Decider's Game

I had to open a notepad so I could look at this while I was commenting. And please forgive me the length of this… analytically, sometimes I get carried away.

What I see:
I guess it never really occurred to me why toy soldiers came in two different colors. I suppose I absentmindedly attributed it to so flimsy link to camouflage and the fact that they couldn’t exactly be done up like that singly. However I finally noticed it here. It signifies a difference of sides, an opposition, but at the same time it is understood that the soldiers are all made from the same molds no matter what color they are. Each resembles the “opposing” side in feature and almost makes a mockery of the fighting as if they should all be on the same side to begin with.* Which led to the part of this that struck me most strongly. It evoked a memory of my younger brother playing with toy soldiers on banisters and under coffee tables. Using toys to depict this seems to imply a myriad of things. At once there is the automatic conviction or indignation-at-the-thought-of-the-fact (depending on the viewer) that the toy soldiers in such a serious setting call to mind the idea that real life soldiers are just that: toys at the bidding of a child. This in turn leads me to perceive the fallen soldier as an accident, his base was unsteady or a soft breeze toppled his figure. The fact that he is lying face down, works as a censor in this situation. Seeming to impress the idea that the man’s death/agony are too much to behold or too gruesome for such child’s play.

Using toys also demands a sense of disconnect from reality. The set up pulls the eyes to the fallen figure and the rest of the scene is almost lost. It is not that a fallen soldier does not elicit feelings of horror, displeasure, doom, or fear, but more so that there is nothing intrinsically sad about a toy that’s happened to fall over. It is almost more of an annoyance, as though the time and effort of setting up the scene and getting the figures in place was wasted because one figure can’t quite find the stability to stand when he is needed to.

Had I not perused the comments I might have totally missed the money in the background. Slaughter to a backdrop of bills. Only the sense of mayhem is not pronounced enough. The bills themselves seem haphazardly added because of they lack a crispness and a severity. Coincidentally the lack of crispness also allows the light to escape from behind the wall of currency as though in a gesture to plead with the fighters, cajoling them with the gilded light of the world beyond their war. Visually there is something dizzying about them in their blurred state. And comically Washington seems to have a Pinocchio like nose protruding in the form of the man’s offending gun.

I am not sure it is the lack of contrast that takes away the gut-wrenching [i]something[/i] that you are looking for in this photo, but it may attribute to it. It makes the color scheme appear to be narrow, as if the whiteness of the “ground” is the only thing that truly clashes, color-wise, with the rest of the scene. I don’t know if I can give you any advice on how to make this better, there is something that it’s missing and my sensors tell me it has something to do with the fallen man and the lack of emotion he conjures. Hopefully my interpretation has been even a little bit helpful or given some insight…

This is my first comment on coming back so maybe it’s just overloaded with things because I’ve been “oppressed” lately.
It’s good to be back.


*This reminded me of my friend who is horribly race conscious. She’s a nice girl but sometimes sees racial injustice everywhere and laughably would probably see it here too. And though I at first saw that as a ridiculous notion I couldn’t help but notice that the dead/dying soldier and his comrades are much closer to “white” than the others.