u/BadgerResponsible546

I am devoted to Lonesome Dove and its sequel Streets of Laredo. As concerns the latter, two issues always aggravate me while reading it.

POSSIBLE ...

... SPOILERS

Toward the end, there is a section or two where, in an effort to assist Captain Call, Charlie Goodnight goes searching for Mox Mox, only to find that that the man-burning "squint" has already been dispatched. For me this odyssey slows down the narrative and seems like a mere "filler" or at best a device to disclose to the character that, although he became informed of Mox Mox's fate, still failed to apprehend or kill him. In a sense, a wasted trip and too many pages devoted to describing it.

The other thing is - and many, many have voiced their discontent over this - is McMurtry's random killing off of so many characters from the original novel. Newt is killed by the horse that Call had given him. Clara Allen actually enters the story, but three years later she too is pawed to death by her prize horse, Marbles. Bolivar, "the last of the Hat Creek boys", dies on the very day Call delivers him to a Mexican boarding house. Etc. Clara could have been left to die of old age, Newt could have simply been permanently estranged from Call, but not killed - and so on.

I always feel that the author deemed that so many deaths were somehow requisite for his narrative, but I am uncertain why that is...

Not exactly a cryptid but maybe still relevant...

It bothers me when people say they think that Fr Karras was possessed by Pazuzu in the movie. In the Legion novel, Karras is not even present. Only his resuscitated corpse is there, operated mutually by the vengeful demon and by Vennamun/the Gemini. But in the movie, poor Karras himself has been captured by the demon and placed into his former body along with Vennamun's spirit. But "captured" does not equate to possessed.

In the film, Karras is occasionally allowed to break through and say things like, "Help me, Bill..." Nurse Allerton refers to Karras's presence as being the polar opposite of the Vennamun personality - as "someone who sounds nice" - and who sometimes says, directed at Vennamun, "Kill it!" So Karras is still himself and is not mentally or spiritually controlled by or possessed by Vennamun-Pazuzu. Granted his body is under their control but judging by the few words he does say, he is still Damien Karras.

The idea that Karras is possessed bothers me because it would be just too much, given the horror of his predicament: first, the demon snatched his rising spirit on its way to its presumed heavenly reward at the end of the first novel and film. That's entirely bad enough by itself. But to imagine that the demon also then proceeded to possess Damien, in the same way it possessed Regan McNeil in the first story, is simply to inflict an intolerable burden of hideous torment on the psyche of this saintly priest, whose body is already under demonic control. Damien Karras deserves much better treatment than that, even from a mocking demon and an apparently inactive God.

The trailer briefly shows a Pazuzu statue in a rather posh setting. However, to my eyes, the space does not resemble a museum display, as there are no other artifacts or label plaques in sight. But IIRC there are chairs. As if the statue is meant to be watched over time by seated people, not passed in front of by a line of museum-goers. If not a museum, could this space be a private home? Could the seating indicate accommodation for members of a Pazuzu cult? Will the film feature such a cult, perhaps led by some occultist or satanist?

My imagination may be working overtime here, admittedly, but I am curious about that statue and its setting...