1136: Broken Mirror
| Broken Mirror |
 Title text: 'I see you're in this mood again.' 'I am always in this mood.' |
Explanation
It is a common superstition that breaking a mirror will result in 7 years of bad luck. Black Hat is mocking the superstition while ostensibly subscribing to it saying that breaking the mirror results in the "illusion that my actions somehow influence" a world governed by nothing other than chance. Black Hat's comment is a reference to magical thinking, in which individuals believe that their actions have an effect on unrelated events in the world.
"Eccles. 9:2" refers to the Bible book "Ecclesiastes," specifically chapter 9 verse 2 ("All things come alike to all. There is one event to the righteous and to the wicked; to the good, to the clean, to the unclean, to him who sacrifices, and to him who doesn’t sacrifice. As is the good, so is the sinner; he who takes an oath, as he who fears an oath." King James 2000 Bible). "My fate is as these shards" parallels Ecclesiastes 3:19: "Man's fate is like that of the animals".
"All is vanity" is also from Ecclesiastes, specifically the introduction to chapter 1. The mirror is often associated with the vice of vanity. There is also a drawing with an optical illusion titled "All is Vanity" by Charles Allan Gilbert, which alternately depicts a woman admiring herself at a dressing table, (also referred to as a "vanity,") or alternately (when viewed at a distance) a human skull. The table Black Hat is standing before is also called a vanity," and a mirror associated with that is often referred to as a "vanity mirror", describing its relationship to the furniture.
Transcript
- [Black Hat and Cueball stand in a bedroom. There is a broken mirror on the floor at Black Hat's feet]
- Black Hat: Oops. Guess this means seven more years of the illusion that my actions somehow influence the indifferent hand of probability which governs our lives.
- [Black Hat looks down at the broken shards of glass on the floor]
- Cueball: Plus like half an hour of sweeping.
- Black Hat: No, I think I'll leave it.
- Cueball: You'll get glass in your feet.
- Black Hat: Eccles. 9:2—All things come alike to all: to the clean, and to the unclean.
- My fate is as these shards.
- Cueball: Dude, chill. It's just a vanity mirror.
- Black Hat: All is vanity mirrors.
add a comment!Discussion
- Yep, I read COPS, too. In another vein, is Black-hat getting all religious on us? Cueball, maybe. Beret guy, more likely. But Black-hat seems to be too machiavellian to quote biblical passages, except as a crutch or an "out". (Edit: now that I think about it, it's the latter: the same fate awaits everybody... as in, everybody will cut their feet on the shards.) -- 207.225.239.130 20:05, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
Does anyone have an opinion on how Black Hat broke the mirror? If it simply fell from the wall, he would not incur the bad luck. Jsbqvb 15:31, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
- I think his point is that it wouldn't matter; there ain't no such thing as bad luck: the same fate awaits everybody. -- 207.225.239.130 20:05, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
- Maybe he did it on purpose, just for that soliloquy at the end (I wouldn't put it past him...).--Dangerkeith3000 (talk) 20:59, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
Time for some more obvious questions, which I dont get! So, why he decided not to tidy it, but to leave shards like that? 83.166.112.53 05:44, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
What's the significance of the title text? "I am always [something]" rings a faint bell, but I can't place it. Wwoods (talk) 19:49, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
- It made me think of "We have always been at war with Eastasia" (from Orwell's 1984) ...but that probably wasn't what Randall meant to evoke. —50.14.33.235 22:14, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
