Blood Meridian Chapter 10

You know how, in several movies, there is a part where we learn either how terrible the antagonist is or how great the protagonist is? That was chapter 10. The whole chapter is a reply to our unanswered questions about the Judge. Where did he come from? Well we're not really sure, but we did find him on a rock in the middle of the desert. How did he get to be so smart? He has traveled around the world and has kept every note in his entire life in one simple book. And so on and so forth.

Glanton and the Judge share a very coexisting relationship. Glanton, like the Judge, is very misunderstood. He kills randomly and for his own personal reasons and feels that he could learn alot from the Judge. The Judge would love to have a peer he could teach and maybe learn a little about the taking of lives as well. McCarthy shows this relationship to enhance the characters of Glanton and the Judge. If you thought that they were weird and deranged by themselves, wait untill you see them as a team! Also, this increases the mystery of each character.

One character that is interesting is Tobin, the expreist. He is obviously a very religious man, however he accepts and backs up the idea of murdering another individual. Alot of the things he says refer back to religious things. On page 130, Tobin says, "Then (the Judge) turned and led the horse...and us behind him like disciples of a new faith." However, on the other hand, Tobin is very non-religious in some of the things he says. On page 131, he says, "I thought at worst we'd throw ourselves into the caldron rather than be taken by those fiends." This is strange because suicide is one of the worst sins commitable in the eyes of a God-believing man. McCarthy includes this detail about the expreist to show how even religion can be affected by the happenings in the west. He does this to show that, even an expreist, can succumb to the evils of murder.

I looked up what the latin phrase on the Judge's gun means.
Et- this means somewhere between both and and
In- this means in or into
Arcadia- this means a box or coffin
Ego- this refers to one's self or person (I)
(stars21.com)
Therefore, we can assume that the phrase Et In Arcadia Ego means to enter one's coffin. I think that this is similar to the idiom "digging your own grave" in the sense that you are causing your own demise. Using this, we can believe that the Judge believes that you only die because you allow yourself to die or because you did something that would affect you later on.

I also found a picture of North American volcanoes...if you can't see the picture, click here http://www.volcano.si.edu/volcanoes/region12/12_map.png
Using this photo, we can infer where approximately the group found the Judge.
I looked up volcanoes in Mexico and found that most of them are in the very southern part of the country, however there is one near the connection to the Baja Peninsula and the mainland (wpcontent.answers.com)

I think that the Judge has some sort of connection with a demon or devil of sorts. For one thing, the Judge loves fire. He sits in front of one every day in a sort of tanning style. Also, he is compared to a djinn alot which we have learned is a evil or mischevious spirit. We have no idea where he came from and he supposedly knows everything. On page 130, Tobin says, "...tellin us that our mother the earth as he said was round like an egg and contained all good things within her." This may be a reference to hell that the Judge brings up. He still seems like a shady character to me and from the hints we have been given from our teacher, it seems like the Judge is only going to get worse.