Headscratchers / Solomon Kane

Film

• Fridge Logic: The Devil's Reaper attempts to take Solomon to hell, before he's even dead, telling Solomon he made a deal with the devil and he's here to collect. Problem is Solomon is well aware no such deal was ever made. The reaper then makes the dubious claim that his sins still count as a deal anyway. So Yeah.
  • I only got to see the film once, but I thought during their confrontation, Malachi says that Solomon's father sold his soul for him. I need to rewatch that film when I get the chance.
    • I hope that's not the case, as a father selling his healthy child's soul to save another is somehow more insane.
    • Solomon had burned his bridges with his father by walking out on him rather than joining the priesthood, severing any claim to his family's estate. When Josiah found Marcus crippled and in a coma, he was distraught: one son had abandoned him, while another may not live to carry on the family name. Thus, Josiah was selling the soul of his outcast, ungrateful, out-of-favour son to save his firstborn, favoured son's life: it's despicable, but not insane.
    • Actually i can see the logic in that argument even though it makes the father a much more terrible person in that light.
  • Fridge Brilliance: The Devil accepted the deal for Solomon's soul because he counted on Solomon becoming a good guy, thus making a lot of deals easier to collect on in the future.

• Solomon's father apparently sells off his soul to save his first born son from being a vegetable. I've always had a problem in fiction with the notion of someone else selling your soul. This is everlasting damnation were talking about. Living the life of your choice is supposed to be what damns you. Not some asshole dragging you down with him without you even having a choice. I know some works like to point out God is a bit of a dick but even then Satan has to at least approach you in person. There are clearly rules when damning yourself to hell, they may be unfair in certain fiction but they are clearly based on your own actions. Sure the devil may screw you over for your soul but as unfair as that may be, at least you were there.
  • If you want to sell your own soul, do you have to buy it off your father first?
  • One supposes it depends if the movie universe subscribes to the idea of sins of the father. If so, it may be less Soloman's sins and more the fact that the father's damnation passed on to Soloman. Soloman's lifestyle didn't help matters.
  • If it's hard to swallow at face value, of course, you can just assume the Devil was lying about the legitimacy and/or the existence of the father's deal. Presumably he'd hoped Solomon would just give up in despair, not turn into a hero to spite him and his "deal".

• Why didn't the Masked Rider just kill Solomon the first time he saw him, when Solomon was unarmed, perfectly willing to do whatever he wanted, and standing not 30 feet away from him, instead of having everyone else killed and leaving, only to come back and crucify him later? People were even shouting "SOLOMON!" So it's not like he could claim he didn't know who he was either, unless he was just completely stupid.
  • Because he was a slave to Malachi and killing him wasn't the point. The whole scheme was to lure Solomon back into a life of violence, on the logic that such a path would lead to him damning himself again.

• The abbot who kicks Solomon out of the monastery was quite the Ungrateful Bastard. A man with a troubled past comes to you, gives you all of his (considerable) wealth, and asks for nothing in return but sanctuary and the chance to live a quiet life. You agree, take him in, and he lives a quiet life of religious devotion. Later, you have a bad dream and then promptly kick him out because of it (but keep the money).
  • The abbot's duty is to his monastery and it's monks first. He might take in Solomon but if it seems that he is putting his charges at risk he has to put their safety before Solomon's quiet life. It's unlikely that the repentant Solomon would have wanted to see all the monks slaughtered on his account anyway.
  • It's implied the Abbots dream was about the events of the film, a God-given Prophetic Dream, that Solomon will become a holy warrior, defeat the evil ruling the land and redeem himself, the abbot even seemed to know that Solomon will have to renounce his peaceful way of life to do so, not something Solomon can do while secluding himself away in a abbey.
  • The fridge logic caught up to me toward the end: Why would the abbot expel Solomon from the monastery? The abbot told us: because of his vision from God. Why would God want the abbot to expel Solomon from the monastery? If we take the Reaper of Death's word for it, Solomon is damned, and is safe for only as long as he lives in the monastery, with death creeping closer and closer by the year... Solomon could not begin his redemption arc until he left the monastery, faced his damnation, and redeemed himself. God would thus want Solomon expelled from the monastery because it was Solomon's second chance to undo a lifetime of sin and save himself from Hell (an especially fair play if the theory about Solomon's father selling Solomon's soul is correct: no matter who sold Solomon's soul, the devil would only have a legitimate claim on it for as long as Solomon is an unredeemed sinner!)