Who was under the black sleep of Kali?

[Stoo]

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?)

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.

As far as Shorty, I always got the impression the children were used as slaves until old enough to become useful followers. The maharajah needed to be controlled so was turned at a early age.

Some details in the shooting script (20 July, 1983) ought to settle the conundrum about the kids and the drinking age. It appears that a blood-swigger had to be at least 12 or 13 years old. The Maharajah Zalim Singh is described as being 13 years old and he says this:

Maharajah: You will not suffer. I recently became of age and tasted the blood of Kali.

1) In the holding cell, the kid, Nainsukh, says, "We become like them." Who is "them"? 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.

In response to myself, only the 12-13-or-older kids needed to be burned! That includes Nainsukh because he drank the stuff before Indy did.

 

[Lance Quazar]

Reviving this thread -

Just saw "Doom" again on the big screen, first time in a long time.

The scene in the temple when Indy is revealed being under the black sleep and moments before Willie is brought and put in the cage.....Lal DEFINITELY looks dazed and kinda out of it, very much like he is in the Black Sleep.

And, of course, when he talks to Indy and encourages him to chain up Willie, he's got that slow, deliberate cadence.

I really think we're supposed to infer that Lal is under the black sleep at that point, like the maharaja.

 

[Moedred]

AICN asked who drugged Mola Ram, but the writers had no answer:

Quint: I read an early draft and one thing that intrigued me was that there was an implication that Mola Ram was himself under the influence of the potion. People under the influence of the blood had glowing yellow eyes in the script and when they're awoken their eyes go back to normal. When Mola Ram is burned by the Sankara Stone in the final fight, the script says his yellow eyes go back to normal... just in time for him to fall to his death and get eaten by crocodiles. In the movie as it is they pretty much make all the evil emanate from Mola Ram, but was there ever a thought to who turned Mola Ram?

Willard Huyck: No. We'd have to do a Mola Ram prequel.

 

[S. Dakota Jones]

I'm also a believer that Mola Ram and Chatter Lol were probably not under the Black Sleep.

Mola Ram definitely had the look of a "True Believer" and really seemed to have his wits about him. Chatter Lol too, as far as being the "front man" of the cult I would think need to maintain himself, IMHO.

 

[Ender]

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.

This has to be the worst Indy take I've ever heard. More and more on my rewatch I've been noticing nuanced character subtext and general mysteries. There's so much left up to interpretation and that's wonderful.