The Dawn Wall - Spoiler Post

[rachelmanija]

I have a non-spoilery post also. If you've seen it or don't mind spoilers...



I knew almost nothing about this going in. But when Beth Rodden was introduced, her name rang a faint bell. I was still trying to remember what climbing context I'd heard of her in when the ominous music and helicopter sounds started right after Tommy said, "So we went to Kyrgyzstan" and then I suddenly remembered that she was one of several climbers who'd been taken hostage. Only that was all I remembered, so I was biting my fingernails over what actually happened - did one of them get killed?

Of all the people who should not have had to kill someone (or so he thought, and wasn't that a WTF final twist - I really wanted to know if that changed anything for Tommy), Tommy Caldwell has to be at the top. It was 100% justified, and yet the poor guy!

AND THEN HE CUT OFF HIS INDEX FINGER IN A CIRCULAR SAW.

But of all the amazing twists, my favorite was when he decided to go back and wait for Kevin. It was such a beautiful moment, especially since they didn't even know each other before they started the world's most ambitious and intimate climb together. And such a touching parallel to the Kyrgyzstan nightmare, when he also made a choice to risk himself for others.

Comments

[rydra_wong]

... this is a very good point.

And my impression is that after the initial trauma, he coped comparatively well with the guilt aspect, presumably because it was so clearly the right thing to have done and vindicated by the outcome (not that this is enough to make people feel not-guilty about things, human brains not being rational, but it probably helped).

In his Enormocast interview, he talked about one difficult thing about the aftermath of Kyrgyzstan being people expecting him to be destroyed by guilt at a point when he ... wasn't, actually. And wondering if he should be acting more visibly "traumatized" to stop people from thinking he was a psychopath.

[rachelmanija]

Ugh, that last. Poor guy. People react how they react.

[mildred_of_midgard]

I'm glad that he reacted better than DW presented it, at least. That's a relief. The film made it out to seem like he spent the rest of his life wondering if he was an evil person. I thought that was such a pity, because "shot at by militants, abducted, starved and force marched through the wilderness for 6 days" is a clear-cut self-defense scenario if there ever was one, especially what with the military helicopters and that shootout between the military and the rebels.

Still think it's hilarious to remember commenting on how there were 3 witnesses. There were 3 witnesses THAT HE KNEW OF, lol.

[rydra_wong]

The film made it out to seem like he spent the rest of his life wondering if he was an evil person.

Yeah, my impression is that he crashed really hard into that initially, but then came to terms with its having been the necessary and right thing to do fairly straightforwardly.

OTOH, I do have the sense that he's kept wondering what inside himself made him capable of doing it when the others weren't, and that he's built it into his self-image in terms of being someone with a particular capacity to keep functioning under extreme conditions.

[rydra_wong]

Something that must be tough: all of his worst life events -- Kyrgyzstan, losing his finger, breaking up with Beth -- have occurred with everybody in his community knowing about them and having opinions about them.

(Especially the break-up, where I have the impression that everyone in the Yosemite climbing community knew who she'd cheated on him with.)