MovieChat Forums > The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018) Discussion > Theory on Meal Ticket (btw best short st...

Theory on Meal Ticket (btw best short story)

posted 6 years ago by bobbynynex (1505)
11 replies | jump to latest

Liam Nesson cut off his arms and legs for the spectacle of it.

reason: well he's a cunning and evil man. secondly the prostitute asks if the orator had sex before and liam nesson answers once. I started thinking what was the significance of this...why this throw away line. And it made me think well obviously the answer is that the Orator once had arms and legs. So the orator knows without liam nesson he's dead so might as well go on long with it.

[–] OldG (795) 6 years ago

You are reading what too much into that line... of course he once had arms and legs but what does that have to do with sex? He still had a dick so Liam character could just lift him up on the bed and let the girl go to work...

Business was bad... he was trying to survive and the chicken was apparently both cheaper and more popular at this point... so he chose to get rid of the orator... end of story...

[–] bobbynynex (1505) 6 years ago

actually no. its either he was born without arms and legs or liam cut them off. this is significant.

[–] OldG (795) 6 years ago

So that is the only two options? Anyone could have cut of his arms and legs... then only thing we know about his backstory is that Liam says he found him (without ams and legs) in London... If that is true we do not know... But why you come to the conclusion that it have had to have been Liam or a birth defect I do not know...

[–] bobbynynex (1505) 6 years ago

how else would somebody naturally lose 4 limbs u dimwit?

[–] OldG (795) 6 years ago

Well bobbynynex I am not born with your superior intellect... But I think I explained it pretty clearly already... I was questioning why you assumed that Liam cut off of his limbs... It could have been anybody unless I missed the dialogue where Liam's character says I cut off his arms and legs;-)

[–] whynotwriteme (7722) 6 years ago

Accident, disease, wartime injury...

[–] bobbynynex (1505) 6 years ago

all 4!???

[–] [deleted] 6 years ago

Torso men who were born that way do exists.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196755/The-astonishing-story-man-born-arms-legs--world-famous-swimmer-surfer-footballer.html

Also, I'm pretty sure when Liam Neeson said "he once had some", is because he sodomized him.

[–] whynotwriteme (7722) 6 years ago

I don't think Neeson did that to him. He seemed very embarrassed when he had to help the limbless man with his toilet activities and later when he was about to go to bed with the prostitute. He wouldn't have felt that way if he had taken advantage of him earlier.

I think Neeson tried to treat him to a prostitute once and it just went very badly, perhaps due to the reaction of the prostitute to his deformities, or perhaps because the limbless man was too sensitive and genteel to enjoy a prostitute. I picture a drunken Neeson and some prostitute plopping the limbless man on a bed and the prostitute going to work while the limbless man protests and cries in a very embarrassing awkward moment.

[–] whynotwriteme (7722) 6 years ago

Here's a scenario. The limbless man looks about 30. Let's say he was the youngest son of an upper middle-class British family who managed to buy him a commission as a junior officer when he reached the age of 21.

He had an artistic nature and would have preferred a career in theater, much to the disgust of his family, but he reluctantly became a young Lieutenant in the British Army. In 1878 he was sent to Afghanistan to serve in the Second Anglo-Afghan War. Due to his military incompetence, he was captured and tortured by Afghan tribesmen who mutilated his limbs severely. He was rescued, but army surgeons were forced to amputate his limbs.

Upon his return to England he was cashiered out of the army. Let's say his parents had died and his cruel elder brother refused to care for him in his invalid state and cast him out to die in the streets, where he was found by Neeson, given the chance to utilize his oratorial skills and brought to America in the late 1880s.

[–] makdog65 (75) 6 years ago

Well thought out. Thank you.