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normal-thoughts-official · 2 years

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Do find it interesting how Copley's entire character is based on denial. Especially when it comes to his involvement in the key plot points.

He's in denial about his wife. Even if he admits that she is dead, he refuses to move on. It's been two years, and he still wears the wedding band. Just in that very short scene of him in his office we see two pictures of her (one of their wedding on the shelf and one of her right in between his PC monitors, so she's always in his peripheral vision at least). Someone who wanted to move on would have kept the pictures somewhere to look at when they felt the need, not exactly where they were before, as a constant reminder of her passing. And they definitely wouldn't keep wearing the wedding band.

What I'm trying to say is that even though Copley, obviously, knows rationally that his wife is dead, subconsciously he is still in denial because he refuses to move on. And because he refuses to move on, he keeps trying to find a way to do something about it. He obsessively follows the immortals and Merrick (who is specifically looking into making cures for the type of disease that killed Copley's wife) looking for a way to help cure her illness, because it is the closest he can get to curing his wife. To making up for not being able to save her. To rewriting what happened to his family. (And if he ever got that, he'd have to face the fact that he can't bring his wife back and actually process his grief instead of trying to Do Something To Stop ALS as a means of putting off facing her death).

The entire plot wouldn't have happened if Copley hadn't been in denial about the fact that there is nothing left for him to do about his wife. If he hadn't refused to process his grief by choosing to obsess over finding a cure to ALS instead, he wouldn't have found out about the Guard's immortality, and wouldn't have sold them out to Merrick.

But it doesn't stop there. Even his small decisions are driven by denial. I always laugh at the "there was an unanticipated amount of carnage" because Copley. James. Babygirl. They are immortal mercenaries who have fought in more wars than most people learn of in school. We know that they're trying to do good and don't like killing, but we also know they're willing to. And with a secret this big at risk of being revealed, there is no way they'd have left anyone get out of that room alive.

Which someone as smart as Copley, who's ex-CIA, for crying out loud, should have predicted. The only way Copley could have possibly believed that his little trap wouldn't end in a bloodbath is if he was neck-deep in denial of the fact that his plan would kill innocents. Because again, Copley desperately needs to believe that he's doing good, that he's working for the sake of humanity, that he will save his wife people

And sure, he could have been lying about not anticipating it, but judging by: the fact that he doesn't need to because Merrick doesn't give a fuck; the fact that the carnage actually got in the way of his plans, because he couldn't get DNA samples; and his horrified look as he watched the footage, I really don't think that he was. I think he genuinely, truly did not expect that it would be (so) bloody. Or, more accurately, didn't want to believe it would, or maybe didn't even want to think about what the consequences of his trap would be beyond "I get the samples, ASL is cured". He was laser focused on his goal, and he didn't see anything else. If Copley hadn't been in denial about this, his trap would probably have been set up differently, at the very least.

And then, of course, the entire second half is a parade of Copley being in denial about the obvious, completely unmistakable fact that Merrick is a piece of shit who could not care less about helping people. Merrick isn't even trying to pretend otherwise. Yet Copley is surprised by his complete lack of ethics. The way he screams "Mr Merrick!" when Merrick starts stabbing Joe, like anyone in the world didn't see that coming; his "this is about science, not profits, or sadism" like he truly believed that's what it was for them; warning him that "this would be murder" like Merrick cared; the genuinely shocked "for... ever?"; the "no, this is not what we agreed" when this is exactly what they agreed on. The agreement was that he would bring Merrick the immortals and he would experiment on them to make medicine. He had to have known forced experimentation and potential murder was what was going to happen, especially because Merrick took 0 efforts to not make that obvious. But somehow Copley had convinced himself that they would get DNA samples and then leave them alone, which is an insane assumption to make after everything Merrick's done and said.

But Merrick's company was working on a cure for degenerative diseases. They could, very soon, cure ALS. So Copley needed it to be him, needed him to be interested in doing this ethically, needed to believe that, once again, his brilliant plan wasn't actually just hurting more innocents in a desperate quest to save a dead woman.

Because Copley does believe in doing good. We know that because no one who doesn't actually, deeply care about humanity would go looking into what happened to all the people that the Guard saved. Just the fact that he researched that, tried to find out what happened to the victims, shows that he is a very compassionate person with a very humanized perspective on war and conflict. He went looking into generations of descendants of people saved by the Guard. I don't think most people would even bother to think of looking at what happened to them beyond being a footnote in the Guard's history, especially not anyone as obsessed with them as Copley was. But Copley did. He looked into every single person, and what happened to them.

Taking that into account, as well as the fact that Copley was genuinely fighting Merrick on his decisions, I think that Copley - unlike Merrick, Keane, and Kozak - does care about doing the whole thing ethically. The thing, of course, is that without their consent that is impossible, which Copley is too smart and compassionate not to know. But letting them go would mean facing that there won't be a miracle cure for his wife, and he cannot handle admitting that. So, he adds "trying to convince himself this could be in any way ethical and he can convince Merrick to do it that way" to the list of completely out of touch beliefs he's been holding because of denial.

The result is that even though he obviously knew that Merrick was a fucking piece of shit (just the fact that he added "or sadism" proves that), he didn't actually face that as a fact until the moment Nile confronted him and he said "they are in the lab, being tested" and then closed his eyes and went, "tortured". Again, denial made an appearance, but this time he made the conscious decision to take a deep breath and stop lying to himself. This is the first time he acknowledges what's actually going on there, and by proxy, his part in it. And all it took was being quite literally hit over the head with it, as well as possibly killing the single person who's made the most good in the history of humanity. But I digress.

It is also in that same confrontation with Nile that he finally admits the obvious - that he was trying to save someone who was gone. He says he wants to help humanity, but in the end he's only being truly honest about his motives when he says "she couldn't talk, my wife. In the end." This is also the first and only time we see him actually mourning his wife, because it is the first time he is in any way processing that her death was final. Up until then, he only talked about her detachedly, and kept all these mementos of her like she still lived in the house.

And that's why his confrontation with Nile is also the shift of his loyalties. Because it is the point in which he breaks his cycle of denial and admits that his wife is gone, he can't save her, and that in trying to do so he's hurt innocents and handed them over to a greedy asshole. And once he finally, finally faces that, he realizes he has to do something about it. Which is why he helps Nile and wants to storm the place with her, insists on it, admits that pharma CEO's are full of shit ("what kind of CEO walks around with his own personal army?" "these days? Most of them"), and agrees to help erase the Guard's footprints. And even though Copley was (or wanted to believe he was) good-intentioned, he wasn't able to do good until he stopped lying to himself.

So Copley's denial is what shaped the way the whole movie goes - if he weren't in denial he wouldn't have found out about the Guard's immortality, wouldn't have set them up the way he did, wouldn't have sold them out to Merrick specifically, and wouldn't have allowed Merrick to continue for as long as he did. And once he got over the denial, that was also a point that helped shape the resolution of the plot (I'm sure Nile would have found everyone anyway, but Copley's help did speed up the process). And I find it interesting how this one thread of how he chose to deal with his grief ended up not only defining his character, but the course of events in the movie - despite the fact that he's not a main character.

Which actually also ties off in a really interesting perspective where most of the things that happen over the course of the movie are dictated by the characters' refusal to try to get better. The whole movie would be heading towards a massive tragedy, Greek-style, if there weren't a character who is quite literally defined by her refusal to go with the tide - Nile. Unlike Andy, Booker, and Copley, who let their grief and self destruction take over their life, and Joe and Nicky (+Booker again), who let Andy make all the relevant family decisions, Nile refuses to let anyone or anything decide her fate for her. She doesn't defer to Andy just because Andy is the oldest and very clearly capable; she fights her at nearly every turn, even when it's impossible for her to win, because she is not willing to compromise her beliefs or let anyone dictate what she's going to do. She will do it if she believes in it, and only then. And Nile also isn't willing to listen to Copley's bullshit, which forces him to face what he's been trying to hide from himself.

So, you know - maybe this is the why Nile. Because she's young and strongheaded, and so she holds the hope and the possibility of doing things differently. Of choosing your potential future. And that's why she makes Andy realize that she's been doing a shit job of living, but she can do different.

Although this might be a different analysis altogether. My point with this one was - Copley's tendency towards denial was one of the most powerful forces shaping the course of events in the movie. And Nile's unwavering sense of morality and freedom of choice was the opposing force.

PS so there are no doubts about it: I'm not saying that what Copley did was justified or that you have to like him. This is a character analysis and nothing more, or less.

#wrote this under the influence of sleeping meds will find out if it made any sense tomorrow #tog #the old guard #james copley #copley tog #meta #long post #update from 'tomorrow': yeah sure i'll publish this #there were so many typos lmao #copley you fucked up little idiot you are so fucking stupid (affectionate)#im sorry i cant help but love him

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musingsbycaitlin · 1 year

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if i must give up, then so must you: a wip intro

it's been about a year since i last posted on here, and even longer since i posted a wip update or intro, and i apologise for that. basically living away from home at uni made me ✨anxious✨ and ✨mentally ill✨ so the only writing i ever did was for assignments and my creative brain was turned off entirely. but! now that i'm back home and getting help, boy do i have a wip intro for you!

tw: gun violence, alcohol abuse, emotional abuse

disclaimer: this is my original work and plagiarism is never tolerated.

okay let's go:

genre: literary fiction

setting: 1800's, somewhere in the wild west

predicted word count: 50k

pov: first person, present tense, unnamed narrator

status: about 5k into the first draft

aesthetics: loading a rifle, wind whipping up skirts, dusty earth under feet, struggling to breathe, sleeping for a week, floral wallpaper, sunlit dust in the window, long-legged spider crawling along wooden floorboards, fingernails brushing arm hair, dogs barking in the distance, creaky gates, chewing tobacco floating in a whiskey glass, snuffed candles, laced lingerie hanging on the back of a chair, teeth touching

summary: it seems odd that her grandmother would lie, but our unnamed narrator is questioning her late grandmother's wisdom after a group of bandits raid her town. over night, she feels compelled to follow a lone cowboy she spies from the edge of her town, and finds herself going on a reflective journey across the wild west. From town to town, she wanders and meets people; she falls in love with someone she didn't expect; she learns what it means to be a woman without the burdens of her grandmother's lies. 'if i must give up' is a story about learning truths whilst growing up secluded, and reflecting on past traumas and the guilt that lingers there.

characters (the few main ones at least):

narrator: 20, (she/her), this barbie is down on her luck fr. she is just muddling her way through compulsive thoughts and actions and following this guy just because she can. a truly chaotic queen.

anne: 30, (she/her), the definition of gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss. she says, dont talk to me unless you're pretty, but if you're pretty she can't talk through the drool. somehow a simp. anne please explain yourself to me.

jonah: 30-ish, (he/him to a hellish extent), good god please sir just sit down. major gael vibes, let that sink in. this ken's job is emotionally manipulate. im done talking about this man.

brady: 46, (they/them), a cowboy just out for a good time, riding and riding in both connotations of the word iykyk. lets give a hand to the obligatory orville peck inspired character of the book. if tassles on cowboy hats where invented, they would be rocking it daily. oblivious yet knowledgeable, gruff yet softly spoken. they are my fave, i will take no further questions.

#okay okay ill hold for applause #wip intro #if i must give up #lit fic #wip #im actually obsessed with this story idea #im only 5k in but it is already so juicy and chaotic #also sorry for hating on jonah its just that i hate him #im sure you can understand #rachel of rachelwrites said in her youtube live that a old western lit fic sounded cool and my ego smashed through the ceiling #anyway #enjoy and hopefully ill be able to post more updates x

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