Re: Two Tonys Revisited

281
I may have accidently posted part of this. If so sorry for the repeat.

In all the analysis of the coma/NDE, I keep coming back to the notion of a good and evil Tony (Kevin/Tony S). In this I am reminded about the real world two Tonys, i.e. Tony and Tony B.

Tony B has gone down all three of the paths that Tony S. faces.

- He went to jail (Tony S let him take the fall - he was having his first panic attack).
- He tried to go legit
- He was killed

It's interesting he is the one that showed up at the farmhouse. I think the entire Kevin F/Tony S issue is around what he did to his cousin. The dream sequence was because he knew he had to kill his cousin. That's how we saw how conflicted he was.

I also think his losing his teeth in that dream really highlights his losing power.

The young children in the coma/dream are more the age of Tony B's children. They need him. He may feel guilty that he's left Tony B's children fatherless.

I actually think Tony B. was the good Tony (Kevin). Their youths at the farmhouse; him holing up in the farmhouse and the reunion at the farmhouse with Tony B. as the man were interesting. That's where Tony B. (good Tony/Kevin) died and Tony S. came back.

I don't know if he will 'get' any of the spirituality of the coma/dream or just get more anger and rage for killing what was left about himself that was good.

Just a thought...I was traveling in Vegas (sin city) this week...and felt the power of good/evil. <img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/happy.gif ALT=":D">

</p>

Re: Two Tonys Revisited

282
I cannot really add much more to the thoughts that I and others have already posted, other than to suggest:

1. As regards the possible Christian/Catholic angle - whether Tony deserves it or not, Christian theory is that God/Christ/The Holy Spirit is constantly working to attempt to save man, but it remains up to man to accept such in order to achieve salvation. Now whether Chase is attempting to add that to this mix as far as Tony is concerned, I am not totally convinced. But neither am I convinced that it is right out. If anything, it is possible that Chase introduces it to allow Tony the opportunity to reject such. Just an idea.

2. As regards current politics, I too would ask that folks try and refrain from introducing blatent personal political feelings into this discourse just for the sake of it. However, one cannot deny that Chase comes from a certain liberal perspective that is opposed to the current administration and it's actions. He has never shied away from introducing his own particular political theory in the show, and further has felt the need in the previous season to go as far as introducing a Bush-esque flavor to everyone's favorite dimwit, Little Carmine. Personally, while humorous on the surface, it is distracting to me. But nevertheless, it is certainly possible that Chase has introduced some such angle of that into this process with Tony. In other words - don't discount that just on the face of it.

</p>

Re: Tony as conceiver

284
billymac, you asked if I felt Tony was the "writer" of his own mythologized inner narrative in the coma experience?

I would have to say yes, and no. Just as Tony's tattoos have ostensibly pervaporated; his surroundings, occupation, memory, traits and dialect, instantly springing to mind as concomitant with his debut somewhere over the rainbow; the adverse circumstances or the vicissitude (depending on how one 'looks at it') that is the precursor then incarnation of, for want of better locution, what Tony is going through right now (or was), or what his superego is reliving/comprehending/misperceiving/feeling etc. Everything here says to me that all this is a new personification of a familiar idea if you like.

HE can't change the title of his film, his 'book' etc. All he can do is try and interpret or translate it's meaning successfully from one language into another. I do not think Tony makes 'conscious decisions' or changes what his mind is apperceiving to be actual in this state, I think he merely rolls with the punches having been rendered in a state superficial to what the Tony we know would call reality. In Psychiatry, a person's defense-mechanism is believed to be the 'unconscious process that tries to reduce the anxiety associated with instinctive desires' - whatever is happening to him here, it isn't of his own conscious doing. (But if he hadn't led the life he had, then maybe his mind wouldn't need to conjure up this new Tony, albeit not in a literal sense - he doesn't see this, he only feels it.)

I think his defense-mechanism here is slowly letting reality seep in. For example: he can't distinguish TonyB/The Man - if the doctors can't help him in the next few minutes, he'll die - his mind/body/soul are aware death is imminent and for the first time in the entire transient enclosure, death manifests itself right before his very eyes. His defences mask his anxiety and guilt over the cause of TonyB's death, yet they can't help him feel that if he listens to this man, if he does as he says, that something bad will happen. He can't acknowledge death here because if his defences let him do so, Tony will ultimately come to the realisation that he is about to quite literally DIE! His defences only serve to protect his anxieties et-al, not to preserve his existence.

TonyB as 'death' is for another time, but I just wanted to highlight the contrast between what I see is the Tony that 'makes/creates' options et-al in his induced limbo, and the Tony that is made pliable by his subconscious objection to his inner pleadings. Don't forget: Tony says he 'can't remember' any of this (The Fleshy...), he only has feelings that he never wants to return there.

I find this www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/a/a ... ecords.htm quite relevant to the matter at hand.


</p>

Re: Woo Hoo! I found a Link!

285
I finally found a link to Kevin Finnity.

I was watching an old episode today. It was the episode where Karen (Bobby Bacala's wife) died in a car crash. It is also the episode where Chris killed the retired cop who killed his father.

When Chris shoots the Marlin (or whatever fish is mounted in the ex-cop's living room), there is an episode of Thomas Magnum playing on the TV. In that episode, someone is heard to pull over a car and announce, "Pull over! Special Investigator Finnity."

I'm not sure as to the significance. But I'd guess that David Chase may have had something to do with the production of that episode of Magnum.



</p>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p098.ezboard.com/bthechaselounge ... plishak</A> at: 6/12/06 4:16 pm

Re: Analyzing the Coma "Dream"

286
At one point, in the dream, Kevin is seeing the face of a monk and then the light over Tony's head came into focus and Tony was back in the hospital seeing the face of one of his doctors. The doctor looked so much like the monk, that I got the idea that the monks were supposed to represent the doctors.

Just as the doctors are there to help Tony's physical body heal, the monks are there to help his spiritual body heal. He can't take his briefcase with him because "his whole life is in that case' - meaning his physical life and he is going to some spiritual place, so he can't take his physical life with him.

I guess the parallel is that we are seeing Tony's physical life in the hospital but we are seeing his spiritual life in the dream about Kevin Finnerty.

So, what's the meaning of Kevin selling a defective heating system to the monks? It would have to be Tony constructing a faulty spiritual life for himself and being threatened with the equivalent of a lawsuit in the spiritual world. What would that be? I suppose for someone who behaves badly during their life and does much harm to others and does not do good unto others, the culmination of their life's work would be some kind of damnation or sentence in Hell or equivalent. I mean some people don't believe in Hell but most people seem to believe that if you act like a mean and miserable prick throughout your life, there will be some kind of penalty to pay at the end of your life. So, I guess the lawsuit is the equivalent of that.

As for the doctors in the physical world somehow representing the monks in the spiritual world, I guess the parallel is that if Tony continues to stuff his fat face and has no regard for his body by not excercising and not taking care of his body, his body will fail him with some kind of serious heart attack or stroke.

So, I guess my interpretation is that after living most of his life without taking care of his physical self (his body) and without taking care of his spiritual self (his karmic debt), the outside world is now serving notice on Tony/Kevin. It's telling him that it's time to shape up or he will be shipped out - and he won't like it. So, I would take the first part of Season 6A as a serious message/warning being given to Tony/Kevin and the second half of season 6B should be the consequences of whatever choices he makes after receiving the warning.

I guess we have seen that he really failed to make any serious changes for the better - not in his physical life or in his spiritual life. So, in the remaining four episodes, we should see life reaching out for Tony and squash him like a bug.

But, who knows? David Chase doesn't have to play by my rules. Maybe he figures that most of us are representative of the majority of humanity and he will now punish us for our misdeeds by giving us a big letdown with the last four episodes? That would be my guess.

Re: Analyzing the Coma "Dream"

289
The Coma Dream is not a dream at all, according to David Chase.

It's the confrontation with death.

Tony Soprano is losing his identity and becoming one with "infinity" again.

He looses his wallet with his identification and finds that he has someone elses. He is holding "Kevin Finnerty" 's stuff. They even make the "Lexus? Infinity" joke to draw your attention to the true nature of "Tony"'s new identity.

The deeper he goes into his "coma dream", the closer he comes to death, and the more he looses his own identity...TONY SOPRANO. He gets alzheimers and begins to "not know his self" anymore. He is moving closer and closer to death, reunion with "infinity".

The stuff with the monks is him being forced to "take responsibility for being infinity". Because he really is infinity, and now he is returning to that.

He gets to the "Finnerty Family Reunion" (reunion with infinity") and sees a white house, lit up with lights, a party going on inside, and a familiar man greeting him at the door. This is it, the moment of death. Tony just needs to go inside the house and he will be reunited with "everything" and everyone. The man, Tony B, even says "Everyone's in there". He doesn't allow Tony Soprano to bring his "baggage" in because he needs to "let go" of it and "let go" of his false identity, ego, TONY SOPRANO.

Tony S sees his mother in the doorway and begins to approach the house only to hear Meadow, his guardian angel, calling his name from the woods. He wakes up from his "coma dream" just in time. He avoids death but is left with an understanding of it.

After waking from his coma, he learns through conversations with other patiients and the bell lab scientist that separation is an illusion and everything is "one", that there is no space between the boxers fighting.

The whole thing is about death. Very obvious.

Letting go of the false self, to rejoin infinity, the true nature of everything.

Re: Analyzing the Coma "Dream"

290
Joe wrote:i think the point of the coma sequence....was for david chase to show the audience how boring and uninteresting the show would be if tony wasn't a gangster.

no one wants to watch kevin finnity...he's quite boring
Tony is dying. He just got shot. The entire thing is a metaphor for the death process. Losing one's identity (ego), taking responsibility for being "infinity" and returning "home".

That last scene with Tony outside of the big white lodge is moving because he is about to die. That is death right there staring him in the face. It seems as though this may have gone over many people's heads, which is too bad because that is an amazing scene

Return to “Sopranos Symbolism and Subtext”