Swamp Thing

Motifs

Love and Loyalty

Their master gone, the un-men pause, uncertain of what to do… They must among themselves for a moment – and, at least, a decision is reached. For all their existence, they have followed their master blindly – wherever he might lead… And there seems no good reason to change that situation now. #loyalty

[Liz] He’s kept her safely shut away for years. Isn’t that love? She’s terrified of life without him. Isn’t that love? What other kind of love will protect her from this awful world? The love she shares with Dennis is special, will grow into something wonderful. Even shut away from the sunlight. [Narrator] She knows this is true. He told her so himself. But those eyes.

[Technis] As triple-jointed arms of filligree platinum unfolded themselves from niches in the advancing walls and stretched inquiringly towards him, he could not move. His entire being; his strange and singular existence rested wholly upon my whim, was at my disposal. For those moments I owned his life and his death and I loved him for that.

[Abby] I can’t take this, Alec. I’m sorry, really… I don’t want to hurt you, but I can’t be part of the madness anymore. I’ve lost my friends… My daughter. I’m losing my mind. [Swamp Thing] Abby, please… We don’t have… to be lovers… I understand… Please… I came through hell for you… I just want to touch you… One… last time… [Abby] I can’t. Goodbye Alec.

[Alec] What is… happening, Linda… Why are you… here? [Linda] I’m here to please you, pumpkin. It’s my job. God blessed me with a special gift and I want to use it to make people happy. Nothing can kill me. I dunno why. I get murdered five times a night in this room, but I always wake up feeling fine. You’re a lucky guy – I’m the most popular hooker in Holland. […] A kiss? Sure. No problem. [Alec] Hold me, Linda… Hold me… tight… I pray to God… You are… in heaven… I hope… I am just losing my mind…

[Sargon] Anything sharp will do. A kitchen knife, A screwdriver. It doesn’t really matter. Just feel for the pulse in your neck. Perhaps some adults could help the children at the back? Mistakes can be messy. It’s important to get this right the first time. Now, if everyone’s ready? Let’s feed the tree. Slit from left to right.

Ignorance

Divinity, Maine – founded circa 1648 – population: 97 good, god-fearing people – principal industry: scrambling for an existence – principal produce: ignorance and fear. The residents intend to burn a woman for being the cause of a genetic deformity that runs in one of the influential families. #ignorance

Death

For there will come a day, Milo, when you will tire of your eternal life, and actively seek to end it – But you will seek only in vain – For only the hand of a friend can ever put you to your final rest and, Milo my love, you have no friends! Still, you will try to die – and each failure still draw you back to time’s beginning. To relive that failure – and the ones that will surely follow. And that, my darling, is the cruelest form of – hell! #immortality

It turns and tips people out of their beds and into their cars, their offices, an avalanche of tiny men and women tumbling through life… Intoxicated by the motion, we forget all the risks. And then the world turns and somebody falls off. And oh God it’s such a long way down. Numb with shick, we can only stand and watch as they fall away from us, gradually getting smaller. Receding in our memories until they’re no longer visible. We gather in cemeteries, tense and silent as if listening for the impact; the splash of a pebble dropped into a dark well, trying to measure how far we have to fall. No impact comes; no splash. The moment passes. The world turns and we turn away, getting on with our lives, wrapping ourselves in comforting banalities to keep us warm against the cold. “Time’s a great healer.” “At least it was quick.” “The world keeps on turning."

[Swamp Thing] Each and every body… buckles and heaves… Blood-red tulips blossoming… from the pores in tattooed flesh… Tiny spores… Lodged in their skin for hours… take root and feed on their natural minerals… calcium… magnesium… nitrogen… Their twitching bodies… are fertile grounds… to plunder… lush gardens… to suck dry… [Nelson] No! You’re killing them! [Swamp Thing] There is no other way… They left me… no choice… It makes it easier… to know… that they are evil men… And evil men… belong in hell…

Dualism

[Swamp Thing to Arcane] You were my opposite. I had my humanity taken away from me. I’ve been trying to claw it back. You started out human and threw it all away. You did it deliberately. We defined each other, didn’t we? By understanding you I came that much closer to understanding myself. And now you’re dead. Really dead. And what am I going to do now? #dualism

[Traveller] Finally, with force of sheer, naked will, you built yourself a copy of the body of the man you once were. Skeleton of tropical hardwood, organs of soft fruit, skin of rose petals. You erected a scaffolding of false memories, to rest there and hide from the anger of the Parliament of Trees. There can be no more rest, The time for hiding has passed. Do you understand me? [Alec] Then I’m dead. I died in a fire a long time ago. All those nightmares were true and everything else is a lie. I’m just a ghost made of flowers. [Traveller] You woke from reality into a dream. It’s time to return. You know I’m telling the truth. Hold up your hand and concentrate.

Utilitarianism

[Etrigan of possible casualty toll] Should innocence be mollycoddled thus? I fail to see the reason for the fuss. I am the one who comes to cage the ape. I pay no heed to youth or purity. I’ll roast each fool that aids the beast’s escape, and drink in their health tonight in purgat’ry. Innocents? Why, to hear the tales they tell… You’d think there was no guilty child in hell! #utilitarianism

Non-Humans Over Humans

#non-humans-over-humans

[Underwater Vampires] Why must we be destroyed? We asked for so very little. Only a home that we could call our own, some livestock to provide for food, and a safe place to raise our children.

[Father] Why do the Parliament of Trees seek to destroy you? What did you do to anger them? [Alec] I fell… in love… I gave up… Everything for a beautiful woman… But her love for me… Withered and died… She left me… And now I have nothing… [Father] Surely you’re allowed to make one mistake? [Alec] I have made many… Since nature chose me as its champion… I have been chastised often… For clinging to my humanity…

Tulpa

Each incident had increased the general belief in the paranormal by degrees, until the whole psychic atmosphere is like a balloon ripe for bursting. Belief is power. And the Brujería intend to use that power to accomplish something monstrous. #tulpa

Problem of Evil

#problem-of-evil-motif

[Great Darkness] Little thing, you are in me, and I have a great need. In this strange place is light and order and names, I have been named evil. Yet naming is not enough. I must know my nature, I must know my purpose. Tell me, little thing, what is evil? [Dr. Fate] Evil is a quagmire of ignorance that would dream is back as we climb towards the immortal light. A vile, wretched thing, to be scraped from the sandals like dromedary soul. [Great Darkness] Am so I low, then, and is he you serve so high that there can be no possibility of respect between us? Little thing, you have taught me contempt. It’s not the answer that was required.

[Great Darkness] Tell me, little thing: what is evil for? [The Spectre] Evil exists only to be avenged, so that others may see what ruin comes off opposing that great choice, and cleave more wholly to its will, fearing retribution! [Great Darkness] And what of the tortured eons I endured, unable to broach this maddening brilliance and quiet the pain it woke in me? Do they not demand retribution? Little thing, you have taught me only vengeance… Be gone, that I might savor it in solitude.

[Great Darkness] Little Thing, will you tell me the purpose of evil? [Swamp Thing] I cannot. I am not the one you seek. I have tried to make sense of that darkness, and I have failed. I have seen evil… It’s cruelty… The randomness with which it ravages… Innocent and guilty alike… I have not understood it. I asked the Parliament of Trees, whose knowledge is older, greater than mine. They seemed to insist that there was no evil. But I have seen evil, and their answer was incomprehensible to me, and yet they spoke of aphids eating leaves, bugs eating aphids, themselves finally devoured by the soul, feeding the foliage. They asked where evil dwelled within this cycle, and told me to look to the soil. The black soil is rich in foul decay, yet glorious life springs from it. But however dazzling, the flourishes is love in the end, all decays to the same black humus. Perhaps evil is the humus formed by virtue’s decay, and perhaps it is from that dark, sinister loam that virtue grows strongest? I do not know… I do not know that they meant. [Great Darkness] I see. Little thing, I sense a great and final end approaching. I would be alone. Leave freely, as you came.

[Swamp Thing] Is this, then, what it is to be a god? To know, and never do? To watch the would wind by… and in its windings find content? … I cannot mend the world… without committing greater wrong… yet have no wish… to be eternally… exposed to all its pains… I sit and think on this… then… Having made my terrible decision…think no more. Mankind must stand or fall… by its merits alone… Save for this one. This one I’ll keep with me… until she dies… Beyond, if I am able.

[Retriever] Father Kelly is indeed a brave man, but he is misguided. God does not heed the whimpering of the damned. [Alec] But God sent him… to help me… God answered… his prayers… [Retriever] You are as naïve as you are grotesque, monster. His God did not pardon him from hell. We released him ourselves. An hour spent on God’s earth makes hell a little more terrible, Doctor Holland. We did not release him out of kindness. We wished only to compound his torment. [Alec] That is… monstrous… [Retriever] Indeed. Perhaps we will do it again some time.

[Sargon] You don’t understand, do you? It’s because I need to shed my material possessions and you’re the only thing that matters to me, Grace. You’re the only one I love in the whole world. So you’ll have to go. […] Someone has to stay behind and suffer, Grace. There can be no heaven without hell by comparison. Those are the rules which bind the world together.

Poised between heaven and hell, he suffers for the sins of the world. A martyr for all mankind. His life has been dedicated to the pursuit of distant concepts and ideas. The spiritual and intellectual illumination of the over-mind. He never imagined for a moment it would end like this. Shackled to the world of matter, he endures the pain and suffering of true knowledge. Crucified to the earth itself. This is how it feels to love someone enough to give up everything. This is how it feels to be alive. At last, he understands. The sorcerer has attained illumination.

Sanity

He was the Swamp God. Wood elemental. Good Gumbo Man. The Spirit of the Bayous. He had a wonderful daughter, in whose soul the earth’s green flame burned. He had a human wife who loved him, crying his name ecstasy. And each night, hot dusk descended and the ‘gators dreamed their ancient dreams and the liquid stars and lantern moon were strung among the trees to light their magical house in the forest. He was a god. He was happy. Happy ever after. And then he woke up.

[Alec] And then there’s the alternative… What if I’ve accomplished some kind of unusual bonding of plant-derived harmine molecules and the adenine base in my human DNA? This all goes back to Terence McKenna’s researches, but do I dare believe it? Have I really become some new form of life, or is this just a psychotic delusion?

World-Building

[Señor Blake] They say the soul train’s driven by demons and angels too. Makes the round trip from heaven to hell and don’t stop for nothin’.

The night is made of fog – and shaped by shadows: kaleidoscopic patterns soul at random across the marsh – creating life where none exists… and sometimes hiding life that does.

Language

Your name is Linda Olsen Ridge – and your mind is a raging river this night – carrying your thoughts along a surfing stream of consciousness – sending memories crashing like waves upon some distant shore.

[Floronic Man about Swamp Thing] It remembers having bones, and so it builds itself a skeleton of wood. It remembers having muscle, and constructs muscle from supple plant fiber. It remembers having lungs, and a heart, and a brain, and it does its best to duplicate them. You see, we were wrong, general. We thought The Swamp Thing was Alec Holland, somehow transformed into a plant. It wasn’t. It was a plant that thought it was Alec Holland. A plant that was trying its level best to be Alec Holland.

[Of the Justice League’s Watchtower] There is a house above the world, where the over-people gather. There is a man with wings like a bird. There is a man who can see across the planet and wring diamonds from its anthracite. There is a man who moves so fast that his life is an endless gallery of statues.

[Of Jason Blood (Etrigan’s host)] At eleven thirty-eight he gave thirteen dollars to a priest collecting for the mission fund, and then laughed for a full minute. The hotel was not the best, but it was the most atmospheric. The devil checked in at noon.

[Zatara, to Sargon who is being burnt to death] Sargon, you are upsetting my daughter. For the honor of our profession, be silent and die like a sorcerer.

To the East is Bryant Town, where the slums lean against each other for support, old and consumptive, and children grow like sick dandelions amongst the rubble. This is where the city breeds its rats.

[Technis] Beneath him, above him, beside him the aerial panorama of a cryptic mechopolis tiled and spun.

[Technis] Neatly tying the loose ends of self-fulfilling prophecy into the unfathomable knot of paradox, I deposited the intruder back at the point where I had noted the chronofracture earlier… Everything went as before: The shock of impact, the almost subliminal first glimpse of his features, the eerie moment when he revealed himself as a phantom, diving bodiless into the cold, oil-scented sea of clockwork, seeking refuge in a fresh-grown body… Everything went as before except for the part I altered. Everything went as before except that this time I was waiting for him.

The Swamp Monster checked in at 9pm. He insisted on a room with a bath and a toilet and paid sixty dollars in cash. Having a toilet was important to him, which was strange. He hadn’t had a shit in almost twenty years. Now he snips the foliage from a dead man’s face and tries not to catch his stolen reflection. The mirror gives up, sooner than the last one. It can only take so much.

Stolen footsteps echo through the empty church. There is no one here. Not even God.

[Nelson] Ever since I was a boy I have been afraid of the dark. It is a strange admission to be made by a man in my profession. But I would argue that I have a good reason. I am not a coward, you understand. I would not want you to think that I am easily scared. When I was twelve years old, I looked into the heart of the night and I saw the green man. He was seven feet tall and burned with a viridian flame. He vowed that he would take my life, but I promised that I would be ready for him. That night, my eyes were opened to the world beyond our world. I understood what crouched in the shadows, watching us from the darkness. Even now, I sleep with the light on. But I would not want you to think I am easily scared.

Outside, a clap of thunder filled the October sky and a murmur rippled through the heavens. All at once, the town of Freiburg came alive. Friedrich Krull’s dog, missing for two whole days, shuffled in the yard and growled at the children, its eyes discolored and pus running from its mouth. Two miles east, young Henry Syberberg and his brothers wiped their lips and got ready to teach their violent father a lesson he’d never forget. Klaus and Tascha Grossham just couldn’t stand to hear their baby daughter cry and so they held her underwater until she stopped, her tiny lungs bursting into little crimson clouds. And in the Red Cathedral, Father Bruegal finished his last bottle of homemade cider and screamed to God until his voice disappeared and then he pissed upon the altar.

[Sargon] This was the apple plucked from the tree. The forbidden fruit eaten by Adam and Eve… Man’s first desperate grasp at the illumination of the soul. I buried my stolen treasure in the ancient earth, whispering a prayer to something much older than God. Never again would I fear an eternity shackled forever to the physical plane.

References

1. The House of Secrets. #92: Swamp Thing. Gerry Conway; Bernie Wrightson; Ben Oda. dc.fandom.com . 1971.
2. Swamp Thing. #02: The Man Who Wanted Forever. Len Wein; Bernie Wrightson; Tatjana Wood; Gaspar Saladino. dc.fandom.com . 1972.
3. Swamp Thing. #04: Monster on the Moors. Len Wein; Bernie Wrightson; Gaspar Saladino. dc.fandom.com . 1973.
4. Swamp Thing. #05: The Last of the Ravenwind Witches. Len Wein; Bernie Wrightson. dc.fandom.com . 1973.
5. Swamp Thing. #12: The Eternity Man. Len Wein; Nestor Redondo. dc.fandom.com . 1974.
6. The Saga of the Swamp Thing. #20: Loose Ends. Alan Moore; Dan Day; John Totleben; Tom Yeates. dc.fandom.com . 1984.
7. The Saga of the Swamp Thing. #21: The Anatomy Lesson. Alan Moore; John Totleben; Tom Yeates; Stephen Bissette; Rick Veitch. dc.fandom.com . 1984.
8. The Saga of the Swamp Thing. #24: Roots. Alan Moore; John Totleben; Tom Yeates; Stephen Bissette. dc.fandom.com . 1984.
9. The Saga of the Swamp Thing. #25: The Sleep of Reason. Alan Moore; John Totleben; Stephen Bissette. dc.fandom.com . 1984.
10. The Saga of the Swamp Thing. #26: A Time of Running. Alan Moore; John Totleben; Stephen Bissette; Rick Veitch. dc.fandom.com . 1984.
11. The Saga of the Swamp Thing. #39: Fish Story. Alan Moore; John Totleben; Stephen Bissette; Stan Woch. dc.fandom.com . 1985.
12. The Saga of the Swamp Thing. #46: Revelations. Alan Moore; Stephen Bissette; John Totleben. dc.fandom.com . 1986.
13. The Saga of the Swamp Thing. #50: The End. Alan Moore; Stephen Bissette; John Totleben; Rick Veitch; Tom Mandrake. dc.fandom.com . 1986.
14. The Saga of the Swamp Thing #52. Natural Consequences. Alan Moore; Rick Veitch; Alfredo Alcala. dc.fandom.com .
15. The Saga of the Swamp Thing #54. The Flowers of Romance. Alan Moore; Rick Veitch; Alfredo Alcala; Tatjana Wood; John Constanza. dc.fandom.com .
16. The Saga of the Swamp Thing #55. Earth to Earth. Alan Moore; Rick Veitch; Alfredo Alcala; John Totleben; Tatjana Wood; John Constanza. dc.fandom.com .
17. The Saga of the Swamp Thing #60. Loving the Alien. Alan Moore; John Totleben; Tatjana Wood. dc.fandom.com .
18. Love, Death & Robots: Beyond the Aquila Rift. lovedeathrobots.fandom.com . Accessed Oct 12, 2022.
19. The Saga of the Swamp Thing #64. Return of the Good Gumbo. Alan Moore; Stephen Bissette; Tom Yeates; Rick Veitch; Alfredo Alcala; Tatjana Wood; John Constanza. dc.fandom.com .
20. The Saga of the Swamp Thing #140. Vegetable Man. Grant Morrison; Mark Millar; Phillip Hester; Kim Demulder. dc.fandom.com . 1994.
21. The Saga of the Swamp Thing #141. Bad Gumbo. Grant Morrison; Mark Millar; Phillip Hester; Kim Demulder. dc.fandom.com . 1994.
22. The Saga of the Swamp Thing #142. Soul Train. Grant Morrison; Mark Millar; Phillip Hester; Kim Demulder. dc.fandom.com . 1994.
23. The Saga of the Swamp Thing #143. Desert Hearts. Grant Morrison; Mark Millar; Phillip Hester; Kim Demulder. dc.fandom.com . 1994.
24. The Saga of the Swamp Thing #144. A Hope in Hell. Mark Millar; Phillip Hester; Kim Demulder. dc.fandom.com . 1994.
25. The Saga of the Swamp Thing #145. Big Game. Mark Millar; Phillip Hester; Kim Demulder. dc.fandom.com . 1994.
26. The Saga of the Swamp Thing #146. Murder in the Dark. Mark Millar; Phillip Hester; Kim Demulder. dc.fandom.com . 1994.
27. The Saga of the Swamp Thing #147. Amsterdamnation. Mark Millar; Phillip Hester; Kim Demulder. dc.fandom.com . 1994.
28. The Saga of the Swamp Thing #148. Feeding Habits. Mark Millar; Phillip Hester; Kim Demulder. dc.fandom.com . 1994.
29. The Saga of the Swamp Thing #149. The Root of All Evil. Mark Millar; Phillip Hester; Kim Demulder. dc.fandom.com . 1994.
30. The Saga of the Swamp Thing #150. The Illumination. Mark Millar; Phillip Hester; Kim Demulder. dc.fandom.com . 1995.