Ruth wrote: ↑February 23rd, 2018, 6:53 amTo be honest, at first I hated him. Part of me is because I'm just #teammaincast lol but also because I knew he was supposed to be more than that in the film, yet had a very hard time sympathizing with him after he killed his lover with no consideration whatsoever. I also don't necessarily agree with the idea that he was never out there to "enrich himself" (paraphrasing someone's words), because on top of the genuine conflict there was, he seemed genuinely very power hungry as an individual.
Hey Auntie!
Ruth wrote: ↑February 23rd, 2018, 6:53 amBesides, W'kabi does mention, that (paraphrasing, again) "soon the world will be divided between conquerors and the conquered" and that he'd rather be among the first. Which, obviously, stems from fear and need to protect oneself, but at the same time I feel like it does imply Killmonger and those close to him may have had intentions that weren't just fighting for Wakanda and his people's equality or were at the very least oblivious of how much of a double edged sword his actions would've been and the potential damage that would've ensued to Wakanda (and pretty much everybody else). He also orders to burn the Heart Shaped Herb/Flower, and no matter how I look at it, it's a selfish move - he wants to establish himself as the sole ruler of Wakanda and doesn't want anyone else to come after him.
The burning of the herbs wasn’t a selfish act. That had everything to do with Killmonger disdain for Wakanda's culture. When Killmonger becomes king and visits the ancestral realm, he enters his small childhood apartment in Oakland, not Wakanda like T’Challa. Here, we witness the break down of history and lineage. Killmonger grew up listening to stories of Wakanda, of their sunrise, but his father never got to return to Wakanda. Ultimately, both became lost souls, trapped outside their homeland. It speaks to the experience of being an African-American, the separation that comes from being away from your ancestor’s homeland. Wakandans isolationist mentality is what failed Killmonger. They rejected him. It metaphorically expresses the feeling of betrayal that Africans never fought for black people when they got enslaved/mistreated by the world. Killmonger represents that bitterness. His cultural isolation negatively affected how Wakanda's tradition, elders and ancestors are treated, even blatantly disrespect it. He made it all the way to Wakanda but never once did he stop to appreciate its beauty, he was consumed with rage. His final line, “Bury me at sea where my ancestors jumped the ships. They knew death was better than life in bondage” shows that he connected with the African diaspora till the very end not with his father's homeland, even after T’Challa brings him to watch the sunset. The struggle to identify with Wakanda is the reason why he didn’t care for Wakanda’s future.
I don't know, I feel Killmonger is already layered, I don’t know what more needs be to added. Coogler builds on real life experiences rather than showing them. In the ancestral realm, we see that at Killmonger’s core he had to turn his sadness into anger because he was never given space for perceived weakness. When his father asks, “No tears for me?” He responds with everyone dies. Its not necessary to see him growing up in violence. We can assume his childhood was taken from him and he had to grow up and leave the sentiment behind him. His pain and rage was real, he was determined to correct deep political injustice.
