MovieChat Forums > Pulp Fiction (1994) Discussion > Why didnt Butch just leave Marsellus Wal...

Why didnt Butch just leave Marsellus Wallace to die in the pawn shop?


Just a thought i had watching this movie years ago and still do today, Vincent was dead from Butch shooting him, Jules had quit and gone to wander the world, and Winston Wolf wasnt exactly an avenger type guy, just a cleaner upper guy.

So there would no consequences for Butch if he just left the pawn shop and stole Zed's motorcycle and allowed Marsellus Wallace to be raped and murdered, even if Marsellus told Zed and Maynard what Butch's name was he was going to leave town soon anyway, Mr. Wallace doesnt seem like a snitch though, even if they told him that Butch was gone and had escaped.

So Marsellus Wallace would have been killed shortly after Butch escaped anyway, no more problems with him and it ties up things nicely, also rids the world of a scumbag gangster too, Butch was already trying to kill Marsellus himself twice anyway, this forces Zed and Maynard to do the murder and dispose of the body, good times for them unless Marsellus Wallace escaped from their grasp and fought back.

On the other hand Butch could have just called the police and reported what happened and said that a Black man was being raped in the basement of that pawn shop by two Rednecks, describe the crash and omit his name, let the police be notified and show up to arrest Zed and Maynard and Marsellus Wallace, all three would go to jail and a lot of explaining would have to be done.

Marsellus Wallace might even lose his reputation and street cred after being arrested because the police would sell the story to Inside Addition or Extra or the Tabloids, not something Marsellus Wallace would want to become widely known and now it would be huge news.

Just my thoughts.

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[deleted]

[deleted]

Man rape changes everything.

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Butch's decision to save Marcellus shows his quality or honor as a man and human being. He also told Maynard to stay out of his conflict with Marcellus so he had to pay Maynard back for breaking that code. Code is equated to honor in this universe and it's a theme played out in other storylines in this movie.

Every major character has their quality moment to make the right decision and if you re-examine each character's story line we see that Vincent is the weakest and less thoughtful. Not only is he careless when taking Mia out for a good time, he almost kills her due to his drug addiction. Without the help of his dealer he'd be in deeper shit than Butch that's for sure. Vincent is also careless again later on when he's assigned to track down Butch as he takes a dump to read a comic book while leaving his hand canon on the kitchen counter. It's quite possible he was coming off of heroin again.

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Three reasons he turned around:

1. Like most people here say, he didn't want to leave another person to that fate. It was an innate decency.

2. He probably thought that he could score some points with Marcellus Wallace if he helped him. A risk though, since Marcellus seemed mighty pissed at him.

3. Revenge/anger in disgust against those psychos who had 5 minutes earlier tied him and Marcellus up, and had them gagged. These people had probably raped others before and would surely do so again in the future.

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The 'fantastical-cinematic' way of looking at it is that he became a good guy and audiences like that and that's it.

There is no deeper meaning/reason behind this.

You can have your fan theories and Tarantino can come up with some bs explanation, but it was just an audience pleasing moment... it's 1990s Bruce Willis (John McClane) rescuing somebody!

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