Mr. Strawberry wrote:Considering how many curveballs have come our way, is anyone not completely convinced that "the Doppelganger" is actually evil? Couldn't he just be Cooper with an utterly annihilated soul, inhabited by BOB, yet still somehow trying his best to do what's right?
You might argue that he has the warden killed in cold blood, but what if the warden did something unspeakable and isn't fit to be a father to his son? What if the son will avoid being corrupted and ruined now that his father is out of the picture?
One might point out that he murdered Jack the mechanic, but what if Jack was suffering from something awful and wanted nothing more than to die? What if Ray and Darya are part of a heartless gang of perpetrators that have inflicted untold misery on their victims?
To be completely honest, this just sounds kind of silly. The doppelganger doesn't have a drop of good in him. Dougie-Coop has all of the good. Now, I will say that it's possible that the reintegration of the two could lead to normal Cooper, with the shadow self submerged deep in the unconscious. We do need an shadow component for a number of reasons, one being that we need to be able to understand and predict what evil humans might do. We also need to be able to go into a mode where we're less than angelic, purely for the sake of survival, which is something which societies ask of their warriors.
Mr. Strawberry wrote:Of course within the Red Room there were two Coopers, but that's not the same as the physical realm we live in. Cooper and his Shadow Self are metaphysical aspects of the same individual -- two sides of a coin. But even though a coin can be perceived as having two sides, it is still a single entity.
Sort of. The shadow self is really only supposed to be one in the lodge/unconscious. When it emerged it seems to have emerged with its own physical form, the existence of which precludes the emergence of the good Coop in physical form. The doppelganger has impenetrable black eyes and a backwards fingerprint.
Let's go to Lynch:
Q:
So, was Cooper occupied by BOB in the script before you changed it?
LYNCH:
No, but Coop wasn’t occupied by BOB. Part of him was. There are two Coops in there, and the one that came out was, you know, with BOB.
______
Q:
Why was Cooper possessed by Bob at the end? It seems like he’s lost it.
LYNCH:
Well the thing is he hasn’t been possessed. It’s the doppelgänger thing, the idea of two sides to everyone, he’s really up against himself.
Mr. Strawberry wrote:There is only one Dale in the physical world. The other guy in Vegas is a physical recreation, and part of Cooper is in him
I'd argue that this is incorrect. The real Dougie Jones was taken to the lodge, went poof, and left only a small gold sphere (perhaps part of the real Cooper's soul, which we might compare to the complete, large golden Laura sphere from part 8 ). Dale Cooper's body was able to emerge because of the existence of Dougie Jones. This is perhaps because Dougie provided raw organic material for Cooper to reformulate as if going through a Stark Trek transporter. Cooper's mind and/or soul lost something in the transfer (maybe his shoes/pin, and/or the Dougie sphere), but this is the real, physical Dale Cooper. He has Dale Cooper's haircut, suit, physique,
and even his Great Northern room key. This wasn't supposed to be possible, but it was made possible.
What would have happened if Cooper had been able to switch places with the doppelganger? Would he have looked like good old Dale, or would he have been blotchy, tan, scraggly-haired, with pitch black eyes and a backwards fingerprint? Would he have the venereal diseases which have probably been picked up by the doppelganger?
Maybe it would have been like the Dougie transfer, one body for one body, and Cooper would have emerged with his haircut, suit, normal fingerprint and everything, and without the mind/soul difficulties.
Mr. Strawberry wrote:I'm having fun with this theory in part because of the way Season 2's closing affected me back in the day, in part because I'm trying not to let Lynch & Frost pull the rug out from under us again (as if!), and in part because my gut is telling me something.
I've always approached this stuff in a prismatic manner, meaning that I see it as simultaneously literal, poetic, and metaphysical/psychological. I'd generally assumed there would be one body, and that the doppelganger would be in
that exact body. Lynch and Frost are telling us something different. They seem to be telling us that if the doppelganger comes out, it is not the same physical body, but a very close double.