Dr. Thurmon and the end of the world

[thatsgross]

What does Dr. Thurmon mean when she says this following passage:

"If the sky were to suddenly open up, there would be no law, there would be no rule. There would only be you and your memories."

Also this one:

"If this world were to end, there would only be you... and him... and no one else."

I don't understand what exactly she's referring to, or how this parallels/affects the plot.

[reignman]

thatsgross said:

What does Dr. Thurmon mean when she says this following passage:

"If the sky were to suddenly open up, there would be no law, there would be no rule. There would only be you and your memories."

Also this one:

"If this world were to end, there would only be you... and him... and no one else."

I don't understand what exactly she's referring to, or how this parallels/affects the plot.

She's probably quoting POTT that Kelly never formally released. She's basically saying that once the tangent universe ends, you only dream about it--it doesn't exist anymore.

[Cliffgreene]

awesome question,those quote mystefy me as well.I always try and wrap my mind around them but I can't grasp there meanings.it is a phenomenal scene.one of my faveorites,in fact.

[thatsgross]

It's one of my favorites, too, but I'd like it better if I fully understood it. Anyway, I watched the movie again the other day and I thought I understood a little more of this part... I kept wondering WHY Dr. Thurmon was saying this... how does it help Donnie, since she IS a Manipulated Living? I think that she is making Donnie's mission more personal. She could be referring to the Primary Universe, or all existence, and she says that if existence were to end, it would only be Donnie and Frank. I don't think Donnie would want that... in fact, I think he would avoid that, since Frank confuses him and probably scares him, too. So by saying this, Dr. Thurmon is making Donnie want to save the universe for a reason other than the self-sacrificial save-Gretchen reason. If nothing else, he's saving the universe so it's not just him and Frank.

Just a thought. I still don't understand the "no law" and "no rule" part of it. Is this somehow referring to an end to the order of space-time? Hmmm. That Dr. Thurmon's a tricky one.

[d]

or she was speaking of donnie and god, not frank.

[Andrew]

i think in a way that frank is sort of in the role of god..... not saying that god is horrible and would want ppl to do bad stuff.....i unno...it just sorta seems like that to me

[gretchen]

great observation andrew, you'll find that many of our members entertain the idea of frank being a messenger of god, or even the voice of god.

try a search on frank or religion to find more ties to this idea

[Bigboy]

It's attractive to assign mysterious/spiritual meaning to these quotes, but let's not forget that she's a professional psychologist;

I think she's speaking purely as a psychologist - she s saying that if he allows himself to indulge his "delusions" (frank/the end of the world) that he could shut out reality altogether.
If the end of the world comes/the sky opens up (meaning a psychological break) then Donnie would be trapped within his own mind, with only his delusions (i.e. "him" - Frank) and his memories as company.

The way she puts it is emotionally charged and may be "manipulated", but it seems to me she was simply empathising with him - expressing concepts in terms defined by the patient is pretty common.

[ProvidencePortal]

I've always felt these statements make Dr. Thurmon one of the bigger mysteries in the story ... in part because I find the language she uses so unlikely for a counselor in mid-session. It feels to me incredibly unlikely that, in conversation with Donnie, she'd fantasticize what must be to her Donnie's delusions; especially so that she'd talk about them breathlessly, intimately ... like a cult convert. Counselors ask leading questions, offer reflective cues. I don't believe it's natural for them -- if they're treating someone -- to speak euphamistically or in metaphor when trying to talk about pscyhological processes.

But I purposefully raise the question: is she treating him? I think there are split opinions on the matter. Some evidence (the "you were never crazy" revelation) indicates she must have believed him all along -- a near impossibility to me unless she is offered more extensive exposure to the LR cycle than the rest of the ML. (That is, others are not asked to believe in Frank, let alone to understand and talk about in such explicit terms the outcome of Donnie's mission. These quotes seem to indicate Thurmon knew of and believed in both.)

However, much of the rest of the interaction between Thurmon and Donnie seems stock, textbook counseling. She is intrigued, yes. But that doesn't mean she believes what he's saying ... just that she finds it perplexing and interesting. Also, the phone call to his parents near the end seems firmly in the camp of not only just being his run-of-the-mill counselor, but of actively NOT believing Donnie ("he's very sick and needs to be brought in/stopped," to paraphrase, are not the instructions of someone supporting the LR cycle).

Another confuser: the timing of the moments when her statements seem to give her an ominiscience only matched or exceeded by Frank's, and of those when she seems to believe Donnie's a nutjob of very terrestrial means, is such that both things occur throughout the movie. So I don't believe we can safely call the mixed signals evidence of evolution in Thurmon's thinking. If she moved from doubting psychologist to enraptured convert, wouldn't that happen in a pretty linear fashion along the movie's timeline? But instead, she's using bizarre language and demonstrating a scary understanding of the LR cycle sometimes at the beginning, and at the end she's behaving like a doctor with a schizoid patient.

To make it sensible in the movie mythos (that is, to avoid pointing out that the confusion in her character is likely the result of her being the main tool in the red herring plotline Kelly seems to have aborted mid-movie -- the "is he crazy or not?" sideshow), we may need to assign the doc a role somewhere between ML and MD, one we haven't had before. At the very least, I think we need to ask whether an ML's knowledge, awareness and understanding of the situtation can become clearer over time in the TU. The next question for me would be, if so, are some MLs better prepared or more able to make breakthroughs faster than others? And finally, is the doctor one of these MLs who is more attuned to the divine, or better prepared through academics, or more empathic -- or whatever characteristic it is -- and therefore more able to see into and make accurate conclusions about the LR cycle?

edit: changed "and" to "can"

[GrandpaDeath]

thatsgross said:

"If the sky were to suddenly open up, there would be no law, there would be no rule. There would only be you and your memories."

I don't understand what exactly she's referring to, or how this parallels/affects the plot.

Well, you could view it as simply a plot device to foreshadow the end of the film (sky/portal opens up; "Mad World" montage shows characters dealing with their "memories" of the TU).

But you're right: It IS out of character and comes out of nowhere. Well, almost out of nowhere. Donnie does prompt Thurmon with "The sky will open up."

I don't ascribe to the theory that Thurmon somehow knew more about the LR cycle than other MLs. (In fact, does Thurmon's name even appear as an ML inside the cover of PoTT?)

I believe she is simply performing her task as ML to assist in convincing Donnie to send the artifact back to the PU. She's manipulated to describe a bleak, lonely, horrible existence for Donnie if he fails to fulfill his LR responsibilities.

PoTT does say that MLs "are prone to irrational, bizarre ... behavior."

Then again, if PoTT doesn't list her as an ML, what the heck is she? Could she be the "author" of the PoTT notation, who, reason dictates, would not list him/herself?

Hmmmm ....

[Reed]

thatsgross said:

What does Dr. Thurmon mean when she says this following passage:

"If the sky were to suddenly open up, there would be no law, there would be no rule. There would only be you and your memories."

Also this one:

"If this world were to end, there would only be you... and him... and no one else."

I don't understand what exactly she's referring to, or how this parallels/affects the plot.

She's not treating him, she's manipulating him, the same as everyone else is. In this exchange, he was terrified because he said Frank was going to kill him. She's telloing him not to fear his fate; that he himself will be his only judge (which is perhaps why he's laughing right at the end?

Ask yourself, 1) Why is she giving him placebos, and telling him it's medication? Is she trying to make him think hes being drugged, or is she trying to give the appearance that she's doing something to help him? and 2) Why did she tell him after that exchange that the pills were placebos? To help calm him down, and to let him know he wasn't insane; By doing this, she's helping hom to accept his eventual death.

[ProvidencePortal]

reed said:

She's not treating him, she's manipulating him, the same as everyone else is.

I agree -- that seems clear. What doesn't is how she comes by so much intimate knowledge of the LR cycle. What she knows seems to be orders of magnitude beyond what the other MLs know. Why is that? I think that's the question.

[Bigboy]

I don't think that she does have a greater knowledge of the nature of the TU (or even that it exists).
If you take the quotes above:

"If the sky were to suddenly open up, there would be no law, there would be no rule. There would only be you and your memories."

"If this world were to end, there would only be you... and him... and no one else."

As literal truths in the context of the TU life-cycle, they don't really make sense. Are we to believe that should the TU play itself out, and the universe be destroyed, that Donnie or at least his mind (and perhaps Frank) would be left floating in the void?
We are expected to suspend disbelief, which is fair enough, but this seems a step too far for me (maybe I'm taking your conjecture too literally...)

Her actions and words are all based in established modes of psychological treatment - but her manipulated state enhances her words and actions to have hidden meanings (for Donnie and the viewer), and a greater emotional delivery, but there's no reason to believe that she is conscious of those 'hidden messages' or that her emotional involvement is inappropriate.

From the PoTT:
"The Manipulated Living will do anything to save themselves from Oblivion."

As one of the manipulated living on some (very deep and abstract level) she knows that the universe is doomed and that Donnie is the only thing that stands between her and oblivion. This is true of ALL the ML, but her level of contact and intimacy (she perhaps has the best opportunity to profoundly affect his state of mind - the best position to manipulate him) is such that her ML desperation for survival bubbles to the surface as highly emotionally charged discourse with Donnie.

Her actions are erratic and, it could be argued, unprofessional. But I can't see anything that falls outside the prescribed/described actions of the ML, and wouldn't attribute to her anything more or less than that.

[ProvidencePortal]

Re: "the quotes not making sense in the context of the TU." This surprises me. The image of the sky "opening up" doesn't read to you as a perfect prediction of what happens as the LR cycle concludes? And the idea of being left "only with your memories" doesn't sound like an exact description of the "Mad World" montage? I'm not certain how her quotes don't read to you as pretty exact on the topic of the LR cycle -- more exact by orders of magnitude than those displayed by MLs in the movie.

But I want to understand your perspective. Are we to believe that all other MLs recognize the threat so literally that they could instruct the LR directly -- not with euphamism or suggestion, but conciously and specifically, about what he'll need to do? If so, why don't they display this understanding? Why do they behave as if they have only intuition or the suggestion of danger on the topic? Even Grandma Death, who heretofor I believe has been considered the most mystically attenuated, speaks in riddles. Yet here is the doc, talking about the rift opening in the sky and about Donnie's quest to save the PU. I can see the suggestion that the way she behaves is LIKE the MLs and LIKE pyschoanalysis, but I don't see how speaking with exactness about the sky opening up can be understood as either of those things. To me, that smacks of something more -- something much closer to the surface of her conciousness.

I'd suggest this: beyond my clumsy attempt at an answer, I think the question is what's important -- is there more to the doc and her behavior than we've delved into so far? To me, she remains someone who seems to have access to, or understanding of, information on the cycle beyond that of the other MLs, and nearer to that demonstrated by the MDs. But again, beyond the answer I'm tickling, I think there are the questions about her phone call to the house, her placebo prescription, and her bizarre-and-seemingly-predictive comments about the TU.

[Bigboy]

This surprises me. The image of the sky "opening up" doesn't read to you as a perfect prediction of what happens as the LR cycle concludes? And the idea of being left "only with your memories" doesn't sound like an exact description of the "Mad World" montage? I'm not certain how her quotes don't read to you as pretty exact on the topic of the LR cycle

The imagery IS there - but the similarities in theme don't fit logically with the LR cycle. When she talks of the sky "opening up", it's in desperate tones implying failure/destruction. If this happens there's no dream sequence to account for "only with your memories" because nobody will be alive to HAVE memories.
To fit the way you suggest in the quote above she should have been positively ENCOURAGING Donnie to allow the sky to open (to avoid ultimate oblivion) - and she obviously doesn't.

I agree that the imagery is striking and is supposed to resonate with Donnie - but it doesn't mean that she is consciously aware of it. Such is the nature of ML.

As for her 'specific' knowledge, she never says anything Donnie has not expressed to her. She uses the imagery HE EXPRESSED to address his increasingly introspective nature, and what she interprets as delusion/fantasy.

I can't make Thurman any more than a bog standard ML. The only difference between her and the others is her relationship, access, and intimacy with Donnie.

Consider this - which is more significant in terms of specialized knowledge:

A - Dr Thurman using Donnie's own words to express his psychological downward spiral, and taking him off placebos.

B - Science teacher Prof. Monnitoff handing Donnie a book containing precisely zero accepted science, yet which spells out in black and white the exact nature of the TU and Donnie's roll as the LR?