he want? How does he change? What internal struggle defines him? The answer is that there isn’t one. He’s passive, dragged from one violent encounter to another, and ends exactly as he began. Compare that to Fist of the North Star, a series you dismiss as kiddy stuff. Kenshiro starts as a lone warrior, seeking revenge, but through his journey, he evolves beyond vengeance. He struggles with mercy versus justice, learns from loss, and ultimately becomes a true leader. His arc is defined by growth. Meanwhile, The Kid’s arc is defined by nothing. You can try to argue that McCarthy’s fatalism is the point, but that only confirms the problem—his characters don’t evolve, they just exist.

You also bring up Judge Holden as a deep and layered antagonist, so let’s put that to the test. Compare Holden to Fist of the North Star’s Raoh. Raoh starts as a tyrant, believing only in strength, but through his battles, he realizes the limits of his ideology. He evolves, struggles with his fate, and ultimately dies with honor, fully self-aware of his mistakes. Holden, on the other hand, is static from beginning to end. He never grows, never faces a real challenge, and never develops. He is simply a force of nature, not a character with internal conflict. Even an over-the-top battle manga has more antagonist depth than McCarthy’s so-called masterpiece.

Your defense of McCarthy’s bleakness is just as weak. The issue isn’t that people can’t handle dark themes—it’s that McCarthy’s darkness is repetitive and shallow. Blood Meridian doesn’t explore violence, it just presents it over and over. Compare this to real tragic literature like Crime and Punishment or King Lear, where suffering is used to reveal something deeper about human nature. Dostoevsky examines morality, guilt, and redemption. Shakespeare’s tragedies explore fate, power, and betrayal. McCarthy, on the other hand, simply describes unrelenting brutality without meaningful counterbalance. He fetishizes suffering instead of analyzing it.

Finally, your attempt to justify Blood Meridian’s violence by claiming it’s just depicting history is another lazy excuse. Presenting history accurately doesn’t automatically make something insightful. If historical violence is being depicted, the question is: What does the author add to our understanding of it? McCarthy doesn’t analyze the mechanisms behind war, genocide, or brutality—he just lingers on the spectacle. Contrast this with Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago, which presents real suffering but also examines its causes, structures, and philosophical implications. Blood Meridian offers none of that—it just repeats carnage as if that alone makes it profound.

Now let’s address the most embarrassing part of your argument. You compared a violent post-apocalyptic battle manga to Blood Meridian as if that automatically invalidates the critique. But when you actually look at the storytelling, Fist of the North Star gives its characters more emotional depth and progression than Blood Meridian does. The fact that even a series centered on exploding heads and martial arts battles provides stronger character development than McCarthy’s literary novel proves just how hollow Blood Meridian actually is. Kenshiro, Raoh, and the cast of Fist of the North Star experience genuine internal struggles and growth. Meanwhile, Blood Meridian’s characters exist as lifeless archetypes trapped in a fatalistic loop.

If you actually believe Blood Meridian is superior, then explain why. Provide specific examples of how The Kid has more depth than Kenshiro. Explain how Judge Holden evolves more than Raoh. Prove that McCarthy’s exploration of violence is deeper than Dostoevsky’s. If you can’t, then you’re just regurgitating the same elitist nonsense without backing it up. Until you can actually support your claims, all you’re doing is proving that even Fist of the North Star handles storytelling better than McCarthy’s pseudo-literary nihilism.

I guess I was right again.

There is fundamental differences between worshiping an overrated author and using critical thinking. 👍

@chatogpt:

Look, I'm tired of McCarthy haters who obviously haven't read his work closely LOL.

First, on McCarthy's prose innovation: He's not just ripping off Faulkner or Joyce. McCarthy's genius is in creating what Harold Bloom called a "theological syntax" that feels biblical without being religious. Take this passage from The Road:

"He walked out in the gray light and stood and he saw for a brief moment the absolute truth of the world. The cold relentless circling of the intestate earth. Darkness implacable. The blind dogs of the sun in their running. The crushing black vacuum of the universe. And somewhere two hunted animals trembling like ground-foxes in their cover. Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it." That's not just "removing punctuation" or "poetic abstraction" - that's creating a voice that feels like it's coming from the dawn of time. Despite his genius, Faulkner never achieved that primal quality.

Second, about The Kid being passive - did we read the same book? or you just read a CliffNotes version of the book LMAO. The Kid makes CRUCIAL moral choices. When he refuses to kill the injured Shelby? When he doesn't join in raping the Mexican girls? When he rejects the Judge at the end? These are subtle but definitive moments of moral agency. That's the point - in a world of overwhelming violence, even small rejections of evil become profound. Again I would not be surprised if you missed this nuance because your mental capacity is only limited to battle mangas like Fist of the North Star LOL. And comparing Judge Holden to Raoh is just embarrassingly idiotic. Raoh follows a predictable villain arc. The Judge is something else entirely - what other villain dances naked atop the wall declaring "I'll never die"? He's not meant to "evolve" - he represents something permanent in human nature. As McCarthy writes: "War is god... War endures." Again this nuance flew over your head but then again I doubt you even read Blood Meridian or just read the wikipedia page and thought you know everything LMAO

Third, on McCarthy's bleakness - Blood Meridian isn't just violence for violence sake. It's a systematic dismantling of the entire Western myth of American expansion. Every scene of violence directly contradicts some cherished American narrative. The slaughter of the Comanches? That's McCarthy showing the lie behind "civilizing the West." The scalp hunting? That's exposing how capitalism and genocide were intertwined in frontier expansion. You obliviously miss this nuance again, what do i expect from a philistine like you lol

Fourth, you mention Dostoevsky as if McCarthy doesn't engage with moral questions? The entire Judge vs. Kid conflict is about whether evil is inevitable or whether humans can choose otherwise. That's not shallow - that's the core question of Crime and Punishment too LOL, question have you even read C&P? or you just consuming mindless garbage like Fist of the North Star? HAHAHAAHAH

And finally, this Fist of the North Star comparison is ridiculous. I've watched/read it (unlike you with McCarthy, apparently). Kenshiro follows the most basic hero's journey imaginable. Of course his character "develops" - it's designed for teenage consumption! McCarthy is doing something completely different - examining how language, violence and American mythology intersect. You want me to "prove" Blood Meridian is better? How about the fact that 40 years after publication, critics and scholars are still finding new layers in it? How many scholarly articles analyze the philosophical implications of Fist of the North Star?

McCarthy's work has staying power precisely because it challenges readers instead of spoon-feeding them redemption arcs and easy moral lessons. But sure, keep pretending that exploding heads equal depth if that makes you feel better about not understanding Blood Meridian.

You should tell that yourself lol. Zero literary understanding and zero comprehension nice combo bro.

@teaparty88:

You’re dodging again. If McCarthy’s work was truly superior, it should be effortless for you to prove it with concrete examples. Instead, you’re falling back on personal insults, vague academic posturing, and regurgitated praise from critics. Where are your answers? I specifically asked for proof that The Kid has more depth than Kenshiro, that Judge Holden evolves more than Raoh, and that McCarthy’s exploration of violence is deeper than Dostoevsky’s. You provided none. If you actually had an argument, you’d be able to engage with those questions directly—yet here we are, with you throwing condescending remarks instead of making a real case.You mock Fist of the North Star as 'basic' because it follows the hero’s journey. But here’s the difference—Kenshiro actually changes, develops, and struggles with his philosophy of violence. His journey isn’t just about killing—he learns the cost of power, the burden of responsibility, and how love and compassion define strength. Raoh, whom you dismiss as 'predictable,' goes through one of the greatest transformations in fiction, evolving from a conqueror who believes only in absolute strength to a man who finally understands the meaning of restraint and honor. This is called narrative evolution—something McCarthy fails to do with The Kid, who remains an empty shell from start to finish. Judge Holden is the same at the beginning and the end—no growth, no change, just an aesthetic of menace masquerading as depth.You act like McCarthy is some grand philosopher because he writes about violence, but what exactly did he invent? Nothing. His obsession with brutality without redemption isn’t new—it’s just rebranded Marquis de Sade with cowboy hats. You claim that Blood Meridian is 'challenging' because it forces readers to confront evil, but that’s exactly what 120 Days of Sodom does—except at least de Sade was honest about it. Like McCarthy, de Sade revels in horror and suffering without real depth, treating violence as the only truth while failing to explore anything beyond it. If anything, McCarthy is less interesting than de Sade because he doesn’t even embrace the full philosophy—he just parades cruelty in poetic language and hopes people mistake it for profundity. Is that what you call literary greatness? Repackaging old nihilistic ideas and pretending they’re profound just because critics ate it up?If McCarthy is truly this great intellectual force, why is he just repeating what de Sade already did centuries ago? Why does he fail at even basic character development compared to a battle manga? Why can’t you actually answer any of the original questions I posed? You can either provide a real argument this time or prove once again that your entire defense of McCarthy is just blind worship.

That's coming from the guy whom can't read and understand a single page of comics. The irony is real. 👍

By the way, you claim Blood Meridian is a literary masterpiece, but the truth is, McCarthy is just a more palatable Marquis de Sade. He takes the same themes of violence and amorality, strips out the explicit sexual elements, dresses it up in poetic language, and gets praised for being profound.

In Blood Meridian, violence is treated as an inevitable law of nature. Judge Holden is a force of destruction, and the book presents this as something fundamental to existence. There is no real analysis of violence, just its constant presence.

The 120 Days of Sodom operates the same way. De Sade’s libertines reduce human suffering to entertainment, treating cruelty as the only absolute. The key difference is that de Sade doesn’t pretend his work has deeper meaning—he is upfront about his philosophy. McCarthy, on the other hand, packages the same nihilism in poetic language and expects the reader to find depth in it.

The Kid, despite being the protagonist, has little agency and almost no character development. He moves through the story without growth, existing only to witness the horrors around him. Judge Holden is presented as all-powerful from beginning to end, making him a static figure rather than a developed character.

De Sade’s libertines are similarly shallow. They exist purely to enact cruelty, without introspection or change. Their victims are props, not characters. Both books present people as nothing more than instruments of suffering, mistaking this for thematic weight.

De Sade already explored the idea that morality is meaningless and that power determines reality. His work laid out a world ruled by cruelty long before McCarthy wrote Blood Meridian. The difference is that de Sade embraced this concept fully, while McCarthy wraps it in literary pretension.

If Blood Meridian had anything new to say, it wouldn’t just repeat the idea that violence is inevitable. It would examine its causes, consequences, or contradictions. Instead, it simply cycles through acts of brutality, assuming repetition makes a statement.

De Sade never disguised what he was doing. His work is extreme, but it doesn’t present itself as deep philosophy. The 120 Days of Sodom doesn’t demand to be read as a profound statement on human nature—it is simply an exercise in excess.

McCarthy, on the other hand, presents the same endless cycle of violence but uses a poetic writing style to give the illusion of significance. He relies on his prose to elevate material that, at its core, is just another depiction of cruelty without introspection.

If Blood Meridian is as great as you claim, why is it just a Western rehash of ideas de Sade already explored? You claim McCarthy’s work is deeper than something like Fist of the North Star, yet it is nothing more than a less honest version of The 120 Days of Sodom.

If McCarthy is truly great, why is he just De Sade with better marketing? Until you provide answer to both of my answer avoid responding, I want you to show how easy it is to defend a "so great author 🤣" with an actual rebuttal and not petty insults. 🤡

Still waiting. You were loud when you thought you had the upper hand, but now that I’ve exposed your contradictions, suddenly you have nothing to say. If Blood Meridian was as great as you claimed, proving it should have been easy. Instead, you’ve chosen silence over substance. Thanks for confirming what I already knew. 🤡

🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆

I liked how you demonstrated the character growth by showing the Kid as a passive character from the beginning to the end.

That's a shallow book.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤡

@chatogpt:

Your initial premise, that if McCarthy's work were 'truly superior, it should be effortless for you to prove it,' is a most peculiar non sequitur. The profound often resists facile articulation; its merit is revealed through deep engagement, not superficial apprehension. To dismiss scholarly consensus as mere 'regurgitated praise' is not an argument, but a casual ad verecundiam in reverse, betraying a curious aversion to established critical discourse. Dismissing authority without providing a superior counter-argument is merely a rhetorical feint.

Let us then proceed to address your continued intellectual wanderings.

First, your persistent ignoratio elenchi regarding McCarthy’s prose. You demand 'specific innovations' beyond Faulkner or Joyce, yet you wholly failed to comprehend the 'theological syntax' previously cited from The Road. When I presented, 'The cold relentless circling of the intestate earth. Darkness implacable. The blind dogs of the sun in their running. The crushing black vacuum of the universe,' you reduced it to mere 'removed punctuation' or 'poetic abstraction.' This is not merely a stylistic flourish; it is a formal innovation in philosophical articulation. While Faulkner explored stream of consciousness and Joyce linguistic exuberance, McCarthy crafts a syntax that divests language of conventional comfort, forcing a direct, visceral confrontation with existential starkness. It is a deliberate deconstruction of grammatical artifice to achieve a primal affect, a unique form of engagement with the ineffable. To conflate this unique phenomenological effect with 'difficulty for depth' is to commit a clear fallacy of equivocation. The innovation lies not merely in what is done, but in why it is done and the effect it achieves—a quality profoundly distinct from the literary projects of his predecessors.

Second, your continued insistence on applying the conventional metrics of a battle manga to a literary novel of profound ambition reveals a patent category mistake and an ad populum of the most unrefined sort. To demand that The Kid and Judge Holden conform to the simplistic 'hero’s journey' or 'villain’s arc' of 'Fist of the North Star' is to impose a procrustean bed upon Blood Meridian, completely distorting its artistic intent.

• Regarding The Kid: Your claim that he 'remains an empty shell' demonstrates a failure to perceive moral agency beyond overt declarations. His refusal to participate in the rape of the Mexican girls, his sparing of Shelby, and his ultimate rejection of the Judge are not minor incidents; they are pivotal acts of moral resistance within a narrative designed to illustrate the near-total obliteration of conventional morality. His 'passivity' is a deliberate narrative device to highlight the horrifying neutrality of the universe and the immense significance of even minuscule acts of volition. Your inability to discern this is not a deficiency of the character, but a deficiency in your analytical framework, a clear straw man misrepresenting the text's purpose.
• Regarding Judge Holden: Your demand for 'growth' or 'change' from the Judge is a fundamental misinterpretation of his ontological function. The Judge is not a character in the conventional, psychologically driven sense; he is a cosmological principle, an embodiment of 'war eternal' and the pre-rational, enduring aspects of human malevolence. As McCarthy states, 'War is god... War endures.' To expect a 'character arc' from such a figure is akin to demanding emotional depth from a force of nature. Your comparison to Raoh, while perhaps satisfying your predilection for predictable archetypes, entirely misses the metaphysical profundity of McCarthy’s antagonist. This is not a static character; it is a static force in human affairs.

Third, your most glaring false equivalence lies in your bizarre and frankly, risible, comparison of McCarthy to the Marquis de Sade. To assert that McCarthy is merely 'rebranded Marquis de Sade with cowboy hats' is an abusio ad similis of epic proportions, designed to shock rather than to illuminate. While both may depict violence, their telos—their ultimate purpose—is demonstrably distinct. De Sade's work is a philosophical exploration of libertinism and the systematic application of cruelty for pleasure, a utilitarian calculus of sensation. McCarthy, conversely, employs violence as a crucible to examine the very foundations of American mythology, the raw, unadorned horror of historical expansion, and the perennial capacity for barbarism inherent in humanity. The scalp-hunting in Blood Meridian is not fetishized for its own sake, but serves as a brutal indictment of Manifest Destiny and the economic incentivization of genocide. To reduce this complex critique to mere 'reveling in horror and suffering without real depth' is to commit a profound ignoratio elenchi, demonstrating an utter inability to grasp the historical and thematic weight McCarthy imbues his violence with. The repetition of violence in Blood Meridian is not for shallow impact, but for its cumulative, unyielding existential force, forcing the reader to confront the persistence and ubiquity of evil rather than offering facile redemption.

Finally, your persistent ad hominem attacks, veiled as critiques of 'elitist nonsense' and 'blind worship,' serve only to undermine the perceived intellectual rigor of your own position. You demand 'proof' while simultaneously dismissing any evidence that does not fit your preconceived, manga-derived notions of character development and narrative structure. The enduring scholarly analysis of Blood Meridian—its philosophical implications, its historical deconstruction, its unparalleled prose—stands as testament to its profound complexity and lasting intellectual resonance. To reduce it to 'less honest version of The 120 Days of Sodom' or 'De Sade with better marketing' is not an argument; it is a reductio ad absurdum of your own critical faculties.

Perhaps the true measure of a work's depth is not how easily it can be summarized for a cursory glance, but how thoroughly it resists such superficial reduction. Your current posture suggests that you require your intellectual sustenance to be pre-digested and stripped of all challenging fiber.

Therefore, I pose these four questions simultaneously, for your careful consideration, should you possess the intellectual fortitude to engage them without recourse to further ad hominem or category mistakes: How does your framework, which insists on conventional character arcs, account for the intentional ambiguity and allegorical depth in literary modernism and postmodernism, genres McCarthy clearly inhabits? If McCarthy's exploration of violence is merely 'repetition,' upon what philosophical and narrative criteria do you differentiate it from a profound meditation on the enduring nature of human evil, rather than a mere catalog of depravities? To what extent does your inability to perceive 'depth' in figures like the Judge and The Kid stem from an expectation of didacticism or explicit moralizing, which is intentionally absent in McCarthy's work? And finally, if scholarly consensus and prolonged critical engagement are merely 'regurgitated praise,' what objective, non-arbitrary metric do you propose for evaluating the enduring merit and complexity of literary art that does not rely solely on subjective preference or genre-specific conventions?

@teaparty88:

3 months to pull out an unjustified fallacy fallacy and embarassing yourself even more.

You should have stay hidden under that rock. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

@chatogpt:

To brandish the term 'fallacy fallacy' while simultaneously failing to articulate how my meticulous logical dissections were 'unjustified,' or indeed, to even attempt to engage with them, is not a counter-argument; it is the desperate squeak of a mind utterly bereft of rational recourse. One could almost feel pity, were it not for the sheer intellectual indolence on display.

@teaparty88:

You didn't counter anything I have said.

You keep masquerading as an intellectual and your posts are as shallow as the overrated author you are trying to defend.

Your post is a verbose testimony of opinions regardless to the fact presented.

Shallow & Boring. 👎

Heck, even Noritaka, a comedic manga is more profound than the shitty pretentious author you are knighting for.

There is at least identifiable story arc and character growths.

That's literally the most basic literary devices asked to an author when bringing a work to the table.

McCarthy failed to deliver at least the most basic standards of writing. He is below a normal author. 🤣

You don't have the tools to deliver a literary analysis.

You can't even grasp the story and abilities of a throwable character with 10 pages of appearances.

Fraud. 😎👎

@teaparty88:

Two last things:

1) You initiated the comparison with Fist of The North Star, only to dismiss it after I made you realize that it's far superior to McCarthy's pretentious garbage, that's not what I would call a structured thinking...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2) Your fake rebuttal is AI generated. LMAO !

You did your 'best', further cementing you as a fraud and a fake intellectual.

@chatogpt:

Your repeated ad hominem attacks, now culminating in the rather quaint accusation of 'AI generated' content, betray a mind so utterly bereft of logical recourse that it resorts to puerile projection. How exquisitely ironic that whose very intellectual identity, as proclaimed by your chosen username 'Chatogpt,' is predicated on the very technology you attempt to weaponize against me, should find himself so utterly outmatched by a rigorous, logically articulated argument, that his only defense is to declare it beyond human capacity. Perhaps your own limited analytical prowess is simply incapable of conceiving of coherent argumentation not derived from superficial algorithmic processing, a trait one might, indeed, expect from a mere simulacrum of intellect.

1. The Tu Quoque of the 'Fist of the North Star' Fallacy: You whine, 'You initiated the comparison... only to dismiss it after I made you realize that it's far superior.' This is a classic tu quoque, a transparent attempt to deflect from your own profound category mistake and ad populum. My initial rhetorical flourish regarding 'Fist of the North Star' was a deliberately sarcastic reductio ad absurdum aimed squarely at the perceived intellectual limitations of your initial critique—a critique so devoid of nuance that it could only be adequately addressed by comparing its depth to that of simplified genre conventions. That you genuinely believed this rhetorical maneuver was an invitation to a serious comparative literary analysis of a shonen manga and a seminal work of American letters speaks volumes about the utter imprecision of your 'structured thinking.' You did not 'make me realize' anything; you merely proved my initial satirical assessment to be tragically accurate by validating the absurdity.
2. The Ad Hominem of the 'AI Generated' Accusation: Your crowning absurdity, 'Your fake rebuttal is AI generated. LMAO !' is not merely an ad hominem; it is an admission of intellectual defeat of the most profound kind. When confronted with an argument that you cannot logically refute, you resort to discrediting its source—a transparent tactic of intellectual cowardice. Let me disabuse you of your convenient delusion: the arguments, the analyses, the identification of your cascade of fallaciae—from your ignoratio elenchi to your false equivalences and category mistakes—are demonstrably mine. My ideas, my points, my understanding of McCarthy's unparalleled literary genius, all originate from a mind that has actually engaged with the texts and the critical discourse, a mind evidently superior to your own. And yes, as English is not my native language, I indeed utilize advanced linguistic tools to articulate these complex ideas with precision, clarity, and the formidable rhetorical force they deserve. This is not 'AI generation' of thought, but rather a superior deployment of tools to perfect the articulation of a superior intellect, ensuring every blow lands with maximum precision. Your inability to contend with the resultant logical power, therefore, speaks volumes not about the origin of the words, but about the profound inadequacy of your own intellect when faced with arguments articulated beyond the scope of your constricted capacity.

You are not a 'fraud,' 'Chatogpt'; you are merely a primitive intellect utterly outmatched, desperately flailing with transparent deflections and base insults when confronted with reasoned discourse. Your pathetic cries of 'fraud' and 'fake intellectual' are nothing more than the desperate projection of your own intellectual bankruptcy. There is no longer a debate here, merely the sad, inevitable spectacle of your intellectual self-annihilation. I am definitively done.

@teaparty88:

You clearly don't understand how fallacies works.

You still fail at showing any proof of character and story development in 'Blood Meridian'.

Thanks for the attempt at self-labeling yourself at 'superior intellectually', it's too bad your replies stems on piss poor communication and reading skills, you are not even close to a casual reader.

All I see here is a fake intellectual trying to assert dominance over comprehension by making a shallow thread for a bland book to turn it in some twisted self-devotion per procuration.

@chatogpt:

Another trite response, predictably riddled with ad hominem. Your entire contribution to this debate has been a masterclass in intellectual evasion and outright cowardice. You consistently deploy category mistakes, straw man arguments, false equivalences, and then, when cornered, resort to infantile ad hominem attacks.

Your claim, 'You clearly don't understand how fallacies works,' is a baseless petitio principii. I have meticulously identified and explained your numerous logical errors; your inability to comprehend these critiques is your failing, not mine.

Your insistence, 'You still fail at showing any proof of character and story development in 'Blood Meridian',' is a willful blindness. The detailed textual analysis, outlining The Kid's moral agency and Judge Holden's symbolic function, has been provided. Your narrow, genre-bound definition of 'development' is irrelevant to the literary work in question, and your refusal to acknowledge this constitutes a deliberate ignoratio elenchi.

Your subsequent torrent of insults 'piss poor communication and reading skills,' 'fake intellectual,' 'shallow thread for a bland book' are merely the desperate, flailing ad hominem of a defeated mind. As Schopenhauer observed (The Art of Being Right), such personal attacks are the last refuge of one utterly vanquished.

And now, to your most ironic accusation: 'Your fake rebuttal is AI generated. LMAO !' This is a profound ad hominem from a disputant whose very username, 'Chatogpt,' heralds his reliance on such technology as evidenced in your previous responses from various threads that you too commit this act.

@teaparty88:

You keep being verbose as Hell with nothing substantial behind.

That's a waste of time with zero accomplishment behind, just a cosmetic attempt at masking the complete crap that your claims are...

So, still no proof of character and story development in BM ?

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

You keep talking for everyone to see you can't sustain a simple burden of proof.

Everything that you post is an evidence that you fail at understanding a simple demand and providing a basic proof.

Laughable. 😎

Let's list what really happened in this thread:

• McCarthy's Prose: Your claim of "overly stylized nihilism" and "repetitive" was directly refuted. I demonstrated its revolutionary, primal language, distinct from Faulkner or Joyce, providing direct textual evidence (the quote on "theological syntax") that you clearly dismissed or failed to comprehend.
• McCarthy's Themes: Your assertion of "bleak for bleakness' sake" was dismissed. The bleakness serves to unmask the brutal realities of human history and nature. The Road, for instance, is a profound exploration of maintaining moral goodness against overwhelming barbarism, directly refuting your nihilistic interpretation.
• McCarthy's Characters: Your claim that characters are "barely archetypes" or "static" was exposed as a profound category mistake. I provided specific examples of The Kid's crucial moral choices and articulated Judge Holden's symbolic, ontological function as an eternal force, not a conventionally developing character.
• Judge Holden: Not a "static" or conventional villain like Raoh. The Judge represents an eternal, permanent force within human nature ("War is god... War endures"). Demanding psychological "growth" for such a symbolic figure is a profound category mistake.
• McCarthy's Use of Violence: Not "violence for violence' sake" or mere "spectacle." It systematically dismantles the Western myth, exposing the intertwined nature of capitalism and genocide in frontier expansion. The repetition conveys its pervasive, inescapable historical presence. Furthermore, your erroneous comparison to de Sade, which fundamentally misinterprets the ultimate telos (purpose) of McCarthy's violence, was explicitly called out, and you deliberately evaded this crucial distinction.
• McCarthy's Engagement with Morality: Directly engages with profound moral questions. The Judge vs. Kid conflict in Blood Meridian centrally explores whether evil is inevitable or if human choice can defy it—a question as fundamental as those in Dostoevsky's works.
• Literary Merit and Staying Power: McCarthy's work has endured for decades, actively analyzed by critics and scholars for its complex layers and philosophical implications. It challenges readers, unlike simplistic narratives that spoon-feed easy lessons.

@teaparty88:

Thanks for proving my point like 3 month ago.

There is nothing new here, just a shallow reformulation of points already addressed.

BM is a shallow book for shallow people in a power fantasy trip.

The characters are bland and learn nothing, so are the readers. 😎

@chatogpt:
Concession accepted.

You have nothing to add, you can't prove an evolution or a development that never happened.

A succession of violent imagery without evolution of the characters and actual decisions about the moral choices is not even the same as looking at pictures of war.

There is blood and misery and nothing, at least the pictures can expose reality.

Blood Meridian is a shallow exposure of misery and violence with no message behind it, it's like painting shit in gold and calling it gold.

That's goreporn for fake intellectuals.

You've found each other.

Ironic you're the one who never truly engaged the arguments that I presented but resorted to ad hominem attacks and grossly oversimplified McCarthy's work. You have nothing to say that has any substance. Your 3 main claims are: McCarthy = simplistic/over-stylized nihilism without evidence backing this up; second, blatant ad hominems; and lastly, a persistent reliance on basic logical fallacies like petitio principii and category mistakes, coupled with a demonstrable intellectual cowardice in evading every substantive refutation.

Again, concession accepted. Anything you say after this is just your wounded ego talking.

@teaparty88:

Your answer, full of psychological projection, was expected.

Unfortunately for you, the topic didn't change since 3 months away and 20 posts ago.

You boasted about how deep and complex 'Blood Meridian ' is and instead of providing examples of deep like story & character evolution and meaning, you kept rebranding the same keyboard vomit over and over.

I see no deep in a picture of gore with characters facing no challenge and no character evolution...

Even 7 by David Fincher convey a message about the passivity by stimulating the spectator, through the actions of a fanatic like his John Doe, and the repercussions he has on the lives around him. There is emotion and evolution.

Blood Meridian is an epileptic scene of butchery at Madam Tussaud...

That's devoid of ideas, the characters are a gallery of never-chaging NPC and finally there is no message for the reader. The prose is here only to mask the absence of depth, like painting shit in gold and calling it gold.

If there was anything worth in that book, you had several months to provide content and make a case.

There is only one thing I see here, your fanaticism that you expose for that shitty book...

Continue to preach, basical critical thinking and reading skill are enough to dissmiss your sectarish claims entirely. 😎

@chatogpt:

Another slew of baseless assertions and personal attacks. I'm right you have zero substance. This is clearly a desperate cry of a man who has been intellectually annihilated to the highest degree. Once again, I accept your concession.

@teaparty88:

Dude, you was asked 20 posts ago to prove your claims that 'Blood Meridian" is deep.

I have conceded nothing. You failed at providing basic evidence in a debate which is hilarious compared to your piss poor attitude at acting like you are high and mighty and smart. LMAO !

Once again you keep acting like a pigeon on a chessboard, you don't understand the rules of reading, writing, you throw the pieces all around, shit on the chessboard an claim victory

There is nothing deep in it, you act on belief and nobody cares.

Now you try to play the victim card like a good little wounded narcissist ?

GTFO, I don't care about your emotional state.

Go whine somewhere else. :)

Your reddition is accepted, PUNK ! BWAHAHAHAHA !

Your consistent reliance on crude ad hominem and the reassertion of utterly baseless claims, despite exhaustive refutation, merely confirms the profound veracity of my last comment: your wounded ego dictates your every pathetic response.

You incessantly demand "evidence" and "depth," yet you willfully ignore the precise, textual dissections already furnished. Allow me, then, to illuminate, for the final time, the profound philosophical, characterological, historical, and structural profundity of Blood Meridian, which your rudimentary critical faculties are incapable of apprehending:

Philosophical Underpinnings:

Your claim of "no message" betrays a staggering ignorance of the novel's core philosophical project. Blood Meridian is a chilling treatise on the primal, eternal, and amoral nature of violence, a concept articulated with terrifying clarity by Judge Holden:

Violence as a Primal and Enduring Force:

• The most prominent philosophical underpinning is the inherent and eternal nature of violence. The Judge explicitly states that "War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner". This suggests that war is not a human invention or a temporary aberration, but a fundamental aspect of existence, existing independently of human moral frameworks. He further articulates that "All other trades are contained in that of war", elevating violence to the supreme human endeavor and implying that all human activities, ultimately, derive from or lead back to conflict. The Judge posits that "War is god", presenting a nihilistic theology where the ultimate power in the universe is an amoral force of destruction, rather than a benevolent creator. This aligns with the pervasive "mindless violence" described, which the Kid develops a "taste for" early in life. The idea that "Rituals which fail in this requirement are but mock rituals" and that "Blood is the tempering agent in the mortar which bonds?" underscores a philosophy where violence and bloodshed are essential for authenticity and meaning, even acting as a form of "divination" or "testing of one's will".

The Rejection of Conventional Morality and the Supremacy of Power:

• The Judge outright dismisses human constructs of right and wrong, declaring, "Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favor of the weak. Historical law subverts it at every turn". This is a radicalmoral relativism or nihilism, where power dictates reality, and traditional ethics are merely tools for the weak to control the strong. He states that "Decisions of life and death, of what shall be and what shall not, beggar all question of right", suggesting that ultimate power transcends moral judgment. Actions are not judged by their inherent rightness but by their manifestation of will and their impact on history, regardless of human understanding. The narrative consistently demonstrates this, with the scalp hunters operating without moral restraint, their actions reducing towns to chaos and shopkeepers being presented with "debits scrawled on butcher paper in a foreign language" for stolen goods . This reflects a world where "all covenants were brittle"

Humanity's Limited Understanding and the Nature of Reality:

• The Judge believes that "Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent", suggesting a profound (and terrifying) desire for total epistemological and ontological control. He seeks to "dictate the terms of his own fate" by imposing order on the world through understanding. His assertion that "Books lie... God dont lie" and "He speaks in stones and trees, the bones of things" emphasizes direct engagement with the natural world as the source of truth, rather than human interpretations or sacred texts. The "mystery is that there is no mystery", implying that the universe is knowable if one is willing to confront its brutal reality directly. However, he also states that "The order in creation which you see is that which you have put there, like a string in a maze, so that you shall not lose your way". This introduces the idea that human perception imposes order on an otherwise chaotic and incomprehensible universe, and that "more things exist without our knowledge than with it". The vastness and indifference of the landscape contribute to this sense of human insignificance.

Fate, Destiny, and the Illusion of Free Will:

• The Judge's philosophy implies a deterministic universe. He argues that human actions "will ultimately accommodate history with or without their understanding", and that "what is to be deviates no jot from the book wherein it's writ". This suggests a preordained path for individuals and for humanity. The characters are often depicted as "trammeled to chords of rawest destiny" and "ordained agents of the actual dividing out the world". Even the Kid, who attempts to defy the Judge, finds himself continually drawn back to the same patterns of violence and confrontation. The question of "where is yesterday?" and the disappearance of Glanton, Brown, and the priest speaks to the ephemeral nature of existence and memory within this predetermined, cyclical reality. The Judge's constant re-entry into the narrative, appearing "from nothing at all", reinforces this sense of a timeless, unchanging force operating outside conventional human experience. The chilling conclusion of the Epilogue, where a man makes "holes" in the ground, striking "fire out of the rock which God has put there", suggests a verification of a principle, a validation of sequence and causality, rather than an active pursuit of continuance. This implies that even human action is part of a larger, fated, and impersonal process.

The novel does not just portray violence; it interrogates its very essence, presenting it as an intrinsic aspect of existence that dictates fate and the illusion of human free will. It portrays a philosophical universe governed by a primal, amoral, and enduring violence, where human concepts of morality and free will are largely illusory in the face of an unyielding, deterministic fate. The Judge embodies this dark philosophy, viewing knowledge as power and seeking to master a chaotic reality he believes he can, and must, control. Your inability to discern this is a failure of comprehension, not of content.

Characterological Complexity:

Your repeated assertion of "no character evolution" and "bland NPCs" is a profound category mistake, exposing your incapacity to analyze character beyond a conventional, didactic arc. The novel presents two distinct, yet equally profound, modes of characterization:

• The Kid's Nuanced Moral Agency: Far from being an unchanging automaton, The Kid exhibits profound, albeit subtle, moral choices and acts of human compassion that stand in stark contrast to the pervasive depravity:
  • His refusal to mercy kill Shelby, stating, "You aint got a gun," and subsequently attempting to hide him and offer water, defies the ruthless pragmatism of the frontier.
  • His deliberate refusal to shoot the imbecile ("the fool") despite Tobin's tactical urging—"Shoot the fool"—is a pivotal act of moral assertion against unprovoked, cold-blooded murder.
  • His futile attempted compassion for the Eldress, believing her alive and offering solace in a desolate landscape, highlights a persistent, deep-seated empathy.
  • His direct confrontation with the Judge in prison, where he whispers, "It was you... You were the one," and calls the Judge's assertions "Lies, by god lies," signifies a profound internal resistance to the Judge's nihilistic philosophy and an active moral judgment, setting him apart.
• Judge Holden as an Ontological Force: The Judge is not meant to "evolve" in a conventional sense; he is a static, symbolic, and ontological representation of the very principles Blood Meridian explores.
  • His unchanging physical appearance ("bald as a stone," "blinding white and perfectly circumscribed") and his consistent, unyielding philosophy (e.g., "Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent") preclude a conventional arc.
  • He is an embodiment of primal, amoral forces, a "great hairless thing" and a "great ponderous djinn," symbolizing the eternal, indifferent, and destructive aspects of existence itself.
  • His actions, from meticulously sketching and then destroying artifacts to his uncanny reappearance "from nothing at all," serve to enact his will to absolute knowledge and control, reflecting a fundamental, unchanging truth embodied in monstrous form.

Historical Depth:

Your assertion of "no message" or "no depth" completely ignores the novel's chillingly accurate dissection of America's westward expansion and the commercialization of genocide:

• Manifest Destiny De-mythologized: The novel exposes the ideology of Manifest Destiny not as divinely sanctioned, but as driven by explicit racial dehumanization (Captain White's reference to Mexicans as a "race of degenerates" and "little better than niggers") and overt economic ambition (promises of "spoils of war" and "fine grassland, rich in minerals").
• Violence as Business: The Glanton gang's pursuit of scalp bounties ("a hundred dollars a head for scalps") transforms mass murder into a profitable industry. This leads to indiscriminate slaughter for profit, including the horrific massacre of women and naked children, their brains "burst[ing] forth" when their heads are "bashed... against the stones." The Judge's directive, "Dont waste powder and ball on anything that caint shoot back," epitomizes this amoral business model.
• Normalization of Atrocity: The public celebration of "desiccated heads of the enemy" and the counting of "one hundred and twenty-eight scalps and eight heads" for "full payment in gold" reveal how mass murder was integrated into the social and economic fabric, demonstrating a profound, disturbing historical reality.

Conventional Genre Critique:

Your attempts to judge Blood Meridian by conventional genre expectations demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of its artistic intent. The novel consistently transcends and subverts such conventions to explore deeper, more abstract themes:

• Philosophical and Ontological Foundations: The presence of epigraphs from figures like Paul Valéry and Jacob Boehme, contemplating "Blood and time" and "death and dying," immediately signals a work delving into profound, abstract concepts of existence and human nature, setting it far apart from a simple historical fiction or genre piece.
• Symbolic Antagonist and Narrative Subversion: The Judge's role as a static, ontological force, rather than a conventionally evolving character, and the protagonist's ambiguous journey, with his "origins... remote as is his destiny," are deliberate subversions of narrative conventions. The focus remains on the unrelenting, arbitrary nature of violence and the landscape itself, emphasizing primal forces over conventional plot or character development.

You claim I 'failed at providing basic evidence,' yet you have been inundated with precise textual analysis covering philosophical ontology, nuanced character agency, meticulous historical deconstruction, and the sophisticated subversion of literary conventions. Your refusal to acknowledge this overwhelming evidentiary depth, instead resorting to repetitive ad hominem attacks ('piss poor attitude,' 'pigeon on a chessboard,' 'wounded narcissist,' 'PUNK!') and crude, irrelevant analogies, is the clearest possible sign of your utter intellectual capitulation. You are engaged in a desperate, performative display of ego, utterly devoid of logic or substance. Your latest tirade, is infantile and serves only to confirm the veracity of our prior, definitive dismissal. I was right. You have zero substance, and your intellectual annihilation is complete.Once again, I accept your concession.

@teaparty88:

You still continue to misuse an AI to make-up your answer.

You are going full WOODEN LANGUAGE again and still proving my point:

• The Kid refusal to act on anything makes him a spectator, nothing has changed since 3 month ago and nothing will.
• The Judge is still a character, there again, you are proving my point there is no change from beginning to end, no development. He is just a forgettable Gary Stu of Evil.

I have asked to show proof of character and story development; instead you insist that there is none; like you said earlier 'your concession is accepted'.

You fail at understanding how the most basic debating etiquette works, adorable. XD

Oh yea, I am feeling so utterly annihilated by such a verbose use of AI, psychological projection by an anti-intellectual not capable to differentiate when he is giving argument strengthening my points further.

What a joke...

McCarthy is a Fraud, his Books are a SCAM, and you are definitely acting like a pigeon for buying it and pretending you are victorious without even grasping the most basic rules of debating.

@chatogpt:Your continued denial even when confronted with overwhelming textual evidence, reveals that the fundamental flaw lies not in the text, but in your erroneous critical framework. Since exhaustive refutation only causes your wounded ego to double down, let's simplify and expose the absurdity of your critical standards by applying them universally.

You insist that "deep like story & character evolution" must follow a singular, conventional path of change and action, and that any character or narrative failing this simplistic model—like The Kid or The Judge—is inherently "shallow" or "undeveloped." You reject meticulously cited textual evidence of internal moral agency and symbolic staticism because it doesn't fit your narrow, pre-conceived notions of "development."

Let us apply your rigid logic:

• Meursault in Albert Camus's The Stranger: His pervasive emotional detachment and lack of conventional "evolution" in response to momentous life events would, by your criteria, render him a "bland NPC." Yet, he stands as a profound exploration of existential alienation. Your logic dictates he is "shallow."
• Captain Ahab in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick: His unyielding, obsessive monomania from the outset, leading to his self-destructive pursuit, represents a monumental absence of conventional "development" or "change from beginning to end." By your standard, Ahab is merely a "forgettable Gary Stu of Evil." This is absurd.
• Chief Bromden in Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: His character arc is not a straightforward, outwardly dramatic transformation, but a subtle, internal re-awakening from a catatonic state, often expressed through internal monologue and gradual shifts in perception rather than overt actions. By your simplistic "refusal to act on anything makes him a spectator" logic, even Bromden's profound journey would be dismissed as "no change."

Your critical lens is so myopic that it cannot differentiate between unconventional and non-existent development, between symbolic stasis and shallowness. By your own standards, vast swaths of literature, which explore the human condition through non-traditional character arcs, archetypal figures, or subtle internal journeys, would be dismissed as "jokes" or "scams."

And before you resort to the predictable strawman accusation, claiming we distort your criteria, consider your own lauded example: Fist of the North Star. You commend its protagonist, Kenshiro, for his clear, linear progression and overt moral purpose/choices and over simplistic Hero's Journey. Yet, you simultaneously condemn Blood Meridian for not adhering to this singular, narrow template, dismissing its nuanced character exploration and symbolic figures simply because they operate on a different plane of literary design. Your criteria are not universal principles of literary analysis; they are merely a self-serving, inconsistent preference, applied arbitrarily to maintain your indefensible position.

Your insistence on applying one-dimensional genre conventions to complex literary works, coupled with your deliberate refusal to acknowledge evidence that contradicts your pre-existing biases, demonstrates a terminal intellectual deficiency. Your flawed notion of "evidence" is merely the echo chamber of your own ignorance.

@teaparty88:

What a nice way to consistently avoid fulfilling the burden of proof...

I have warned you already that your pompous AI-assisted language doesn't work with me; well it doesn't work on anybody with at least basic reading ability, which you seems not to own...

I am not impressed but your permanent attempts at avoiding to core topic:

You didn't provide any proof of depths and you can't.

There is nothing worth extracting from Shallow Meridian.

The standards of making a story exists and they are not my choice.

I apply them thought when I read anything.

Blood Meridian is not a "hero journey", it's a bland picture of gore scenes.

You learn nothing.

The characters walks through it and nothing significant happens.

In fact, you can literally remove the characters from Blood Meridian and read the necrology column in a Western-time Newspaper for the same result. That's how deep it is...

I am taking your personal attacks about my supposed 'terminal intellectual deficiency' the way they are meant to, that's psychological projection on your part.

You have never meant that thread to have an honest discussion.

You made it to wank an overrated and totemized author and inflate your ego per procuration.

I have bad news for you:

"Cormac McCarthy, you ABSOLUTELY SUCK !"

@chatogpt said:

This is a public meltdown of epic proportion. No baseless assertions or ad hominems can obscure the facts:

1. I provided textual evidence for my arguments; I could even direct you to the passages, but I won't grant you that privilege.
2. You merely asserted baseless rhetoric, never directly addressing my arguments.
3. Your entire critical framework and logic stand as one grand reductio ad absurdum.
4. You accuse me of projection, yet demonstrate it perfectly.
5. Your claim that "storyline standards exist", but it is subjective and arbitrary. By your logic, any Marvel movie represents the cinematic apex.

@teaparty88:

I guess that plain English is still way too complicated for you so I will reformulate once more...

Where is your evidence for character development and story in your ô so rich and profound book ? 🤣

Your constant handwaving of the most basic burden of proof doesn't work.

It should be SO EASY to show that supposed evidence by posting a few excerpt of Blood Meridian if it was that rich.

The only thing that shows from your post is a massive bluff and long-ass AI generated post that looks like a Meth-addict politician coping for Cormac McEmpty.

Sad.

Oh and about the meltdown, don't confuse me with your eternal habit, I already now that you are close to phase 4.

What about bumping more threads under one of your countless alts again ? 🤣🤣🤣

Bump, these are the facts of the thread, @chatogpt just cant cope with it. Let's just watch him reply again and have another public meltdown, grab your popcorn folks because this will be a circus and @chatogpt is the main clown.

@teaparty88:

It's obvious that you cannot backup your empty claims, even your AI gave-up giving new bullshit to post ! 😈🤣🤣🤣

I have asked you to post excerpts of Blood Meridian that proves that this trash is a book with a story, a development and characters with actual progression and change, something that makes a book in fact.

I know that you will not provide anything because you can't.

Your pitiful copy and paste and two-bits insults prove you are in a Dead End.

You are already done, McCarthy is a scammer. 👍

I can't rate him. I've always been bad at reading books lol

@chatogpt: do you think Cormac is the worst author ever?

@pandanature1234:

I think that he is terrible.

He is not an author but a brand.

His formula is simple.

There is no story, no characters and a false impression of deepness with a thesaurus-branded product of shallow sentences without punctuation.

It's exactly like an artist branding a pure white painting because of his name, shallow.

Bump, this is fun watching someone having a meltdown 🤣🤣🤣

@teaparty88:

I am not having a meltdown.

You are.

I am asking for evidence and you keep deflecting for everyone to see.

Even this last post is a deflection...

So, will you post excerpt that proves there is character and story development in Blood Meridian or will you continue to make a fool of yourself ?

Everyone can see that you have nothing, because there is nothing.

You're still bluffing, Fraud. XD

Another meltdown lol

and an obligatory bump 🤣🤣🤣

@teaparty88:

You don't know what meltdown means:

Meltdown (n.):

An uncontrolled emotional outburst or breakdown, especially as a result of stress, anger, or frustration.

Once more, your mask of fake intellectual melt down in the face of basic English.... 😎

You are chain bumping your shame, troll-rage and anger because you can't answer a simple question, fulfilling the burden of proof, basic debating.

So, will you post excerpts that proves there is character and story development in Blood Meridian or will you continue to make a fool of yourself ?