Blood Meridian Chapter 23 | The Dance Never Ends
Page Chewing · Sep 29, 2026 · 17:43
Page Chewing · Sep 29, 2026 · 17:43
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We've reached the end of Blood Meridian.
Chapter 23 brings the kid, now the man, face-to-face with Judge Holden one final time, and suddenly so many things we've been tracking throughout this read-along begin connecting.
The dancing.
The kid's capacity for mercy.
The Judge's obsession with war.
Predators and prey.
Cycles of violence.
And the question we've been asking almost from the beginning: Why did Judge Holden take such an interest in the kid?
In this episode, I work through my immediate reaction to the ending, the dancing bear, the Judge's final conversation with the man, and the horrifying ambiguity of what happens in the jakes.
I also look back at the kid's journey and the possibility that his great failure in Holden's eyes wasn't that he refused violence because he certainly didn't, but that he refused to surrender himself completely to it.
And then there's the Judge.
Decades have passed.
He seemingly hasn't changed.
He dances.
He says he'll never die.
What exactly is Judge Holden?
I don't think Blood Meridian gives us an easy answer.
And after spending a chapter a day with this novel, I'm not sure it should.
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