It is not entirely clear to me if the wrong knot was intentionel or a mistake.
He tied the "wrong knot", i.e., the "Langford double", and it was obvious that it was intentional, though he wasn't trying to harm her. Earlier, Caine's character was complaining about the quality of Bale's character's knots, saying that the woman could slip out of the ropes while being hoisted into the tank and break her leg. Bale suggested that problem wasn't with the way he tied the knot, but with the type of knot. He said the "Langford double" would hold her tighter while being hoisted. Caine shot down the idea on the basis that she might not be able to slip the knot while in the tank. The woman insisted that she could "slip a Langford under water."
Then in the knot-tying scene, Bale starts to tie the normal slip knot as usual, but the woman makes some gestures to him indicating that she wants him to tie the Langford that they'd talked about earlier. Then Bale undoes the normal slip knot that he'd started and proceeds to tie the Langford. As it turned out, the woman was wrong in her belief that she could "slip the Langford under water", and she drowned because of it.
When Jackman's character questioned Bale's character about it, it was apparently the twin that he was questioning, i.e., the one who didn't tie the knot. This part doesn't really hold up, because for one thing, they could have easily determined what type of knot had been tied simply by examining it after breaking the woman out of the tank, and for another thing, why would the twin who tied the knot lie to the other twin about what type of knot he tied? It wasn't his fault; the woman wanted the Langford so that's what she got. It's not as if anyone who was there could legitimately deny that she wanted the Langford. Anyone who was watching could see her gesturing to him, see him undo the knot he was tying and tie a new one, all while she was approvingly watching him do it.
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HAL 9010 (904)
7 years ago
Thank you. Great walk-through. Though there are problems here. He ties a none-rehearsed knot and in doing so he essentially kills her. Indeed she was (according to you walk-through) in on it, but does it justify ignoring the rehearsals like this... no, of course not. So if we imagine he is nice as in not evil, and he simply does this without thinking it through... I can see how he may not own it later one, even to his twin bro... now to your point that it could easily be later investigated, we can imagine the knots were undone quickly as she was fruitlessly revitalized and so the evidence was lost.... I vaguely remember Wolverine quickly undoing them. Either case, your description makes him a good guy who slipped up. And fine.
However, does this fit in the larger picture?
The twins were extraordinarily focused on their craft, and one of them seemed more bossy and more evil than the other. Clearly there was a difference in their treatment of Alice etc. and so the knot (an incremental part of the whole tale) could be to tells us more than they are just two guys... no? I mean your walk-through is essentially making the simple point that they had a better idea of a knot, and not so much that they were two guys with slightly different motives... see what I am saying?
Was this just to initiate a McGuffin cause of the path Wolverine took, or to show us that they were two and not one or to show us one of them was as evil (determined psychopath) as Wolverine later became....?
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MaximRecoil (4192)
7 years ago
>He ties a none-rehearsed knot and in doing so he essentially kills her. Indeed she was (according to you walk-through) in on it, but does it justify ignoring the rehearsals like this... no, of course not.
The woman was responsible for her own death. She's an adult who wanted the Langford after having been made aware of the danger from Caine, and Bale was not her legal guardian, and presumably, neither was anyone else.
>I can see how he may not own it later one, even to his twin bro
I suppose, though on logical grounds he wasn't to blame for her death, she was. She accepted the known risk and paid the price. There was nothing here which would remove the blame from her, such as uninformed consent. Caine explained the danger and her response was that she could "slip the Langford under water", in spite of what Caine had said.
>I vaguely remember Wolverine quickly undoing them.
No, Jackman never did anything but frantically pat her face and call her name; all of her ropes can be seen to still be tied when the scene ended. And based on the information in the movie, the Langford is difficult to untie when wet because the knot swells, so the idea that it could have been hastily undone without anyone noticing what kind of knot it was, doesn't really wash.
>However, does this fit in the larger picture?
I don't know. It was obviously a plot device to cause the rift between Bale and Jackman, but I don't know if anything beyond that was intended.
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HAL 9010 (904)
7 years ago
Putting the "blame" on her makes the riff between them more interesting, so I can see it this way indeed. I only entertained different angles as Bale seemed nastier as the story unfolded, and so my mind pushed more on his shoulders then he perhaps deserved.
> I don't know. It was obviously a plot device to cause the rift between Bale and Jackman, but I don't know if anything beyond that was intended <
Likely not. The twin twist is enough, but fun to speculate though.
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