Hashed this out in the past hour. A long post, I know; but there are some other nerds here like me, so I hope it's not too irksome.
It's too short and haphazard for the blog (I need to spend more time on a post for that), so I figured I'd just see what the crowd here thinks.
"Who is Errol Childress?"
There have been some complaints about the conclusion to HBO’s True Detective regarding the enigmatic killer. Some have asked for more background information while others argue that he is nothing more than a redneck stereotype; an inbred backwoods type of figure. I disagree on both counts; that is, I think that Childress is much more than a redneck stereotype, and I don’t think that his backstory is left entirely in the dark. The clues are all there for us, if we feel the desire to piece them together into a narrative of our own.
First and foremost, Errol Childress is not a stereotypical dumb redneck: he is a polymath, likely self-educated (as suggested by the piles of books and other textual materials in his house), and he clearly has a significant knowledge of literature – specifically Robert Chambers’s
The King in Yellow but likely Ambrose Bierce as well, fiction writer and documenter of the Civil War (who also happened to coin the name “Carcosa”
. Furthermore, his dialogue makes it clear that his education extends beyond merely fiction. He speaks in accents, particularly British, after watching Hitchcock’s North By Northwest (a film which he appears to be interested in at a level beyond mere entertainment). It’s true that imitating accents does not necessarily qualify a high degree of intelligence; but Errol doesn’t merely imitate the dialogue he hears in the film. He adopts the entire dialect of British culture, down to its colloquialisms; and he does not playact a role in this accent, but communicates his own intentions and behaviors through this accent: “It’s been weeks since I left my mark,” he tells his half-sister.
Furthermore, Errol also speaks the following line (also in a British accent): “My ascension removes me from the disc in the loop”; or something similar to this. The content of the quote evokes the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche as well as the cyclic framework of Buddhist Saṃsāra; Errol’s removal might be discerned as a vague reference to Buddhist enlightenment. However, Nietzsche is one of the most striking anti-Enlightenment figures of Western thought. Not only does Errol’s comment conjure the specters of eternal recurrence, but it also might suggest that he is educated in both Western and Eastern philosophies.
In addition to his British accent, he also speaks in what appears to be a childish whimper when he beckons his sister to sit on his lap. When Rust chases him through Carcosa, he speaks in an entirely new, and utterly terrifying, register; and if we can recall Rust’s very first encounter with him (mowing the lawn of the abandoned school in the third episode), we might remember that he speaks in a very normal and approachable tone in that scene. In multiple cases, Errol appears to know more than he lets on, fluctuating so as to adapt to the situation and professing his own intentions in impressively nuanced language.
Finally, with regards to his self-education, there is the erection of Carcosa itself, which functions as an inverse – perhaps we can say perverted – instantiation of Solomon’s Temple. The Yellow King itself sits in the center, in the Holy of Holies, both the embodiment of a ruler as well as a shrine, or altar. Coincidental, perhaps; but perhaps Errol was educated in the Old Testament as well, and constructed Carcosa as a gothic double to Solomon’s Temple. Solomon, like Errol, began practicing idolatry, which resulted in the disunion of the Kingdom of Judea. If Errol constructed Carcosa with this mind, it signals not only that he possesses knowledge of Solomon’s Temple, but also interprets a connection between the Carcosa of Chambers’s and Bierce’s weird fiction and the Second Temple. Everywhere throughout the final episode, Errol’s knowledge reveals itself.
Finally, to wrap up this brief conjecture, Errol is not the Yellow King. The Yellow King, as far as we are concerned, is the altar in the center of Carcosa; but it is also someone else. The Yellow King is Sam Tuttle. Another complaint making its way across the internet is that viewers wanted more of the conspiracy to be revealed – either Rust and Marty discover them, or they bring down their wrath upon the hapless detectives. Neither happens; but in my opinion, neither would happen, and for a very particular reason.
The videotape recovered from Billy Tuttle’s safe depicts the rape of Marie Fontenot taking place in what appears to be Carcosa. This is never specified, and the details of the tape are not enough to give a definitive location (that we are shown). However, even if the murder did take place in Carcosa, there is also no definitive evidence that Errol participated in that ritualistic rape and killing. Perhaps he did. Perhaps he didn’t. Ultimately, we know that there are more perpetrators involved – the Sprawl, as Rust calls it. Nobody else from the family is caught, even if we know (and Rust and Marty know) that they exist – but what is their relationship to Errol Childress?
Certain victims tell us that the man with the scars was the worst. Did Errol participate in ritual rapes and murders with other individuals? It’s most likely. However, in the very beginning of the very first episode, no others are seen; it is only a lone figure carrying a body toward the tree in the field. My question is this: could Errol have carried out some of his own murders without the rest of the party knowing? Maybe he committed several unbeknownst to them, in the secrecy of his lair – Carcosa.
While luring Rust through Carcosa, Errol provides the following information: “Do you wanna know what they did to me? What I will do to all the sons and daughters of Man.” He speaks, here, of the scars upon his face: something happened to him in his youth that gave him these scars, and we can bet that it was a part of the rituals the Tuttle clan engaged in. Thus, Errol explains his actions to us: he is carrying out what was done to him, in his youth, or is at least reenacting some form of traumatic experience. It is clear that Errol was not entirely accepted and beloved by his elders. The lips on the body of Errol’s father are sewn shut, suggesting some deep pathological animosity: the Law of the Father, silenced. Errol experienced something horrifying as a child, and his mission – as well as his means of controlling that experience – is to visit that experience upon new victims. We never saw the Yellow King (in person), and we haven’t been granted the full vision of what the Tuttle Clan wrought upon southern Louisiana. The reason for this is that the full conspiracy did not involve Errol Childress; in fact, he was incorporated, early in his life, as part of the rituals themselves. His part in the murders around 1995 and since are merely tangential to the full horror of the Sprawl.
