The kid
>Takes part in the violence but not really
>Helps people in need but not really
>Is only reactive, never proactive
>Dismisses eloquent arguments with total indifference ('you ain't nothin' and 'even a stupid animal can dance')
Consider the names. A kid is helpless and reacts to his environment. A judge stands atop a pulpit of authority and shapes his environment daily. By the time the kid wants to take a stand and help someone (the old woman in the flagellants) its far too late. His lifetime of indifference has caused him to become cursed. The window for redemption has passed.
If you do not assert yourself you will be effortlessly destroyed by those who do assert themselves. It doesn't matter if you assert good or evil, but you must stand for something.

Its all in the four of cups. Blood Meridian is a book about the four of cups.

>>24517943 (OP)
seems like a viable interpretation. other gang members survive by endulging in evil action. they ride on so to say.

>>24517943 (OP)
so your saying he should have asserted himself and become evil

>>24518030
He should have done something. Either join up with the judge or shoot him when he had like 10 opportunities to do so.

>>24517943 (OP)
sweet analy man your high school English teacher will love it

His feet are light and nimble. He never sleeps. He says that he will never die. He dances in light and in shadow and he is a great faggot. He never sleeps, the OP. He is dancing, dancing. He says that he will never die.

>>24517943 (OP)
We never really know what the Judge means when he says the kid betrayed them. I like your interpretation, but some people also think the kid may have told the Indians where to find Glanton and the Judge leading to the Yuma river massacre. Which I think also fits, but there's no evidence within the text of this betrayal. Not even a hint.

>>24518732
imo the judge is unreliable with his stated rationale. I think he singles out the kid because he should have been an embodiment of his philosophy. The kid was raised in war and in “the game” yet seems to care very little for it. He’s almost sleepwalking through life and that’s what draws the ire of the judge.
I doubt that Holden cared about the Glanton gang. Betraying the gang would have been meaningless. They were just a means for him to live out his ideology (or his purpose if he is a supernatural entity)

>>24518539
>>24518528
how do you people even find this board

>>24517943 (OP)
Judge Holden and the kid are one, when the kid kills the kid in the shitter he becomes Judge Holden while remaining the kid. "I guess somebody shoulda flushed."

A real man would have raped the bear.