"No Country For Old Men" A Conspiracists View

…when you encounter certain things in the world, the evidence for certain things, you realize that you have come upon something that you may not very well be equal to… When you've said that it's real and not just in your head, I'm not all that sure what it is you have said.

-Sheriff Bell No Country For Old Men

Succinct words for the subject matter at hand.

McCarthy is such a wonderful storyteller, so much so, that we tend to get so wrapped up in the immediate story-line that everything else becomes incidental. But this is not how one should approach any of Cormac McCarthy's books. Every nuance has resonance. Every side story is monumental in its statement.

Many people I have spoken to see Llewelyn Moss as the protagonist. To my mind this is not the case. Sheriff Ed Tom Bell and his battle with a world that is overtaking him with its sheer savagery and corruption is who this story centres on. The personification of this world is made manifest in Anton Chigurh, but he is not the root of this evil. We note that when Bell and Wendell encounter the scene of the shootout, Bell is disturbed. As he later states:

...He seen the same things I seen and it made an impression on me.

I believe Bell is beginning to get an idea of the scale of this operation.

These boys appear to be managerial.

- Deputy Wendell

Just who are these mystery men that are behind the whole operation? They are definitely not your average drug dealers. The two men murdered by Chigurh at the shootout scene seem to be field operatives. Higher up on the ladder than the dead Mexicans but lower than the mysterious man in the office who recruits Carson Wells.

Who is this mysterious gentleman that commands deference from a retired lieutenant colonel? A man that hires ex-military to commit EA's (Both Chigurh and Wells are ex-Special Forces). A man whose office, it is suggested, exists on a floor that cannot be seen from the outside. A man who hands out recievers to Chigurh and the Mexicans to trace a transponder in the case of money.

Even when this man is killed by Chigurh, the witness is another member of this organisation who claims to be in "accounting."

This side story is amazing. The book is set in 1980, a time when Iran/Contra deals were in full swing. Drugs from south of the border were flooding the United States, all thanks to the CIA.

Bell realises the scope of this, and I believe, is the cause of his getting out of Law Enforcement. He is battling something unseen (Which Chigurh is a metaphor for) and totally beyond his control. A government out of control and by extension, a world gone evil.

…when you encounter certain things in the world, the evidence for certain things, you realize that you have come upon something that you may not very well be equal to…

Link for all excerpts

I like your insights, I pondered similar models and metaphors regarding the movie "Children of Men" with the role played by Micheal Caine, where he exemplified the get out of the way mentality to a world gone to the crapper, but that world ends up finding a path to him anyways.

Thanks for the reply bubbabuddha. I afraid I haven't seen Childeren of Men, but I'm now going to keep an eye out for it.

I like your handle. I wonder if we could start a club of bubba's here on ATS.

Originally posted by Beelzebubba
Many people I have spoken to see Llewelyn Moss as the protagonist. To my mind this is not the case. Sheriff Ed Tom Bell and his battle with a world that is overtaking him with its sheer savagery and corruption is who this story centres on.

That's what I got out of the movie, never read the book, but what you suggest about the coc aine being in the author's mind is very interesting and I say also very plausible. Criminal minds today tend to be much more cunning and ruthless, making it that much less of a country for old men.

reply to post by Beelzebubba


As an avid reader of Cormac McCarthy’s works, I read the novel of No Country for Old Men directly after seeing the film.

The film is great, but the book is better.

I found the Chigurh character the most fascinating. Heck, I even like him in some strange, perverse way. He is the epitome of the noble savage, a barbarian immersed in culture and wrapped in a check shirt, a strange amalgam of the relentless Terminator and a hard-hearted Conan for the twenty first century. He is a principled madman. What better analogy for governance turned bad?

Yes, he may well be the physical manifestation of the implacableness of powerful and clandestine organisations and their seeming inability to not be exposed fully, but of their almost unending capacity to continue to exist, no matter what hardships they encounter, too. Cut of one head and another will grow elsewhere. Isn’t Chigurh described in the book at one point as the “invincible”? How can you destroy something that has spread its roots invisibly and deeply?

We never fully know his back story, but are given only snippets of what he has done, and can do. Nothing can stop him, and he knows that. He exhibits real power in the world he inhabits, and real influence on the populace of that world. One could also see him as a metaphor for the underside of Government, in all of its darker forms. This does not, however, mean that he will always be “invincible”, and I believe he knew that too. There is a scene where he takes aim at a crow with his pistol. He fires, and misses.

Anton Chigurh rarely misses, but this crow flies away unharmed.

What can we read into that? Perhaps the bird was an allegorical entity, a representation of its mythological status as a messenger of negativity, of selfishness, of bad news. Chigurh ushering it away by the use of a bullet could infer that he himself sees himself as a bringer of doom. A dark-eyed messenger of death incarnated in human form, and covetous of that position. A warning to the world of his presence.

The crow is also seen in mythology as a representation of the creative principal; the Divine made flesh, a fighter of evil, a herald of the Gods. If Anton is the Illuminati/Shadow Government/NWO personified, then him allowing the crow to live could suggest that at their heart, these ethereal, imperial-minded organisations are totally undaunted by established orthodoxy or authority, no matter in what form it comes.

The fact that the crow was allowed to live could imply that those who seek to rule us consent to the continuation of traditional and comfortable paradigms because they can snuff them out at any minute.

this is the way it has ALWAYS been, it's us civilians that are fed a load of " happy,happy" and "soma" through our media. random, brutal violence can surface at anytime, anywhere, in the coarse of our life. this is why most people are so shocked by that behavior. we are so disgusted by this that we try and sugarcoat it and soften the exposure.

No Country for Old Men


What a great show.

The contrast of the simple honesty of the old, old Sherrif's world homespun USA compared to the brutel Cartel wars boiling to this day gives a man that "cold water in the face " Good morning look.

Killers, like the air compressor anti hero, evolve out of the Mexican Cartel wars, prison systems, gangs streets and they live right under neath us.

This movie is an metaphor of something that really exists in the underground.

This makes Sopranos look like Leave it to Beaver.

Great movie. need to read the book.

It's only a film, guys.

... and the sequel is a comedy ...

High-ranking Mexican prosecutor shot to death in Ciudad Juárez

CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico – Jesus Martin Huerta, the No. 2 federal prosecutor in this violent Mexican border city, was shot to death Wednesday.

The attorney general's office said two gunmen opened fire on Mr. Huerta's car while it was stopped at an intersection. A woman behind the wheel who also worked for the attorney general's office was also killed. Police named no suspects.

www.dallasnews.com...

This just took place a few days ago.