Who was under the black sleep of Kali?

Montana Smith

Active member
StewieMolaRam.jpg
 

Mickiana

Well-known member
James Kahn's novelisation clearly has Mola Ram being woken from the black sleep by holding one of the stones which burns him, yet a moment later when Indy grabs it it doesn't burn him, in fact it was cool to touch. The burning that Mola Ram felt was the magic of the rock affecting him. Indy's incantations which made the rocks glow must have powered them up and maybe this is what was needed for someone as evil as Mola Ram to wake up from the Black Sleep. Perhaps he was deepest in it of all and normal fire couldn't affect him, only the stones which he sought so much could restore him and thus were actually imparting a type of salvation as fleeting as it was?
 

Montana Smith

Active member
Mickiana said:
James Kahn's novelisation clearly has Mola Ram being woken from the black sleep by holding one of the stones which burns him, yet a moment later when Indy grabs it it doesn't burn him, in fact it was cool to touch. The burning that Mola Ram felt was the magic of the rock affecting him. Indy's incantations which made the rocks glow must have powered them up and maybe this is what was needed for someone as evil as Mola Ram to wake up from the Black Sleep. Perhaps he was deepest in it of all and normal fire couldn't affect him, only the stones which he sought so much could restore him and thus were actually imparting a type of salvation as fleeting as it was?

Though there's really no point to Mola being under the same spell. He's the prime mover with the vision, so he needs a clear head.

I mean, who would put him under?

Chattar Lal? The real power behind the throne?

Or was it all just another jolly jape by the aliens of KOTCS? That constant deus ex machina that Lucas has been sneaking in under Spielberg's nose?
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Mickiana

Well-known member
I know what you mean, Montana. Where does the conspiracy begin? It might be that Chattar Lal had a senior position in the ol' Kali Corporation. The young Prince Maharaja is obviously the token figurehead for the above ground management while Mola Ram oversees the subterranean operations. Yes, Chattar does now look more and more like the conniving politician in the organisation, hovering over all.

But as for who drank the Blood first? Mola might have annointed himself or maybe not. He might have started out a bit bad and with a bit of coercion from Chattar Bug (he had the gift of the gab) they drank together, their arms interlocked in a bonding brotherhood supping simultaneously and heartily on their bloody steins!
 

Montana Smith

Active member
Mickiana said:
I know what you mean, Montana. Where does the conspiracy begin? It might be that Chattar Lal had a senior position in the ol' Kali Corporation. The young Prince Maharaja is obviously the token figurehead for the above ground management while Mola Ram oversees the subterranean operations. Yes, Chattar does now look more and more like the conniving politician in the organisation, hovering over all.

But as for who drank the Blood first? Mola might have annointed himself or maybe not. He might have started out a bit bad and with a bit of coercion from Chattar Bug (he had the gift of the gab) they drank together, their arms interlocked in a bonding brotherhood supping simultaneously and heartily on their bloody steins!

While James Kahn added a lot of good background to Temple of Doom, I think he might have mis-read the Mola situation.

I still believe Mola to be the chief villain, and therefore in no need of drugging himself. Being under the Black Sleep is clearly a mind-altering experience, which places the individual under the will of another. There's a chance that Mola is acting under the will of Chattar, just as the Thuggee are acting under the will of Mola. However, being a pulp tale there should be nothing like that left open to question. All main characters would therefore be clearly defined, and unamibiguous by the time the story ends.

As I set out in the Cliffhangers thread, TOD looks to be inspired by the 1941 serial Jungle Girl. I would argue that Shamba the witch doctor is the archetype for Mola, as a character capable of supernatural ability who employs voodoo to control events.

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In TOD Chattar Lal also doesn't appear to be under the Black Sleep, but he is, as you wrote, a "conniving politician in the organisation". He's a clear headed invidual keeping an eye on events above ground, guiding the drugged Maharaja.
 

Lao_Che

Active member
Kahn was just going by the screenplay which originally had Mola Ram "as if awakened from a nightmare."

If Chattar Lal was supposed to be the mastermind, they wouldn't have killed him off before Ram.
 

Stoo

Well-known member
IndianaJones said:
In the novel it is described just as it was in the movie "Mola Ram held the heart high: still beating, dripping blood, it began to smoke. Then it, too, burst into flame. And then it disappeared." I just read the book to my daughter as her bed-time story. She loved it.
Udvarnoky said:
Your relation gives "heart-warming" a whole new meaning!
HA! Good one, Udvarnoky!:D

Thanks for quoting the description in the novel, IndianaJones.:hat: (By the way, are you really Indiana Jones, himself?:p) So, according to the novel, the flaming heart doesn't wake up Mola Ram but the burning stone does.
Udvarnoky said:
The kicker here is that it's not an invention of the adaptations, but something Huyck and Katz inserted into the actual screenplay!

The idea isn't really underlined on the screen, leaving it up for the viewer to decide. Making Mola Ram and/or Chatter Lal the inherently evil machinator gives you a clear villain to root against that the alternative robs you of, but, that alternative also deepens the subject matter a bit.
Thanks for pointing that out, Udvarnoky. (I just checked and the same thing is also in an earlier draft.) So Huyck & Katz suggest in the screenplays that Mola was under the Black Sleep even though it's not evident in the film. Very interesting...

Everyone (Montana, Mickiana, Darth Vile and Lao_Che) has brought up some excellent points & questions. Here is a general address to them all:

1) In the holding cell, the kid, Nainsukh, says, "We become like them." Who is "them"?:confused: The slave children? The guards? If the children were all under the spell, then each one of them would've had to be burned before they gleefully escaped to freedom, which was CLEARLY not the case.

2) Some or all of the guards must have been under the influence because (in a deleted scene) Shorty burns one and releases him from the "nightmare". (That's how he discovers the trick to 'wake up' Indy.) The guards did not act like zombies.

3) Perhaps drinkers of the blood built up a tolerance to the drug? This would explain why Indy was in a zombie-like state and Mola Ram & others weren't. First-time users would be affected much more severely than those who had been consuming it for long periods of time (as drug use does in the 'real world').

Taking everything into account, the Black Sleep aspect is quite inconsistent.:(
 
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Mickiana

Well-known member
Stoo, your last sentence sums up the main problem. The examples of the Black Sleep are inconsistent. The thing is we don't know the origins of the Black Sleep and whether the use of the Blood of Kali was applicable to all. Who was the first to invoke these powers of Black Magic? When I think of Mola Ram, I am reminded of that scene from 1984 when Winston is being held in a cell in the Ministry of Love and O'Brien walks in. Surprised, he exclaims, "They've got you too?!" "O'Brien responds with a mild, almost regretful irony, "They got me a long time ago."
 

Lao_Che

Active member
Stoo said:
HA! Good one, Udvarnoky!:D

Thanks for quoting the description in the novel, IndianaJones.:hat: (By the way, are you really Indiana Jones, himself?:p) So, according to the novel, the flaming heart doesn't wake up Mola Ram but the burning stone does.

If he's the real Indy, I wanna know what his daughter's name is. ;)

Stoo said:
3) Perhaps drinkers of the blood built up a tolerance to the drug? This would explain why Indy was in a zombie-like state and Mola Ram & others weren't. First-time users would be affected much more severely than those who had been consuming it for long periods of time (as drug use does in the 'real world').

Taking everything into account, the Black Sleep aspect is quite inconsistent.:(

Of course, Mola Ram wasn't fazed when Indy feigned wanting to kill Short Round himself...
 

IndyJoey

Member
My opinion on why the kids weren't given the BoK are mainly that they didn't have enough of it. I think they would be trying to conserve it, and they gave it to the older people either because they were bigger and stronger and could force the children to work more, or they had some sort of political power, like the Maharajah... Just imagine a little miner boy trying to strap someone into that big cage, hahaha....
 

Montana Smith

Active member
IndyJoey said:
My opinion on why the kids weren't given the BoK are mainly that they didn't have enough of it. I think they would be trying to conserve it, and they gave it to the older people either because they were bigger and stronger and could force the children to work more, or they had some sort of political power, like the Maharajah... Just imagine a little miner boy trying to strap someone into that big cage, hahaha....

Burning all those kids to bring them back to reality wouldn't have sat well with a family audience either.
 

HenryJunior

New member
I'm thinking that Mola Ram is from a line of High Priests for the Thuggee. It's supposed to be a 100 years since the Thuggee ruled Pankot so unless Mola found the Holy Grail before Indy, he was given the blood when he was around the Maharaja's age.

Scary, the Thuggee are based around some real history:
http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thuggee
 

HenryJunior

New member
Montana Smith said:
Burning all those kids to bring them back to reality wouldn't have sat well with a family audience either.
But, human sacrifice and child enslavement will work great!(y)
Now let's go make a Disney Ride!
 

Montana Smith

Active member
HenryJunior said:
But, human sacrifice and child enslavement will work great!(y)
Now let's go make a Disney Ride!

There's only so much they could get away with. And if they were to be believed, both Lucas and Spielberg regretted going as far as they did.

But I'm glad they were both depressed, because TOD turned out great, except for some Shorty issues.
 

foreverwingnut

New member
There is another thread that poses this same question, so I'll try to present a new take this time. I have felt all along that Mola Ram was a willing participant of Kali-ma, but I have to admit there are some great spins in these threads. I was especially enthralled by HenryJones' supposition that Mola Ram might have been groomed for the cult and forced to drink the Blood of Kali at an early age. Here's my own supposition: What if we look at the ending as a kind of exorcising of evil rather than an awakening from a drug-induced nightmare? In this way, Mola Ram would have been a willing particpant as the physical vessel for Kali-ma, which- in my opinion- makes him all the more sinister without any room for remorse. Mola Ram really is the ultimate Indy villain and the embodiment of all evil, so his death is more fitting if he were a willing and knowing subject. And, if he were the vessel for the physical Kali-ma, this would explain his power. Indy's incantation might have been like a purification rather than an awakening.
 

Henry W Jones

New member
foreverwingnut said:
There is another thread that poses this same question, so I'll try to present a new take this time. I have felt all along that Mola Ram was a willing participant of Kali-ma, but I have to admit there are some great spins in these threads. I was especially enthralled by HenryJones' supposition that Mola Ram might have been groomed for the cult and forced to drink the Blood of Kali at an early age. Here's my own supposition: What if we look at the ending as a kind of exorcising of evil rather than an awakening from a drug-induced nightmare? In this way, Mola Ram would have been a willing particpant as the physical vessel for Kali-ma, which- in my opinion- makes him all the more sinister without any room for remorse. Mola Ram really is the ultimate Indy villain and the embodiment of all evil, so his death is more fitting if he were a willing and knowing subject. And, if he were the vessel for the physical Kali-ma, this would explain his power. Indy's incantation might have been like a purification rather than an awakening.

I always felt MR went down as evil as ever. I never saw it as he came out of the black sleep or even a purification. I always thought shock and pain was more the reaction MR had at his death. Also I always thought MR found the cult, was already a sick guy and liked the Kali vibe so he signed up. Being as warped as he was he climbed the ranks quickly in the cult.
 

foreverwingnut

New member
I think so, too, Henry. I threw out a different spin just to see where it goes. I think, however, that the Thugee worship of Kali had been a dead religion until Mola Ram resurrected it on his own. As Indy said, "Nobody's seen this for a hundred years", and Blumbard bragged, "The British Army nicely did away with them". This is one of those rare subjects in the Indy films that every one could have their own take on it and wouldn't necessarily be wrong. It kind of makes each of us the background storyteller. Pretty cool, huh?
 

Montana Smith

Active member
foreverwingnut said:
This is one of those rare subjects in the Indy films that every one could have their own take on it and wouldn't necessarily be wrong. It kind of makes each of us the background storyteller. Pretty cool, huh?

Apart from KOTCS, I think the Indy movies are all intentionally open to interpretation, which makes them more interesting, and more accessible from those of differing beliefs.

The Ark had a ghost.

The Grail had deady traps and imposter cups to kill the uninitiated.

TOD had Indy chanting in Sanskrit, presumably calling on Shiva for assistance.
 
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