I’ve read on this blog that the boy was responsible for breaking its leg. When? How?
I personally don't agree with this but I've seen it suggested that the horse somehow initially injured its leg in the brief shot of it jumping. Since the next shot is of it running away with Boy-Robert running after it, and then it falls completely, it seems the people who follow this theory think that Boy-Robert exacerbated whatever injury it received by chasing it. Personally, I think these people are wrong and that the horse simply broke its leg when it fell and Boy-Robert had nothing to do with it getting injured - he was just there to see it happen.
Why was the old man following with the gun if the horse was just running free...like he knew it was going to break a leg?
He was out hunting. Before the horse falls you can see him briefly bend down and pick up some kind of animal (like a rat or vole or something) and put it in his bag.
I get the metaphor, but the shooting of the horse didn’t make sense. It seemed fine.....?
When a horse goes down like that and can't get up again, the likelihood that it definitely isn't fine. What we see of the situation was likely very compressed. After all, the man is far away when it falls and then is suddenly close enough to be shooting it. What likely would have happened is that the man assessed the damage to the horse and, since they're out in a field in what seems to be the middle of nowhere, it would probably have taken quite a while to fetch any kind of vet, and then there's certainly no promise that in what is presumably the early 1910s at the latest, any vet could have done anything for it. What it comes down to is that the man made the decision that putting the horse out of its misery and pain quickly was ultimately kinder than forcing it to wait for potentially hours with no guarantee of any substantial help.
reply
share