Hello. 👋
I've watched The Last Witch Hunter. Quite cinematic.
Witch
Let us start with the word witch.
Etymologically, it's a tangled web. Old English wicce (female) and wicca (male) simply meant "wise one" or "sorcerer".
The word sorcerer ➡️ from Old French sorcier ➡️ from Mediaeval Latin sortiarius ➡️ meaning "one who influences fate or fortune".
Both terms are related to knowledge and understanding. Not... inherently "devil worshipping". Well, the binarisation. Look at us now, in digital realm, with the binary as its very foundation.
From Mediaeval
So the film set the background in around 13th century.
It was started by them barged into the witch queen's lair to neutralise her. They were the pest-control squad of the Vatican.
⬆️ That is akin to deforestation trope. The natives are the protesters, there's the leader of the natives, those protesters are the pests, and the corporate bouncers barge into the leader's house — the story carries on.
But things went Pete Tong, Kaulder (Vin Diesel) and the witch queen (Julie Engelbrecht) "died together". The outcome of that was Kaulder got the curse of immortality and the witch queen was held in stasis. The stasis part wasn't
Oh yes, from the look of it, she's now in stasis. Good game, Charles Kaulder.
(Charles Kaulder.) Thank you, old chap. Biscuits?
It was revealed afterward in the story. Because, well, they hadn't used the word "stasis" in 13th century that often. Unless they were selling some sort of dolls with a typo, "Stacey doll, anyone? Staceys, Staceys. Cheap."
⬆️ Because if it were simply a successful mission, we wouldn't have the film.
To Modern
Kaulder lived in modern world, roughly 800 years after that baffling incident.
How they put Apple product placements in that. Indeed, because "iPad" was easier to say than "Xiaomi Pad 6 Pro". Oh, that's too much utterance. Not sufficiently centralised. And of course in 2015, "Xiaomi Pad 6 Pro" had not been there yet.
He specifically lived in 21st-century New York, which geographically is situated in the United States. Not in Lincolnshire, UK.
Now about the US bit. We need to question that. A mediaeval European witch hunter, cursed in what appears to be somewhere deeply continental — forests, ancient trees, old world atmosphere — and he ends up in the United States of all places. Not... the Swiss Alps, the Black Forest, some brooding Scottish highland castle. Not even Rome, where his Vatican employers actually are. Odd, that.
Let's assume it makes sense. Continuing. Since he's already in the US, you see, renting six Abrams tanks and, at least, one Apache squadron wouldn't cost that much from Vatican's accounting. But that did not happen! Such elaborate oddities.
LAN Priest
Somewhere in it, there was Elijah Wood the cleric. Named "Dolan the 37th". As if he were a LAN technician.
(Elijah.) HARK, CUCUMBERS EVERYWHERE! I am Dolan. I do LAN cables, trimming, and such! THE 37TH.
🤔 In a way, perhaps so. You know, "local area network" of the institution, being the technician of that.
Perhaps the writers in their room saw a technician,
(Writer.) Hey, what are you doing?
(Technician.) I put LAN network here. The boss wants 36th and 37th floors connected.
(Writer.) Right. 🤔 LAN, put LAN, Putlan. Hm. He did LAN. Didlan, no... He does LAN. Doeslan. Sounds "thus LAN", no... Do... Doe... DOE LAN. Doelan. Dolan! YES! With number!
(Technician.) I'm Sergei.
And that's why Elijah Wood's character sounds... technical.
Back to Mediaeval
When the film got to the point of "final battle" — Kaulder vs Witch Queen — the bloke went mediaeval. With the sword and such. Knowing... he's in modern-day US, and funded by the Vatican.
Similar to Highlander, alleyway swords clanging.
The Witch Queen
The witch queen is a menace! She will... unleash plague upon humanity. That's quite... vague. What type of plague? Here, some quid. No rogue botanical menace in modern world!
Anyway, I guess that was merely the witch queen's self-defence mechanism. She didn't have that idea in the first place. Simply being menacing and aesthetically unpleasant — not bothering anyone, mind you — not until the pest-control squad finished rummaging through her house, subsequently burned it, and suddenly she's the villain of the piece.
If we look at it once more, in the film, there was no backstory of the witch queen plotting something malevolent. No "Oooh, I think I'll smack those goats telekinetically. Nobody can OUTODOUR me!" (Falling on the ground. Thud!) She was just... inside her ominous tree house. Maybe even having a nice cup of poisonous tea. People can have portentous dwelling place and toxic beverage. Rather stylish. And those pest-control blokes barged in, lit fire inside her house. Any reasonable magistrate would throw the book at Kaulder.
And where were you on the night in question, Mister Kaulder?
Committing arson in a lady's tree, Your Honour.
Right.
Right.
⬆️ The most anticlimactic trial.
🤔 Perhaps it is like... when we noticed a cockroach in the vicinity. The esteemed insect simply existed there, roamed about. Bit of an odd fragrance, but that was it.
⬆️ I respect you enormously as an insect. You are esteemed. Good day.
Well, its SCREAM, PEASANT! physical appearance. Then we usually took our sandal, broom, or flamethrower. We don't have that feeling toward a nice looking, fragrant pair of shoes, I firmly believe.
But!
Kaulder and the gang exactly knew that the tree was the witch queen's lair. They lurked.
If they don't want to be bothered by her appearance, simply don't go there then.
Oh, but this formula: let's go there logic. Oh, let's get BOTHERED.
Reasoning: why not? We're here, aren't we?
⬆️ If they... did go the other way,
Hey, let's go home. I'm tired. This is the most tiresome no-meal picnic. Let's just tell that joke about Bjarni's eyebrows to everyone back home. (Credits roll.)
Perhaps their homes were a few hundred yards from that tree. Who knew.
Back to Mediaeval, Again
Back to that chosen method — the mediaeval method — even in the actual film, Cauldron, I mean Kaulder, didn't even do Latin ululation. "Maximus spellus, begonus from my anus ulululululu 📢" (average 5000 Hz), no such "-us -us" scene. So... why... that? Is there a rulebook somewhere?
If I want to eliminate the witch queen, I must go with the sword.
But mate, there's Hellfire missile. Isn't your wallet 3-metre thick?
Let's see, £100 usually is around 0.1 mm thick, therefore three metres = 3,000 mm divided by 0.1 = 30,000 notes × £100 = £3,000,000. Just in your wallet! That's using pound sterling. Using Confoederatio Helvetica Franc — 1,000 as its largest denomination — then 30,000,000 CHF! Thirty million Swiss francs! In your wallet! Well, unless you didn't use it to keep banknotes. I mean, a three-metre thick wallet. Perhaps that looks more like a javelin rather than a wallet. Imagine carrying a javelin in your back pocket, people would shout ASPHALT! (Shudder.) ⬅️ It's a pun if you didn't notice. From "arse" and "vault". Javelin ➡️ vault ➡️ arse ➡️ ass ➡️ asphalt. Oh, it's not funny anymore. Laugh, Kaulder. Not an option.
But how about that 800 years of Vatican salary in your "bank account", zero expenditure on food, zero expenditure on healthcare? Still? Sword? Oh, they didn't give you salary? Well, that's a peculiar business relationship.
⬆️ That "traditional" trope is very similar to modern-day vampire in entertainment. Still with the wooden stake, the cross bit, garlic, maybe holy blender, and whatnots. Never a bazooka or a grenade. You know stake, steak. Wooden steak. They didn't use that EITHER. It's absolutely cheaper than one grenade. A wood, cut, put paint a bit, let it dry, wooden steak. Or just put "steak" label on an innocent timber slab.
O Lord Dracula, here's your fine steak. Bon appétit!
Thank you. Ah-ah-ah!
(Bites the wooden steak. Cracking sound.)
MY FANGS!
One fang, ah-ah-ah, two fangs, ah-ah-ah, are gone.
AH-AH-AH!
You see "holy blender", that's a pun of holy water. They didn't use that EITHER.
Wouldn't it be more dramatic if Kaulder employed airstrike and the witch queen could speed up the time? Whoops! Said the witch queen. My precious datacentre! YOU PLONKER.
Chloe
And there was Chloe, played by Rose Leslie. Kaulder fought Belial (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson) in her bar. Belial burnt Chloe's bar to a crisp. Oh, that Belial with his culinary fascination for anything grilled.
Then somehow Kaulder brought Chloe to his mansion. She blamed Kaulder for... her bankruptcy. Sarcastically. And then Kaulder said to her, "...but if you help me, I promise to keep you safe." ⬅️ Bloody counter-offer, that. She wasn't unsafe to begin with, not until he needed to review the heart-squeezed-by-witch-queen-and-put-spell commit, merged from daft-mission branch to main around 800 years ago. No pull request, no review, just flung it straight into main and
Hey, there's a riddle... and it's about that commit. Barely remember anything. Need potion to see the details! Chloe! Potion. Oh, your pub is burnt. You know, alcohol, combustible. Someone will keep you safe. Chloe.
No compensation whatsoever. Vatican quid? No? I guess transactional safety made more sense. I knew it. 800+ year-old Kaulder is a stingy, mingy, mean, tight-fisted melon.
Ah! That explains why he didn't rent the Abrams and Apache.
Imagine if that Chloe character were played by Jet Li. Jet Li can do RP. I believe. As opposed to Chloe, Greek origin, Jet Li named himself... adhering the Greek root, Chlorophyll. Shortened as Chloroe. We've just solved the "Chloe" male equivalent.
(Chloroe.) Oh I do believe, good sir.
(Kaulder.) You believe what?
(Chloroe.) That I pronounce "world" as /wɜːld/.
(Kaulder.) Fine. And?
(Chloroe.) And I will keep you safe from me if you help me rebuild my pub. Good. Sir.
🤔
But then if Jet Li were Chloroe, then the pub wouldn't be bothered by Belial. You see, such as in "Fist of Legend" (1994), Jet Li smashed the opponent's arms and legs as if he were a frantically methodical feudal lord. Not jaw, chin, neck, abdomen, rib. No no. He obliterated the very instruments being used to attack him.
Indeed, frantically methodical, calmly working through the skeletal structure with genuine administrative efficiency. Issuing a long term invoice.
Because the regular way is "to make them simply lying unconscious", aye? But this... this... let's make them
feel the pain.
Consciously.
Nociceptor ➡️ peripheral nerve ➡️ spinal cord ➡️ brain ➡️ "Ouuuaaauuuch!!" ♻️ for quite some time.
One lad's dragging himself along the pavement on his elbows. Another's doing this bizarre sideways shuffle because one knee has simply resigned from duty. A third's got an arm pointing in a direction God never intended arms to point! ⬅️ People in CERN may utter something like, "That shouldn't exist in three dimensional space. Should we accelerate his testicles?" These CERN blokes aren't even concerned. They're intrigued. It is a research opportunity.
Therefore, Belial, after that incident, wouldn't enjoy his grilled bean with just one functioning finger. On his shoulder. Whilst one part of his brain telling him to shout involuntarily. (Credits roll.) ⬅️ Vin Diesel would be just one of the extras then. Somewhere in the credits: Worried Bystander — Vin Diesel.
🤔
But... there should be no pub in the first place. Because a pub is essentially the antithesis of everything Jet Li's entire cinematic persona represents. Right.
If Jet read this, he should say something like, "Brother, how did I get here? Are you safe from me. Brother?"
Witch Queen In America
The flow goes as such:
Witch Queen in stasis (somewhere in Europe) ➡️ Belial seeks her resurrection ➡️ Dolan 36th (Michael Caine) is interrogated for the heart's location ➡️ Dolan the 36th is ironically held in stasis. Take that, 36th LAN technician! — said Belial, maybe ➡️ heart is retrieved ➡️ Witch Queen is resurrected ➡️ Chant is initiated ➡️ Plague Tree sprouts in New York.
The new tree acts like a datacentre. She can't just spin up a new instance without provisioning the infrastructure first. The Plague Tree is literally her server rack. No tree, no witch queen process running. So the complete sequence:
Witch Queen in stasis ➡️ Belial seeks her resurrection ➡️ Dolan the 36th is interrogated for the heart's location ➡️ Dolan the 36th is put in a coma ➡️ heart is retrieved ➡️ Witch Queen is resurrected ➡️ Chant is initiated ➡️ Plague Tree sprouts in New York ➡️ Queen migrates to new datacentre ➡️ Operational in US region.
Belial didn't bother to bring the human cocoon, Max Schlesinger (Isaach de Bankolé), to Helsinki or somewhere in Qatar. You know, to be... undetected by everyone? But no, right on that spot. Bloke can do geomancy.
GEOMANCY.
⬆️ Earth magic, manipulating soil, rock, and ground essentially. Well theoretically if he can manipulate earth itself, burrowing through Chloe's pub floor, emerging in Accra or Addis Ababa isn't entirely out of the question.
Belial's entire resurrection operation filed as a CVE. The most catastrophically unpatched security vulnerability in supernatural history, zero effort at obfuscation. Attack vector: everyone. Severity: critical.
So every single party involved — Kaulder, Belial, the Witch Prison, the Axe and Cross headquarters — all conveniently based in New York. Coincidence happens.
Anyway, they preserved the queen's heart so that Kaulder can be their immortal pest-control bloke, an indestructible weapon. The pest being any witch in the lore. If they destroyed it, no film. Also, if they told Bjarni's eyebrows joke, no film.
Kaulder
That "Kaulder" name, I'd wager it was inspired by cauldron.
The flow should be similar to "Dolan" thought process. Somewhere, someone did something ➡️ lightbulb. Kaulder, sounds Germanic. YES! Yes. But there's an English word "cauldron". No, Kaulder! Different! Indeed.
You see how witch is associated with the cauldron? Because they brewed potions and cooked meals with it — the "it" being the cauldron I mean.
Cauldron (noun)
A large, round, usually metal container for cooking in, usually supported over a fire, and used especially in the past.
They washed the cauldron properly before brewing or cooking anything. Just like me. I mean they didn't wash me, I washed the cookware before using it. My cookware, not theirs. Since I don't want some "ornaments" in my scrambled eggs and "diarrhoea". I may need either one or both but I do not not want neither.
Well, perhaps one witch once invented the "potion of meal". The universal solution for hunger. Which could be poison. Could. But through this logic:
if one is... not alive, then there is no hunger. For that... one.
⬆️ Hunger is solved, mortality goes up one hundred per cent.
So "Kaulder". One particular pot hunted the cooks. Hm.
It's analogous to one lad named himself LOGITEX and haunting every programmer worldwide, headquartered in NYC, funded by Scrooge McDuck — meaning no funding, thus tight-fisted. Wielding a sword. Wooo... Swooord... Shiny... Wooo... Infinite loop... Wooo... Merge conflict on main branch... Wooo... SMTP command injection via CRLF sequences in the transport... Wooo... 👻 Because an Apache squadron apparently needs quid.
Well, that's all. Farewell. 👋
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