FIRST BLOOD (1982)
Santa Drew FIRST BLOOD On Krampus
To quote Tony Stark quoting someone else in the opening lines of IRON MAN 3: “we create our own demons”. I really like that line because it draws a direct connection from our choices to the consequences that eventually come to stalk us. That theme between choice and consequence has been interwoven into the holiday season for me from an early age.
As a kid I was told by my parents that if I lied or did something they said was bad, a powerful fat man up north would take note and judge me. Those judgements would be tied to whether or not I would get all the toys I so desperately wanted that season. Eventually, an embargo on toys from Santa’s surveillance state became an ineffective threat.
I am sure that, had they known the stories at the time, my parents would have bedeviled me with warnings about Krampus. Telling me that there was a horned holiday button creature trained to punish naughty children probably would have given me more pause. Physical violence being doled out by a mangoat is way scarier than fewer presents. If a younger me thought that Krampus was watching, I might have been more wary about my actions.
When I watch FIRST BLOOD, I don’t get the sense that Sheriff Teasle (Brian Dennehy) or the other citizens of Hope, Washington were raised with stories of Krampus and violent holiday retribution.
We are introduced to the Sheriff as someone comfortable in his role as the northern fat man who keeps note of and judges those within his purview. When he steps out of the Sheriff’s office at the beginning of the movie, he is greeted by what seems to be every citizen on the street, further illustrating his position as the big man of the community to himself and the viewers.
It is from that seemingly safe position that he chooses to judge and bully the homeless man destined to become his M60-wielding Krampus.
John J. Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) didn’t burn through the city of Hope all on his own, there were choices made by plenty of others that contributed to the conflagration.
Teasle ignited events when he chose to bully Rambo out of town for the crime of looking like he needed a haircut. For his part, Rambo chose to walk back to town knowing he invited more conflict. Everything that transpired, Rambo’s abuse at the hands of the deputies, his escape to the mountains and his yule tide guerrilla war were all a result of individuals deciding to be bastards and stoke the proverbial fire. In a lot of ways, I look at the character of Colonel Troutman (Richard Crenna) as being just as responsible for the violence as Teasle.
Troutman famously informs Teasle that, “God didn’t make Rambo. I made him”. If Teasle is responsible for providing the initial sparks than the onus is on Troutman for constructing and misplacing a body filled with napalm and dynamite, looking to explode. Troutman arrives to rescue the town from Rambo and is seemingly the only one looking to deescalate the situation. Likely because he knows how wide the blast radius around Rambo will be.
If there are lessons to be learned from all this, it is that it’s worth it to be nice to people this holiday season. FIRST BLOOD is an extreme example of disproportionate karmic retribution for those who choose to do harm to others motivated by perceiving a threat that isn’t there. That retribution extends all the way up to those who think themselves above others. It would do well for the powerful to be wary of what they do, for fear that Krampus is watching and waiting for them to push it so he can give them a war that they won’t believe.
