Nightcrawler's sins

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Nightcrawler's sins

Post by DeeJay »

I was just thinking about this the other day. Nightcrawler says he has one tattoo for every sin he has committed. And he had them prior to the whitehouse attack.

What sins do you think he committed. He seems like a pretty devoted religious guy so I doubt he would get into much trouble before Weapon X.
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Post by bamfchickie »

Actually, if I'm remembering correctly (I'm too lazy to get up and put on the DVD), he doesn't say that he has a tattoo for every sin he's committed. He simply says, "One for every sin." While that could mean exactly what you're implying, it could also mean that he has one for every sin "in existence," and not necessarily those he's committed personally. Kinda like a personal reminder?
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Nightcrawler's sins

Post by DeeJay »

mmm, good point there. I think he would have more tattoo's though. :)
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Post by Northstars Love »

Consider we sin everyday, I would have quite a few tattoos myself. I think I would have enough sin to carry over for several future lifetimes!:LOL
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Nightcrawler's sins

Post by thylacine »

On the other hand... some religious people feel that if you sin in your mind, then it's as if you actually did it. So even if you didn't do something, you had impure thoughts about doing something... Like, thinking about robbing a bank, or looking at girlie books, etc... So he might have thought about stuff but that doesn't mean he did it, right?
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Post by Maelstrom »

I have a hard time believing that thinking about sin is a worthwhile reason to mark your body. He put a lot of thought and effort into those, and I just can't see him doing that just because he has the occasionally impure thought. He doesn't come across as a self-castigating zealot, and that's kind of what he'd have to be for that kind of mentality.

My personal take blends the "one for every sin" approach and his Romani background. The Rom can be very superstitious people, and his carving magic symbols into him may be for many reasons:

1) As he said, for sins.
2) For invoking angelic protection, whether it's to prevent him from sinning or help ward off danger and misfortune.
3) To "prove" to other Romani (and perhaps to himself) that he isn't a devil. An evil spirit couldn't withstand those marks.
4) A way to have some power over his own body ( over which he's certainly gotten a lot of grief over from outsiders, even if he's learned not to listen to them anymore.)

Taking a look at some of the "body modification" e-zines and boards, it's fascinating to read the testimonials from those who do scarification, branding, tattoos, and so on. It can add a whole new dimension to Kurt's scarring.
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Post by StarLightCrawler »

Well I can see this can become confuseing. We realy don;t know what to him would be a sin that he would think he need thoughs symbols for. He could think it is just a sin of the mind or he think only a sin in reality. They don't give you much to go on.
As for the the other stuff that has been broght up i could not comment on that realy. I do not know much about religons. I do have faith but my own bebeliefs can up set people at times.
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Post by Bitsy »

(Oh, I like this post! I've been wondering the same thing.)

You know, when I watched that scene again...and again...and again, you get the point, I kept thinking about which "sins" he was refering to. For awhile, I thought the same thing the rest of you thought: That he put one there for every sin he's ever committed. But even when he lusted for Amanda, I doubt he ever did anything "evil" or bad. I mean, the guy's a sweetheart, for crying out loud! :love

Maelstrom, I love you! Those reasons you listed just helped me with a FANTASTIC fan fic idea and my role playing. Maybe that's why he has the sins, or one of the resons: to prove to people that he isn't a demon. What you said reminded me of the scene in "The Crucible" where John Proctor's about be hanged and he's saying the Lord's Prayer. Back when everybody was crazy and thought witches existed, demons weren't supposed to be able to hear or speak any praise of God. So, maybe something happened to Kurt in his past that convinced him to do these tatoos and prove to people and himself that he was not evil.

Still, the "one for every sin" line does throw me a bit and sort of challenges the theory. BTW, what are the Seven deadly sins? I know they're not in the Bible and that it was something created in the Middle Ages, but what are they? I only remember Lust, Greed, Gluttony, and Sloth. What're the other three?
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Nightcrawler's sins

Post by Shadow_Dancer »

Originally posted by Bamf Bunny
Many Protestant groups take this to mean that temptation is equivalent to sin.
Having been raised as a Protestant, that has never been my understanding. Christ was tempted like all of us, but yet remained sinless. It is the act of dwelling on sinful thoughts that makes them sins. Fostering ideas in our heads, that often do result in wrongful actions. This is what I always took to be the sinful part.

I have found this discussion very interesting. The scars have bothered me, because I have always seen self-mutilation as the manifestation of a disturbed mind, and not at all the same personality of the Comic Nightcrawler. But some of the reasoning given by Mael and others are things that never quite occured to me, and really do make a lot of sense. It sets my mind more at ease with the personality of Movie Kurt.
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Post by Maelstrom »

Originally posted by Shadow_Dancer
Originally posted by Bamf Bunny
Many Protestant groups take this to mean that temptation is equivalent to sin.
Having been raised as a Protestant, that has never been my understanding. Christ was tempted like all of us, but yet remained sinless. It is the act of dwelling on sinful thoughts that makes them sins. Fostering ideas in our heads, that often do result in wrongful actions. This is what I always took to be the sinful part.
Betcha you're not a fundamentalist, right? ;) The "overall Protestant" faith is a misnomer, really, because there are literally hundreds of denominations, and some of them are diametrically opposed. One the one hand you have the Quakers, who are about as peaceful and forgiving as you could ever hope for in a Christian, and on the other you've got some of these fringe Fundamentalist groups that scream obscenities at anyone that doesn't fit their narrow interpretation of the "saved" (gays, equality-seeking women, non-Christians, doctors who perform abortions, Roman Catholics, Christian missionaries who don't witness enough, the list goes on and on... :( Check out the Jack Chick Museum of Fine Art at http://www.members.aol.com/monsterwax/chick.html to see the products of a truly paranoid, narrow-minded, not-very-Christian "Protestant"....:eek )

I personally don't know any Protestants who would see temptation itself to be a sin on the same calibur of committing it, but they're surely out there. (Hell, some of the Puritans refused to use words that weren't in the King James version of the Bible! Tell me that isn't kind of loopy.... :rolleyes )
I have found this discussion very interesting. The scars have bothered me, because I have always seen self-mutilation as the manifestation of a disturbed mind, and not at all the same personality of the Comic Nightcrawler. But some of the reasoning given by Mael and others are things that never quite occured to me, and really do make a lot of sense. It sets my mind more at ease with the personality of Movie Kurt.
I put body modification (deliberate, artful scarring, branding, tattoos, etc.) in a very different camp than mutilation. It's the difference between scarification and "cutting": the former is done with great care and thought for the outcome, a way to adorn the body, while the latter is random slashing done for reasons of self loathing, masochistic gratification, or other emotional disturbance.

I couldn't really see ComicKurt doing any body modification past a pierced ear, either (not the one I'm familiar with, from the 70's and early 80's thru Excalibur). Well, he might have gotten an Errol Flynn tattoo, but it'd never show up under all that fur.... ;) But MovieKurt is a different animal. He's more based off of the very religious Kurt they designed in the late 90s, who is a different person than he started out to be.

(There's a lot of discussion over that: whether it was a natural progression, considering all the violence and soul searching that had been forced upon him, or whether it was a lame idea cooked up by a hack, but I'm not gonna get into that here....)
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Post by Shadow_Dancer »

Heh, no, I am not a fundamentalist in the strictest sense of the word. That bunch annoys the heck out of me, because they just don't get It, much like the Pharasees of Jesus day didn't get It.
Originally posted by Maelstrom
I put body modification (deliberate, artful scarring, branding, tattoos, etc.) in a very different camp than mutilation. It's the difference between scarification and "cutting": the former is done with great care and thought for the outcome, a way to adorn the body, while the latter is random slashing done for reasons of self loathing, masochistic gratification, or other emotional disturbance.
The thing that still gets me about even the artistic body modification is the pain. I've met people that actually do these things because they get off on the pain. Self or even artist-induced pain that is not a medical necessity seems a little strange. But then, this is coming from someone who has had surgery five times and survived a fairly serious car accident. Pain and I have seen enough of each other to make me never want to seek it unnecessarily :X
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Post by taekwondodo »

Regardless of any somewhat rational or justifiable reasons that can be trotted out for it, I still find movie-Kurt's scarification disturbing and unnecessary. I wish they hadn't felt the need to do that to the character. The idea that he could have been so ill at ease in his own body to have done that to himself just doesn't fit with my image of Kurt. Honestly, I think the degree of forethought and planning that goes into artful body modification is, to me at least, almost as disturbing as the mindless nature of 'cutting'. Of course, that opinion's irrelevant since he's what we've got to work with and I do appreciate the amount of thought that's gone into finding a justification for him doing that to himself. I think you guys have put a whole lot more thought into it than Singer or Cumming did - I think they just wanted something to make him look more 'interesting' or perhaps more freakish or gruesome. I'm not really sure. But I can't imagine they put much thought into how it actually related to the character and his personality, it seemed to be just a knee-jerk response to not being able to get the fur to work out on-screen.
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Post by bamfchickie »

But I can't imagine they put much thought into how it actually related to the character and his personality, it seemed to be just a knee-jerk response to not being able to get the fur to work out on-screen.
I couldn't agree more. So it's left to the rest of us to come up with logical reasons. LOL!
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Post by Darkstalker »

I think the scars are representative of the sins he's committed, since he says,..."so quite a few." And being in the circus, I believe him! No offense, but it is a historical fact that Gypsies have been known to steal. I don't think he's performed any of the major seven sins, but being Catholic myself, I would consider having lustful thoughts about a person raised to be your sister to be a sin! The only problem I have though, is isn't self-mutilation a sin in itself?
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Post by SheCat »

Originally posted by Bamf Bunny
Originally posted by Bitsy
BTW, what are the Seven deadly sins?
The Seven Deadly Sins were enumerated by Pope Gregory the Great, who was drawing on earlier lists of sins. They are

Pride
Envy
Anger
Sloth
Greed
Gluttony
and Lust.

Really? I thought vanity was one...in fact, I was pretty sure that I hadn't seen anger in the list before.
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Post by Maelstrom »

Originally posted by SheCat
Originally posted by Bamf BunnyThe Seven Deadly Sins were enumerated by Pope Gregory the Great, who was drawing on earlier lists of sins. They are

Pride
Envy
Anger
Sloth
Greed
Gluttony
and Lust.

Really? I thought vanity was one...in fact, I was pretty sure that I hadn't seen anger in the list before.
I think Vanity was another word for Pride, and Anger has also been called Wrath. That's probably what you originally saw.

One thing, just to get back on the subject of scars themselves: there might not have been a great deal of pain involved. Yes, it does tend to hurt, and yes, some people practically become addicted to a) the pain itself, or b) the endorphine rush. But I've also seen examples of people putting themselves into trances where they can painlessly, and even bloodlessly, pierce their bodies. (You already know about what I'm gonna say next, TDK.... ;) )

The one that comes to mind immediately is a Hindu ceremony in India (a procession to the monkey god, sorry I don't know the exact name... :oops). They made a documentary on it, specifically showing the priest who had been honored with carrying the main icon setup on his shoulders. This thing was made of metal, weighed a good hundred pounds on his shoulders, and entailed somewhere around 100 (lightweight, decorative) chains being attached his back by hooks! But through meditation, prayers, and mental preparation, he went into a trance, calmly allowing the other priests to finish attaching hooks and placing the rig on his shoulders, and then he carried that whole thing through the parade with nary a drop of blood. When they removed the hooks, no blood either. Yes, little red marks, but no bleeding. Through meditation, he had shut down most of the surface capillaries.

The RC Church has a problem with people causing pain to themselves to "prove" their faith. They really don't like the Passion Plays they re-enact in the Phillipines, where people volunteer to actually get crucified for several hours. They don't much care for the flagellites, either (people who scourge their backs in religious devotion). Why? Because Christ already did all that for us, and we're missing the point by doing it all over again. It isn't necessary. If Kurt did it just to cause pain, it would be considered something of a sin unto itself.

My take? It isn't about pain. It would be something he does slowly and deliberately, after hours of prayer and preparation. The initial cut, and rubbing in the charcoal/indigo irritant to ensure scarring, would be done in this prayerful trance, where pain would not be felt. After a few hours, yes, perhaps there would be some stinging, but nothing any of us haven't felt from skinned knees or a bad scrape.
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Post by taekwondodo »

I understand the whole meditation aspect of it, but to be honest, it still doesn't make it any more palatable. I'll probably never be a huge fan of movie-Kurt predominantly because of the scars. No matter how or why he did it (and Mael, I can definitely see your point on it) I still don't like what it says about his personality that he would have done it in the first place. Whether it was for the pain, as a penance, or just to 'take control' of his body, whether he was in a meditative trance.... I just do not at all care for the extremism that the act represents on any level. I am, admittedly, most irritated by the fact that fanfic writers are probably the only ones bothering to try and come up with a sane and rational explanation for it. As I said earlier, I get the impression that Singer et al just did it for the visual effect and to hell with the when, why or how of it.

That said, I do - again - appreciate seeing all the thought that some of you have put into trying to explain this aspect of his personality that the movie foisted off on him.
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Post by Dark Angel »

I know a lot of you don't like the scars on Movie Nightcrawler but I do. Maybe I like them because the Moviecrawler is what make me a Nightcrawler fan. I think they make Nightie mysterious(or something like that). They add a lot of character to Movie Nightcrawler but I tried picturing Moviecrawler without the scars and you know it wouldn't have made his character the mysterious guy interesting character I like. The scars are something of his past and I just think they make him look adorable! :D Also I known a lot of you wanted him to have fur but people do you know how LONG Alan would have to be in makeup for that( and the guy suffered enough). Maybe they could have done it on computer but I really don't think it would have looked good. I don't think Nightcrawler did those scars for his pain but who knows we wont know until the 3rd movie. Maybe they will explain it more in the next movie and add more of his humorus side because in X2 they kind of had to introduce him and he was just starting to meet all of the X-men. If you still don't like his scars and preffer his fur it's fine because I like both the scars and the fur.
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Post by bamfchickie »

No offense, but it is a historical fact that Gypsies have been known to steal.
Something to keep in mind, however: to the Rom, stealing from someone who is gadje isn't considered a sin.
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Post by Bamf Bunny »

Originally posted by taekwondodo
I think you guys have put a whole lot more thought into it than Singer or Cumming did - I think they just wanted something to make him look more 'interesting' or perhaps more freakish or gruesome.
I just can't find the article, but Singer has said that he wanted Kurt to look distinctively different from Mystique, and it was hard to do since they're both blue with yellow eyes. The scars were originally added for visual interest; the backstory came later.
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Post by kurtlover »

I have a magazine where he says that, unfortunally its in spanish, but i do remember he also said that without the scars he only looked like just a guy painted in blue and with the scars he looked more interesting, so Bunny is right, they added them for visual interest.
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Post by Bamf Bunny »

Originally posted by kurtlover
I have a magazine where he says that, unfortunally its in spanish
Post it anyway, Armi!
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Post by Lara »

Okay, I had to add my two cents. In the HBO series Carnivale, I saw a priest whipping himself... as a way to apologize for the sins other people committed. Or at least that's how my mother explained it. Maybe Nightcrawler's scars ARE for all sins? Or the sins he's seen? It's possible.
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Post by Zix »

Originally posted by Maelstrom
The one that comes to mind immediately is a Hindu ceremony in India (a procession to the monkey god, sorry I dont know the exact name... ).
This is just a guess, but I think it might be Sri Hanumanji or Hanuman, who is the incarnation of Lord Siva in the bodily form of a monkey. He’s said to be immortal and still present in the world today as the link between devotees and God.
He served Lord Rama for his life, as written in Ramayana of Valmiki and the Ramacharitamanasa of Goswami Tulasidas
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Post by spinifex »

Or, another stab at it.

Roman Catholics have Confession. You sin, you go to Confession, you get your penance from a priest (it can be anything form 'pray 10 Our Fathers' to 'work in a soup kitchen for a day').

Would he be able to go to Confession, looking the way he does? Maybe the scars are in lieu of that. He knows he can't confess to a priest, so he 'confesses' via scarification directly to God.

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