Fighting Fire With Fire Part 2;
"The Duality Of Fire"
(read part one and part three here)
During the early stages of the outbreak, the military used napalm in an attempt to control the spread of the virus. Through flashbacks and through FTWD, we saw how Operation Cobalt completely failed to contain the virus, while simultanously contributing to the total breakdown of societal structures. Metropolitan areas on the North American continent were indiscriminately bombed, making no differentiation between the living residing there, and the undead. We also saw, for instance in Shane's flashback to when Rick was in the hospital, how federal forces went in and killed any remaining survivers.
This is the duality of fire. It can be used for total obliteration, but it can also facilitate new life, as we saw in TOWL 1x1 Days, when Rick told the story of how his father burned down the farm, and how it flourished the next year.
During Rick's echelon briefing, we see the duality of the "fire" symbolism illustrated. Both Rick and Major General Beale talk about how you sometimes "have to burn things down in order to bring things back":
Both recognize the tremendous power of the fire symbolism, but they use the metaphor differently. Where Rick is ultimately interested in a good outcome as in facilitating new life, thriving crops and a sustainable future, Beale is literally talking about burning down cities, along with the people living in them.
In flashbacks seen during Major General Beale's Echelon briefing, we witness how the military used napalm on Atlanta and LA.
Napalm is, simply put, a fire bomb made from petrochemocals.
Let's explore the "fire = fuel" angle for a minute.
The opening minutes of 1x1 was our first introduction to the visuals and the symbolism of the show. We see Rick arrive at a gas station in search of fuel.
He only finds death and destruction, meaning that since the very first seconds of the show, the literal opening scene, we see gas, gas stations and fossil fuel surrounded by death symbolism. And, when we later learn that the military bombed the cities and killed countless civilians using napalm, we realise they used a firebomb made from petrochemicals.
The symbolism around gas stations as temples of doom continues, such as in 4x4 Indifference:
This sign quite literally labels the gas station as "hell". The people residing there had committed suicide. Keep this in mind, I'll return to it shortly!
The term "fighting fire with fire" was originally used to describe a technique of forest management, specifically in regards to how to manage wildfires, in which controlled fires were ignited in the path of a wildfire as a preventative measure:
"Fighting fire with fire" as an expression has also often been used to describe vaccines, due to the way it was discovered that exposure to pathogens in some cases could trigger the immune system to produce antibodies against said pathogens, thus resulting in immunity:
When first we met the character Dr. Edwin Jenner at the CDC in TWD 1x5 Wildfire, his name was a reference to Dr. Edward Jenner, an English physician widely known as the “father of immunology”, due to his role in developing the world's first vaccine, against smallpox, in 1798.
It is not a strecth to say that this foreshadows a potential vaccine in TWDU. The virus is called wildfire. Vaccines are often said to be "fighting fire with fire". We learned about the wildfire virus from a character named after the guy who developed the world's first vaccine.
In TOWL 1x2 Gone, we see Michonne involved in a situation that sheds light on how the "fighting fire with fire" symbolism is utilized by TPTB. We see her trying to get through an enormous walker horde, it's a virtual ocean of death:
She tries to distract the walkers by shooting a small missile into the horde, which then explodes. Fighting fire with fire.
Eventually, Nat shows up and helps by adding more explosive fireballs, and the "ocean of death" parts to reveal a way forward.
Fighting fire with fire:
This also provides an interesting example illustrating how fire bombs can be used responsibly, in contrast to the way napalm was used by the military, who indiscriminately bombed cities, killing innocent civilians in metropolitan areas by incinerating them.
It shows that when the people, who have harnessed the tremendous power of fire, have the right intentions, it can be used for good. It shows the duality of fire, and it illustrates the duality of pharmakon, a poison and a cure.
Fighting fire with fire.
This guy stands out from the crowd, and I believe he tells us something about what the wildfire virus in TWDU in reality is a metaphor for:
He's a callback to Rick, back in TWD 1x1 Days Gone Bye:
He beautifully illustrates the ominous nature of the fire symbolism, here represented by fossil fuels, or simply gasoline. We saw it herald death and dystopian hellscape at the gas station in 1x1, we saw it at the gas station in 4x4 Indifference, which was literally named "Hell", we saw it when napalm made from petrochemicals was used indiscriminately to destroy metropolitan areas on the North American continent and massacre anyone in proximity, infected or not.
And we see it again here.
The gas man is Mr. Wildfire Virus incarnate, a posterboy for death and necrotic life, a metaphor for "the old ways". He represents the disease, the plague, the extinction event...
He represents "the end" of humanity!
I don't think it's a stretch to say that the wildfire virus and the walkers in TWDU are metaphors for carbon emissions, the fossil fuel industry and the rapidly escalating threath of climate change to humanity. That's always been my interpretation, and that's solidified after seeing the gas man.
An interesting detail is how the gas man is shown here with gold teeth, as though he's illustrating the incredible wealth accumulated by the fossil fuel industry at the expense of the equilibrium of the ecology of the planet.
Seeing a gas man as the front figure and team captain of an enormous horde of the undead, an insurmountable obstacle, an ocean of death... it's not subtle.
A gas station innundated in death symbolism was the very first thing we, the audience, saw of TWDU, it was literally in the opening scene of 1x1.
And the gas man were among the last things we saw in what's so far one of the last episodes of the last spin off. But a few episodes later, we did see a glimmer of hope, and a potential way out of the mess...
The gas man functions as the face of the threat to humanity in TWDU, and was, in my opinion, inserted as a counter point to what we saw few episodes later, the ethanol as a representation of a "cure", an "antidote" in the back Richonne's escape car.
An electric/bio-ethanol hybrid car, no less...
Again, not subtle...
Bio-ethanol, a sustainable, renewable source of energy, is portrayed as a foreshadow of a sustainable future, in which humanity recovers and thrives.
A green(e) future?
I wrote about how they in FTWD season 4, and in particular 4x16, explored the "ethanol = cure" theme in a post the other week, read more about it here.
Remember how we in TWD season 9, saw the production of bio-ethanol as an alternative source of fuel. We saw how crucial it was, in that Maggie was even seen trading produce for bio-ethanol.
This is a theme TPTB also explored in TWD World Beyond, where especially Elton was concerned about the sixth extinction event, the Holocene extinction.
The kids in TWDWB called themselves "the Endlings", seeming to have accepted that they were among the last survivers of a humanity that was on a direct path to self destruction. Here's from an article in Comicbook.com:
"'Wind always wins,'" Elton tells Hope, borrowing a phrase from his mother who died at the onset of the apocalypse ten years earlier. "Something my mom said about nature deciding who lives and who dies. Turns out she was right."
He explains humans are "at the conclusion of the Holocene extinction," the sixth extinction event on the planet following the Late Ordovician mass extinction, the Late Devonian extinction, the End-Permian extinction, the Triassic-Jurassic extinction event, and the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event.
"We were already killing ourselves directly and indirectly, but nature made a shortcut," Elton tells Hope. "It took the dinosaurs possibly 60,000 years to die after 240 million of living, so following that ratio, given the human race's 600,000 and factoring in other miscellaneous variables, I say we have about 15 years until we're gone."
Elton was referring to the walkers when he talked about the threath to humanity, however, if the walkers are a metaphor for climate change, Elton's predictions of 15 years until we're extinct are sobering...
In TWOL 1x6, Major General Beale estimated non-necrotic, meaning human, life has 14 years left.
In real life, the doomsday clock is currently at 90 seconds to midnight (x)...
...we're nowhere near reaching the 2 degrees Celcius target...
...and 2023 was the hottest year on record.
We're not doing great.
TPTB seem to be well aware, because...
...here we see how an electric/bio-ethanol hybrid car represent the "antidote", the future, the "escape" from the extinction event.
Richonne's yellow stick shift electric/bio-ethanol hybrid car represents a potential way out of the imminent Holocene extinction. It represents an "escape" from the sixth mass extinction event, much in the same way a shift away from carbon emitting fossil fuels, to sustainable, renewable sources of energy represents the "cure" against climate change in real life.
But back to the narrative of the show. The accumulation of walkers represent a real threath to humanity, as Major General Beale correctly stated. What could the expression "fighting fire with fire", or "pharmakon", tell us about a potential "cure"? What could the "antidote" be, in the canon of the show?
During Rick's echelon briefing, Major General Beale raised a few issues that would be of legitimate concern, even if most of the rest he said were the ramblings of an authoritarian genocidal madman. He mentioned hordes of up to a million walkers, and he referenced studies suggesting non-necrotic life, meaning humans, could have as little as 14 years left before the the dead would outcompete the living. Millions of walking corpses, spreading diseases, polluting the soil, contaminating fresh water sources.
Those are legitimate concerns and would have to be dealth with. Fire could play a literal role.
Glenn told us in season one. "We bury the ones we love and burn the rest". From an infection contagion prevention point of view, it makes sense to use fire to destruct the wildfire virus. Fighting fire with fire. However, there must be some way to contain the virus while still preserving one's own hummanity. "We bury the ones we love and burn the rest". Unlike what happened during the mass murders of Operation Cobalt during the initial stages of the outbreak.
Again, fire, when used responsibly, could play a role in neutralizing the treath of the plague. It's pharmakon, a poison and a cure.
Fighting fire with fire.
And using fire as a contagion preventation measure was already built into the infrastructure at the CDC. We first saw it in 1x5 Wildfire, when Dr. Jenner accidently knocked over a vial containing samples from Test Subject 19, his late wife, upon which the lab went into full decontamination mode and erased any remaining trace of the pathogen in a great ball of fire.
Later, when the doomsday clock at the CDC reached zero, we watched the entire CDC explode, effectively destructing everything inside, including test samples containing wildfire as well as any other pathogen they might have kept in there.
We also saw it on Hershel's farm in season 2, when the barn where he had kept the reanimated corpses of his loved ones while awaiting a cure, caught on fire. Although, that was more of a display of the symbolism involved rather than a depiction of how to scientifically contain a virus:
We've also seen it countless other times. Fire symbolism has been prevalent on the show since the very beinning, and there's a reason for that. It's because it represents pharmakon, a poison and a cure!
My hypothesis is that "fire" could play a literal role in the resolution of the zombie apocalypse. I also believe that it's likely the term "fighting fire with fire", or "pharmakon", could be meant to be interpreted figuratively, as in the develepment of some kind of cure/vaccine/treatment/immunity.
And like I explained in this post from a few days ago, connections to Beth is found everywhere in the symbolism surrounding these themes.
I mentioned her association with ethanol (as in moonshine = alcohol). I discussed the precedence set by Alicia from FTWD in regards to the bite/cure theory.
And finally, I've spent years now, talking about the Sirius symbolism that Beth has been absolutely immersed in. The word "Sirius" comes from Greek Seirios, which means "glowing", "scorching", it refers to Sirius the Dog Star, and it's associated with the scorching hot "dog days of summer".
"Sirius" symbolism IS "fire" symbolism, they're literally the same, and it ultimately means "return/resurrection/rebirth/reunion", as a reference to how Sirius the Dog Star periodically disappears from the night sky, only to return one morning, right before dawn.
I've talked about how Beth is deeply connected to the symbolism we see around Rick, I've talked about how they so often completely mirror each other and the resurrection symbolism around Rick is identical to the resurrection symbolism around Beth.
If "fire" is a part of the "cure" on the show, the fire symbolism includes resurrection symbolism, which we've seen countless exemples of around Rick and Beth.
And remember, the future is green(e)!
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