Who was under the black sleep of Kali?

chr0n0naut

New member
I've just read the novelisation of ToD and it descibes Mola Ram as "looking as though he'd just come out of a nightmare" a second before he plummets to his death (after his hand is burned with the final Shankara stone). Indy even feels sorry for him.

But this begs the question, who was and was NOT under the black sleep of Kali? Who was the original perpetrator that began the brain washing process if not Mola Ram? Chatter Lal maybe? or a central group of unseen preists?

Mola Ram did not look like a zombie (as Indy did) but Chatter Lal looked a little dazed... Maybe the longer you are under the more relaxed and normal looking you become?

And what age do you become ready to drink the blood? Shorty and the Maharaja look the same age but the Maharaja was under the black sleep and shorty wasn't (maybe shorty was just under the age?)
 

muttjones

New member
chr0n0naut said:
And what age do you become ready to drink the blood? Shorty and the Maharaja look the same age but the Maharaja was under the black sleep and shorty wasn't (maybe shorty was just under the age?)

shortround didn't drink the blood though.
 

Mickiana

Well-known member
I believe Mola Ram was under the black sleep of the Kali. But it seems that when he got burned by the Sankara stone he came out of the sleep, but then unfortunately fell to his death. A classic tale of tragedy. He brought about his own downfall, in this case, literally. Tragedy is also about avoiding redemption, hence he meets his doom even after he is released from the evil spell of the Kali. I will go as far as theorising that the same thing happened to the giant thugee guard. When Indy wacks him with a saw, the big fella drops the rock on his own head and this appears to wake him from his sleep. Fire may not be the only trauma that can do this. Unfortunately, by this time his sash has been snagged by the rock crusher and he has to carry on the path that he decided on - to his doom and paying for his evil ways with his life. These tales of tragedy seem to me to be the center point of the whole story while Indy is almost an unwitting pawn being thrown around in a game. Of course he has his own motivations and creates many consequences through his actions.
 

chr0n0naut

New member
Mickiana said:
Unfortunately, by this time his sash has been snagged by the rock crusher and he has to carry on the path that he decided on - to his doom and paying for his evil ways with his life.

Even if Mola Ram or the Thugee guard were under the black sleep of the Kali-ma, it was not their "fault" so to speak, that they did evil deeds. The whole point is that it removes freewill and forces (or rather drugs) the victim into wanting to do evil (via the worship of Kali).
 

Mickiana

Well-known member
That's a point, but we don't know if they willingly drank the blood or were forced to. In the end, I think the whole being under the spell of the kali is a metaphor for having given up choice, or at least thinking there wasn't any choice left open to them. Who was the first to drink the blood of the Kali? Was it deliberate or unwitting? I will wager that it was a choice to go down a certain path, at least in its origins. People under the spell of the kali are like zombies and zombies are people who are largely unconscious, who have become automatons of their own desires or someone else's.
 

muttjones

New member
Attila the Professor said:
Well, that's the point.

yet the first post was posing the idea that because shortround was young he was not effected by the black sleep of kali blood but since he didnt drink it at all none of it matters.
 

chr0n0naut

New member
muttjones said:
yet the first post was posing the idea that because shortround was young he was not effected by the black sleep of kali blood but since he didnt drink it at all none of it matters.

No, it was meant to imply that they didn't even try and make him drink it as they knew he was too young. Sorry. Maybe I didn't write it clear enough.
 

The Man

Well-known member
Maybe it is an age-sensitive substance. After all, the little miner-kids would all have been far more compliant and productive with a swig of the Ol' Kali...
 

Crack that whip

New member
Indeed, I was thinking the same thing. But then perhaps the Blood of Kali something the Thuggee can only produce or acquire in limited quantities, and after all, they did just add a huge number of bodies to their labor force overnight; maybe they just didn't have enough BoK ready on-hand, and were temporarily going with the tried-and-true whips-and-chains method of worker management until such time as they could administer the BoK to them all.:p Or maybe they just regard it as something not to be wasted upon mere slave workers, but instead something only for those whose conversion was of significant aid in their grand scheme for world domination (as Indy surely would have been, had he stayed under)...
 

muttjones

New member
chr0n0naut said:
No, it was meant to imply that they didn't even try and make him drink it as they knew he was too young. Sorry. Maybe I didn't write it clear enough.

sorry i read it wrong.
 

Mickiana

Well-known member
What happened was that the BoK delivery guys were on a strike that had been going for months. The Thugees protested the strike action by trying to enslave the employees of the delivery company but that only brought the unions down on them heavier. What you don't know is that the Thugee cult was a franchise and Mola Rams particular sect wasn't the only one suffering from a downturn in business. Investors started selling their shares in a panic, hence the need to mine for diamonds in a real hurry "to support our cause". Having all the Sankara stones would have boosted market confidence, increased investment and created a windfall so great that Mola Ram could have looked for suppliers of BoK elsewhere. As it happened, some American professor walked into the middle of the whole thing just as Mola Ram was about to rescue the whole operation and threw a spanner in the works. He did save a local economy by restoring the future tax paying generation to a small village, but as this village mainly used a bartering system of exchange and not a fiat money system, there was no effect of increasing the national GDP.
 

FordFan

Well-known member
David Koepp. :hat:

Just kidding, just kidding. Wow, I never felt sympathetic towards Mola Ram in the 20-plus years I've watched this movie. Interesting perspective...
 

Joosse

New member
I guess age does come in to it. After all, only when they reached a certain age did the slave children get pulled out of the mine to drink the BoK.

Maybe Indy caused them to be short on guards...;)

As for feeling sorry for Mola Ram, well I just read the novel too, and I didn't. Maybe Indy had more compassion because he had been under the spell himself?
 

Mickiana

Well-known member
Good point Joosse. Indy never seems happy about the demise of the villians. At times he seems upset or disturbed. He's a strange character. He will dish out death when he has to, but he seems at least a little bit affected by the death of opponents. As for Indy being under the Black Sleep of the Kali, it goes to show he's prone to the ways of the Dark Side!
 

keylan

New member
Thats what makes Indy such a great hero. He only kills when he has no other option, but does feel remorse for the loss of life at his hands. Only a stone cold killer would feel other wise.
 

Nurhachi1991

Well-known member
chr0n0naut said:
Yeah that's what I mean. If they could convert Shorty why didn't they?


Because it is just a movie and if they did that to Shorty everyone would of died.......... The End





Sometimes I feel like this board is a live action Clerks movie :p
 
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