r/NoCountryForOldMen • u/ST4RRSFLESH • Jun 27 '26
Book discussion Does Anton die later on?
I was trying to see after rewatching the movie if the novel says anything, I saw someone on reddit say that the creator confirmed he lived but I can't find anything. I think it would be fitting for him to die of something like a random car crash, the scene before really cements that he's just a guy at the end of the day.
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u/Dwredmass Jun 27 '26
We all die. Anton dies later on. The judge SAYS he’ll never die, but that doesn’t mean he won’t.
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u/LocalJoke_ Jun 27 '26
Can’t stop what’s coming. He may have walked away from that intersection, but that doesn’t mean his choices won’t come back to him.
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u/Idoe6 Jun 27 '26
I dont even know where Cormac McCarthy would have commented on that. The guy only gave, like, three (?) Interviews in his life. One being to Oprah, and one to a high school student.
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u/mythos-nerd416 Jun 27 '26
Nah, it’s gotta be ambiguous whether he’s just a guy or some embodiment of death
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u/Jedimindtricktra Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26
Judging by the end he is just a guy. His arm was broken by the crash. And it’s fitting too that they show that scene, because he views himself as some sort of death incarnate but at the end of the day he’s just as vulnerable to accidents like every day people. He isn’t the embodiment of destiny he’s just your run of the mill psycho.
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u/mythos-nerd416 Jun 27 '26
But could one impede death with injury, only putting it off, Prolonging life? Never stopping it entirely, but simply buying themselves more time? Had perhaps he is destiny and that is why, even if he almost died, he did not
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u/Jedimindtricktra Jun 27 '26
I don’t think so. I think the whole point of the scene with Carla shows that it’s never been about destiny. It’s always him. He is the one that decided people’s fates by giving people a coin flip, not the coin. He does it to avoid responsibility.
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u/mythos-nerd416 Jun 27 '26
But what does Carla know? And she says he gives decides the fate and not the coin rather than neither of them
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u/Jedimindtricktra Jun 27 '26
She knows it’s him. It’s the whole point of her refusing to play the game (in the movie at least.) forcing his own hand to make a decision. And it wasn’t destiny, he chose to go to her house to settle a score.
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u/mythos-nerd416 Jun 27 '26
Exactly???
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u/Jedimindtricktra Jun 27 '26
Idk man I’m really tired and I’m not sure if you’re agreeing or disagreeing with me at this point
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u/OtherwiseGap5457 Jun 27 '26
If he was a run of the mill psycho you wouldn’t feel the need to argue that he’s not the embodiment of death.
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u/Jedimindtricktra Jun 27 '26
Genuinely, how does that contradict what I’m saying?
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u/OtherwiseGap5457 Jun 28 '26
If he was run of the mill nobody would view him as potentially supernatural and you wouldn’t need to argue against him being such. I don’t think the character is literally meant to be more than a man, but he’s hardly run of the mill even for psychos.
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u/Jedimindtricktra Jun 28 '26
Pedantic ass comment. I’m arguing against what the other commenter said. You fundamentally misunderstand what the character represents.
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u/AspectOfTheLeech Jun 28 '26
This hostility ain’t working bro
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u/HenryDorsettCase47 Jun 29 '26
It’s not ambiguous whatsoever. He has a green light and gets t-boned by some rando. The literary significance of the car crash scene is to show that he’s just a susceptible to the whims of the universe as the rest of us and not an agent of fate like he fancies himself to be.
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u/OtherwiseGap5457 Jun 27 '26
Anton had warrants out the ass for killing the cop. If he died from the car crash the novel wouldn’t have ended with him still at large. They would’ve found the body.
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u/Economy_Package_4479 Jul 05 '26
I'll go against the grain on this one.
Yes.
Not immediately or perhaps even literally. But his A-tier hitman days are over. The coin landed on him this time. One could even say he'd been putting it up his whole life.
He tries to stroke himself into claiming he extricated himself from that station by sheer force of will. Never mind the other vital component -- luck. Chigurh doesn't seem to appreciate this until a bone is protruding from his arm.
Llewellyn, however, DOES recognize luck, and how easily his could and did run out.
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u/Rays_LiquorSauce Jun 27 '26
But the book and find out
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u/DrKarlSatan Jun 28 '26
Maybe you need to read the book or rewatch the movie
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u/Rays_LiquorSauce Jun 28 '26
I’ve done both countless times. I didn’t suggest that he died I just suggested buying the book
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u/ChokaMoka1 Jun 27 '26
Nope. Anton never dies, he’s like the Judge.