On Rust Cohle and Marty Hart

Two paths of the alpha

RUST COHLE AND MARTY HART - TWO PATHS OF THE ALPHA

I was told to watch True Detective Season 1 by a friend, and I'm blown away. There's so much to talk about this series. The politics of it. The many Freudian, Schopenhauerean and Nietzschian concepts that has been infused in the dialogues between characters who all embody a set of Jungian archetypes. There are lot of philosophical dissections to do, and many have done it, but, as people who have been reading me for a while would know that, I don't look at the world with philosophical lenses of good and bad and moral and immoral. I see the world in terms of realities, behaviours, archetypes and unconscious.

So, let's look at the two protagonists -- Rust Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) and Marty Hart (Woody Harrelson). Unbeatable alphas both of them, but with two different trajectories. I have written two posts on the average man on the street - the one who's obviously not an alpha. This post is for alphas -- born or made. This is for men who are on the top of their games. This is the ultimate alpha showdown.

Let's begin with Rust.

Rust is what the internet calls a “dark, mysterious character” -- something I have been told many times by women; one time by a woman while taking her clothes off (“you're so mysterious and cold, ughhh, it's scary and frustrating.”) Rust is the ultimate introvert, and he is every introvert's fantasy to be. He is extremely perceptive. Exceptional as a homicide detective. He knows how to read people. He has a reputation of making criminals confess their crimes during interrogations. But, that's not the best part; many detectives can do that. The best part is that many of them do it as a means of salvation. The ultimate submission. One of the ways you can attract a woman if you can fill her past heartbreak void by making her confess all her tears -- seduction's end-goal. Reward her then with what her subconscious wants from you. As Rust says, “everyone wears their hunger and their haunt.”

Rust is not distracted by women. Marty and his wife, Maggie, played by the lovely Michelle Monaghan, take him to a bar to set him up with Maggie's hot friend, but Rust wasn't interested.

Let's talk a bit about Maggie. She's the gigastacey -- the best of women. Hot, tall, soft-spoken, powerful, submissive, caring. The best of female attributes; she possesses.

Coming back to Rust. In another scene, a hooker throws herself at him and he brushes her off. Rust, however, is tempted and enchanted by Marty's wife; we'll get to that later.

Rust is not compassionate. Compassion isn't a natural emotion for a man. Kindness is. Compassion isn't. (Have a post on compassion. Link in the comments.)

When Marty finds out that his wife left him because he got caught cheating, he shows up at her work and causes a scene. Rust shows up and gets Marty under control. Marty is physically very strong and is filled with rage (rawest human emotion alongside lust), yet Rust is able to get him under control simply by putting his hand on him and telling him that they have work to do. Clear example that only two things can calm a man filled with rage -- either let the rage quench its thirst, or get his brother or best friend around him.

Rust calms Marty down in front of Maggie, who's visibly turned on by this. Rust gives Maggie a look of reassurance that everything's okay as he walks away with Marty. That look plants seeds of desire. If your woman is getting those looks not from you and from someone else, game over, bro.

Marty then takes Rust to a bar and starts venting about how he fucked up, how he needs to get his gigastacey-wife back. Rust replies, “This is none of my business. I don't want to hear it.” Marty keeps on rambling and venting. Rust tells him again that this is none of his business and that they have work to do. Marty, taken aback by how cold can a man be, tells Rust that he is “the Michael Jordan of being a son of a bitch.”

This behaviour is consistent with Rust's perspective on life:

“I think human consciousness, is a tragic misstep in evolution. We became too self-aware, nature created an aspect of nature separate from itself, we are creatures that should not exist by natural law. We are things that labor under the illusion of having a self; an accretion of sensory, experience and feeling, programmed with total assurance that we are each somebody, when in fact everybody is nobody. Maybe the honorable thing for our species to do is deny our programming, stop reproducing, walk hand in hand into extinction, one last midnight - brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal.”

Rust has accepted, as deeply as acceptance can get, that he lives his life alone and is going to die alone. Rust looks himself in the eyes as part of his morning routine to gulp down the futility of human life. And he's a homicide detective, meant to protect human lives. Irony, eh? Price you pay for being an alpha.

Rust doesn't respect Marty.

Let's talk about Marty now.

Marty is physically strong, tough, quick to start a fight, attracts a lot of women. Also, an alpha. A masculine specimen in all ways, except one; which we'll discuss later. He has a beautiful wife and kids. Gets drunk often. Great reputation at work. He's however a company man. He's just there for the paycheck.

Marty also has self-destructive tendencies. He wants to feel pain. He wants to get caught cheating on his wife. He starts fucking Lisa, the typist at his job, played by the charming Alexandra Daddario.

Let's talk a bit about Maggie and Lisa.

Maggie is a gigastacey. Lisa is a high-T gigastacey. A gigastacey is all the best qualities about women -- intelligent, smart, successful, hot, caring, understanding. A high-T gigastacey is all that but with a whore-complex of extreme hypergamy. A gigastacey will find herself the best husband and have a beautiful life. A high-T gigastacey will fuck her boss and will always be on the look out to bang men richer and more successful than her. Hence, why Lisa fucks Marty. The uncanny similarities between Lisa and Maggie, with just the one subtle difference, is visible to none but Rust.

Marty fucks Lisa regularly, and assumes that he completely owns her. Mistake. No one owns a high-T gigastacey. She doesn't belong to you. It's just your round. Marty sees Lisa at a bar while she's on a date with another man. Marty approaches Lisa while Maggie is just a few metres away and confronts Lisa. Marty is not a careful man. He's a fucking idiot. Arrogant and stupid. He gets drunk and bangs Lisa's door, yells at the neighbours, attacks the guy she's with, demands to know if Lisa sucked his dick (the moment he realises that Lisa has a whore-complex), and then leaves. Lisa confronts him at work a few days later and Marty tells her to fuck off. Lisa then shows up at his home and tells his wife everything.

Rust can see right through Marty. As said above, he's also the only one who can see the similarities and one difference between Lisa and Maggie. Rust tells Marty that he sees in Lisa a “young Maggie” and accuses Marty of not being able to “smell crazy pussy” despite all the “dick swagger” he rolls. Rust sees Marty as a failure of a man.

Rust, rather than confront Marty directly on this, inserts himself into Marty's life as not only an example of who he could be, but also to show him how badly things can get for him. This is unbelievable tortuous for Marty, as one isn't sure if Rust wants to cuck Marty by constantly mogging him in front of his wife.

The chemistry between Maggie and Rust is very interesting. Maggie sees Rust as who Marty could potentially be. His polar opposite. They both have the same job but Rust is a greater man than Marty by any given estimation. Maggie accuses Marty of becoming stupider over time. “You were so much smarter when we first dated.” She admires that Rust is able to control himself in a way that Marty has never even considered. She likes that Rust knows who he is.

Rust is aware of this, and chooses to mog Marty in front Maggie very directly several different ways. He even shows up at his house while he isn’t home and mows his lawn in a wifebeater while Maggie makes him tea. Marty is stupid, but not that stupid. He knows what Rust is doing and calls him out on it, but ultimately does nothing about it.

After Maggie finds out that Marty was cheating on him, she shows up to a bar alone in a sexy red dress in an attempt to seduce another man into fucking her. One man approaches her but she isn’t into it. She gets enough drinks in her to finally realise the desire planted in her unconscious back when Rust calmed Marty and since fueled slowly by him: the desire to fuck Rust. She shows up at Rust’s apartment crying while holding a bottle of wine. Rust knows what’s going on and tries his best to avoid her advances, despite her physically throwing herself at him.

Rust eventually gives in as Maggie grabs his face and kisses him. In addition to the built up sexual tension between them, Maggie is cute as fuck and has a tight body; very difficult to resist. He bends her over his kitchen counter and alphawidows her. The concept of the alphawidow is overblown in redpill circles. This however is perfect depiction of the creation of an alphawidow. Maggie brags about this to Marty by saying she “hasn’t been fucked like that in years.”

Immediately after fucking her, Rust realizes the size of what he just did and calls out Maggie for using him to get back at Marty, despite Maggie truly wanting to fuck Rust. Writers messed up this one bit, because a man as perceptive as Rust, the one who can see through killers and detectives alike, will know easily which woman is using him and which woman is genuinely into him. He screams at her to get the fuck out of his apartment.

Rust despises Marty because of his lack of honesty. Rust would respect Marty more if Marty admitted his weaknesses or even attempted to understand his nature. Marty is not honest with himself or anyone else. Marty rationalizes his behavior by saying things like “everyone needs balance”, “boundaries are good”, and says “you know what I’m talking about, right?” when talking to other men who have been through a divorce. Marty does not own his behavior or is even mildly curious about his true nature. He ends up alone. A sad, single man who eats pre-cooked dinners while watching TV.

Rust is much more content with how his life turned out, despite also being alone. He works at a local bar and drinks on his day off. He describes this as being inevitable. Rust aggressively continued his work on his own even after being fired and eventually catches the pedophile ring he was after for decades. Rust knows what he wants, knows what he likes and has a mission in life. Rust knows who he is. Marty tried to convince Rust to “have a normal one” several times throughout the season. Rust’s response? “Given how long its taken for me to reconcile my nature, I can't figure I'd forgo it on your account, Marty.” Rust knows he is bad. “The world needs bad men. We keep the other bad men from the door.”

Rust and Marty are two paths alphas can take. As a man, when you're on top of your career, financial prowess, physical fitness, social capital, everything, then what do you do next? You then either become Rust or you become Marty. As a fallen-great once said, “You should be a monster and then you should learn how to control it.” Rust is the monster under control. Marty is not under control and hence he at times loses his monster-value, which ended up with him getting cucked by the monster under control.

The greatest quality of Rust is that he is ruthlessly honest with himself, and even more importantly, he is curious about who he is and has tested himself to its limits. It's only at this point that a man can truly become who he is destined to become. This is something that Marty, and to be frank, most men, aren't willing to find out, because what may lie in the deep subconscious and unconscious of one's mind, may not be something everyone is capable of handling.