What really happened in John Wick Chapter 3 — a symbolic reading
Uncovering the subconscious meaning hidden in Parabellum
This article is a bit unusual, both for me and for movie criticism/journalism as a whole I suppose. While Slavoj Žižek analyses movies this way, extracting from how they’re constructed a symbolic meaning, a lot in his books, I somehow doubt he would want to spare a second glance for what’s on the surface just an action flick.
I, on the other hand, can’t help but use the rare opportunity offered by a popular action movie being also fairly rich in symbolism, to try to share a skill instead of knowledge.
I like sharing my opinion as mush as the next guy, perhaps even more so. It’s a very limiting way to make an impact, though. I wouldn’t be dedicating my time writing this piece for you, dear reader, just to make explicit what is implicit in John Wick’s latest cinematic adventure. Instead, I’m dissecting the movie because I believe it may enable you to better enjoy it.
I believe that the most basic, primitive function of art is to relieve certain psychic tensions that our minds accumulate while going through the day. It’s most noticeable in narratives designed in accordance with tenets of psychology of self, using Jungian archetypes and Freudian concepts. Such narratives present a scaffolding for the consumer to enable them to project their own feelings and problems on characters, which are then relieved as the story brings events to a satisfying close. This scaffolding doesn’t have to be obvious, it doesn’t even have to be explicitly said or shown, the subconscious parts of our minds understand it on a symbolic level even if some symbols and analogies go over our conscious heads. Being able to notice and accept its elements consciously, though, improves its effect, enabling the consumer to better engage with the narrative and thus make catharsis stronger.
As consumers of art, we want to be influenced by artists. Knowing how they expect us to process their work in our minds enables us to better surrender to that influence. In more practical words, I want to enable you to get more of your money’s worth when you buy cinema tickets, games, or streaming subscriptions.
If that eventually leads to you reading Freud, Jung, Lacan or Aristotle to further understand the ideas I’m basing my own hypotheses on, all the better.
As the first of its kind, this article is an experiment, and as such it’s quite rough. Also, because I really wanted to release it when John Wick Chapter 3 is red hot, I’m writing it from memory based on the one screening of the film that I attended. Quotes might not be exact, some events might be slightly off-place, and the whole article reads more like a live log than an analysis. If you’re at all interested in this kind of content bear with me, however, and comment or tweet at me how you think I could make it more palatable in the future.
Needless to say, MASSIVE ULTRA HYPER UBER SPOILERS follow beyond this point. I will be citing events from my viewing of the movie, and will detail my own interpretation of it, so only proceed if you’ve already experienced both those things on your own (viewing and interpreting it) and are okay with taking in my point of view.
John Wick movies have always been visually intense. I don’t recall it being so meaningful in the first two films, but in Chapter 3 knowing what its key colors represent is vital to understanding the movie.¹
- Red is traditionally the color of love, hate, violence and emotions in general — Parabellum extrapolates this symbol to represent that which makes us human (or id-aspect, if you’re familliar with Freud’s works).
- Blue is used throughout the movie as a very cold hue; it stands for authority, cleanliness, infinity, as a polar opposite of red in Parabellum it also represents suppression of feelings, cold mercilessness of rules and environment which forces us to squash what makes us human (superego-aspect).
- Green is a bit more complex to explain nowadays, since it’s associated not only with nature but also ecology; you have to trust me that it represents the Jungian concept of The Forest, which represents inner space, the unconscious (or subconscious, if you prefer), internal parts of someone’s psyche.
The really interesting symbols make themselves known in the latter half of the movie, so I’ll do my best to be brief in recollecting the first hour.
We start off just like Chapter 2 ended, with John and his dog on the run. A homeless guy hurries him on his way, pointing at his watch — I love that touch, the punchline to it is so far it’s not even funny (it is though).
John needs to change plans when his cab is stuck in traffic, but before he leaves he makes sure the dog is safe and taken care of by sending it to the Continental, where Charon takes care of the animal. It’s telling how John seems to purposefully shield his dog from any violence.
Adjudicator appears as the criminal justice system’s response to John Wick’s transgression. The brilliant thematic twist of the entire series is that for the people who live outside real-world laws, the few rules they obey are held up as sacred and draconically strictly enforced, because they are the only thing that separate these outlaws from complete chaos. Honor among thieves, in JW’s fictional world, is cherished as the last bit of humanity for most people who live in it. Thus the logical response to John’s brutal breaking of those rules is to try to erase the deed itself along with every trace of the protagonist. Punish not only John, but also all those who have in any way helped him.
The doctor who stitches JW knows this. He’s wise enough to realize that the system’s response will be of the most severe kind, and everyone in contact with John will have to pay, presumed guilty until proven innocent. He asks Baba Yaga to deal out his punishment, and he’s the only ally of John’s we don’t see the Adjudicator visit. This foreshadows how anybody who even says a helpful word to John throughout the movie risks severe consequences. JW might as well shoot them himself.
In the communication center where the old lady counts down to John’s excommunication (oh, sorry, excommunikah-doh), other people working there have facial piercings, tattoos, symbols of one’s individuality. This emphasizes how anybody can become just a featureless cog in a system, humanity lost in service to machine. I imagine they will be used as a key symbol in the finale of JW’s story, either as the denizens of Matrix waking up or a Fight Club-esque uprising of the lower classes against the establishment.
John’s transgression throws off the balance in all of the criminal underworld. The system, the world itself cannot bear his existence. That is why the movie has a bit of a Final Destination vibe — almost anywhere John appears, everyone wants him to die.
The theater he was raised in is the first location in the movie where John is actually safe, even though he’s disarmed. It is, in fact, his last refuge, the only home he has left.
Ballet dancer twirling in the cold, blueish light is a reflection of JW himself. She’s visibly very skilled and moves with inhuman precision, yet she errs and falls. Once she does, though, she’s taught to stand up, every time. That is why John doesn’t accept that his life is forfeit. He’s been taught not only to dance under the cold spotlight of the system’s rules and stipulations to its rhythm, he’s also been raised to always get back up if he falls, despite pain and suffering this might bring unto him or those around him. This scene is the most revealing about the nature of our protagonist since the first movie.
We can see the Director is on his side — she teaches her students to be the best they can be in the world ruled by the Table, to be able to suppress their feelings, most notably pain, to perform to the best of their abilities in life. Her aspect is the human one, as presented through the vivid red color of theater seats that surround her. She explains the point of her teachings and reluctantly accepts John’s ticket and grants him help. In the process, though, John loses another part of his identity. The tattoo that was so prominently featured at various points since the first film, is burned out, marked as void now that he’s used it to get closer to the heart of the machine, for a chance to meet the man who sits above the Table.
In Casablanca, Halle Berry’s character, Sofia, owns two dogs, as if to signify she’s got even more to fight for than John. We soon see why that is, exactly — while JW fights for the memory of a person who passed away, she cares for the life of her daughter, who hopefully is alive and well. She’s another character on the human side of the humanity vs system conflict, and we see that both in allusions as to how John got her mark — by helping her rescue her daughter, a very relatable motive, driven by emotion and not fealty to the rules — and the fact that despite her better judgement, she decides to help him.
Berrada is a member of the organization’s high council, and it shows. His manners, way of being, wealth, represent the privileged class. While showing the artifacts of concepts this community was built on (both are physical embodiments of the rule of reciprocity that is the basis for all human societies, truly what separates us from beasts), he nonchalantly states they have no monetary value, but make no mistake, it’s only cause they are literally priceless. He is the 1% of John Wick’s world, and he’s also a gatekeeper on the road to get to the heart of the system itself. The directions he tells John sound more like instructions to suicide, but JW knows in his heart those words are true. He can find the man who sits above the Table only if he’s ready to symbolically die.
In the meantime, Berrada has to die, because even though the 1% only care about staying there at the top, they wouldn’t be themselves if they didn’t try to take hold of what more humane, authentic people love. It’s clear that he doesn’t understand the relationship Sofia has with her dogs, so instead of insisting on taking the animal, he decides to kill it pretty quickly. He can’t accept the existence of things that his class cannot have.
In the desert, Sofia is visibly frustrated with John. She doesn’t want to kill him, she helps him, she may even root for him, but she’s aggravated because she accepts her fate as one living within the constraints of the criminal society — she’s separated herself from her own daughter and doesn’t even want to know where she is for fear that her love, her humanity, would win over the superegoic aspect of her personality that suppresses emotions. John earns her scorn because he’s stubborn enough to fight a battle that she deemed unwinnable, and in doing so he threatens to endanger the very reason why she decided to yield and pledge fealty. John’s lack of anything to lose is a thing she might envy, but she certainly doesn’t want to trade the fear she feels out of love for her daughter for lust for vengeance should the organization decide to punish her.
She delivers a key line that proceeds to ring throughout the movie. You’re going to die anyway, John, but who do you want to die as? She wants John to make up his mind and end his transgressive existence before he endangers more people and the things dearest to them.
As John walks through the desert when he ascends a dune in one meaningful shot, the music in the background resembles Vangelis’ tones from the original Blade Runner. It was in this scene that the religious overtones of Parabellum dawned on me. John is a human who erred and can’t accept his end and who’s driven to redemption by seeking out the ultimate authority figure, just like Roy Beatty and his group of replicants infiltrate the tower of Babel in Blade Runner to meet their maker — a human who was a god from their point of view.
As if to complete the analogy and confirm the association, Laurence Fishburne’s Bowery King is pictured holding a white dove during rain, which in cinematic terms is an extremely well-defined symbol for one of the most iconic scenes in movie history. Following this symbolic thread, Bowery King should represent human nature, and sure enough he, too, is punished for Baba Yaga’s actions. Note how, even though the Adjudicator produced the weapon as evidence, the dialogue made scarcely any mention of the gun handed to John in Chapter 2 — seven cuts for seven bullets.
Later, this symbol comes back with a vengeance.
After passing out, John finds the leader of his fictional world. Since we’ve already made the connection that the Table is a religion, we must conclude that The Elder (that’s what his character is called) is this world’s deity. Not a metaphor for the Pope, mind you, as the way to find him was not literal.
When JW kneels before him there’s a superegoic blue-robed man on his right side and an id-aspect red-robed man on his left, which, according to Jungian psychology, corresponds to how most people picture the divide between the conscious and subconscious worlds in their dreams. The Elder’s offer to John echoes Sofia’s earlier warning — choose who you want to die as.
John grovelling before The Elder is one of the hardest to watch of all scenes in this movie. As he utters the reason for his stubborn, continuous existence, it’s suddenly apparent how deeply sad this man is. After Chapter 2’s meandering intrigue it was easy to forget that the whole saga started off because John couldn’t process grief after the loss of his wife. This shows us he’s far from being over it, and it is so because it’s the only thing keeping him alive.
This is why he dares to live after breaking the rules of his world — even excommunicated, cast outside the Table’s code he still has this, one more thing to differentiate him from beasts.
The price for prolonging his own life, rejoining the organized religion of the underworld (no wonder the formal processes of this organization have names such as “excommunicado” and “desacralization”), is the very thing that makes him human and enabled him to exist outside of the Table’s order. He not only cuts off that which carried the symbol of John’s attachment to his wife, he also explicitly gives his wedding band to The Elder, making it very clear what the gesture is about. Even though John’s plight has been heard, this is not a merciful, loving deity. Just like the fictional world of John Wick is but a warped vision of our society, the man above the Table is a warped vision of a vengeful, cruel god presiding over existence by always making sure everyone’s natural human reflexes are repressed.
John is to go back to Continental, the place that was his criminal underworld home in the first movie, to kill Winston the Manager, who felt a speck of empathy for John and gave him an hour to live before his excommunication.
Considering this task within the karmic balance of the narrative, John’s transgression will be erased if he erases the people who’s only sins were deeds that ultimately adhered to the Table’s rules, but which were influenced by empathy towards JW. He can redeem himself by killing people who’d have never strayed from their path in the first place were it not for John’s original sin. It’s a moral Ouroboros that is also a cruel response to the threat of emotions changing the system from the inside. Just trying to picture the ramifications of this mission in our minds we know that it is morally wrong and — since it came straight from the metaphorical deity of this world — by extension its entire moral system of values is wrong.
Let’s look at the bigger picture here. John’s journey so far has been to:
1. Be trained in abandoning what makes him human to excel in this cruelly organized world.
2. Quit and abandon the principles of assassins for another thing that could differentiate him from beasts — love.
3. Reenter this world yet again and use the system and its workings to enforce rightful vengeance. (John Wick 1)
4. Be bound to stay in it and then manipulated by someone with the right to call in a favor John can’t refuse. (Chapter 2)
5. Lose the home that the empathetic, loving aspect of his personality longed to go back to. (Chapter 2)
6. In a fit of anger, when faced with calculated manipulation that was allowed within the rules of the Table, but was clearly morally wrong in light of John’s “normal” moral code, break the rules of the Table. Commit a transgression that results in excommunication. (the ending of Chapter 2)
7. Search redemption and penance, plead with the ultimate ruler of the underworld, its symbolic deity, for absolution. (first half of Parabellum)
8. After travelling to the heart of the organization, seeing the entity above the rules and trading all that makes him human to it for reintroduction to the Table’s society, receive penance that is obviously morally wrong. (Moroccan desert in Parabellum)
I love how in the entire saga the root of all conflict around John Wick is his wife. Love for her gave him another point of reference by which to judge morality. As the source of the organization’s power is that its rules are believed to be the only thing making outlaws human, one who manages to quit it and exist outside of it, gain self-awareness not based on the Table’s rules, is unacceptable. It can be argued that John’s story is of a man who outgrew organized religion and whom said organization felt the need to destroy to preserve its influence.
I wouldn’t be surprised if we learned at some point that Chapter 2’s villain wasn’t working alone and that JW2’s intrigue was designed to trap John in this very situation he’s in now.
Back in New York, JW finally meets Zero, the man who has been all too happy to become an instrument of justice for the Table. We are soon introduced to the difference between those two. “That’s what makes you special. I wouldn’t have stopped,” says the bald man when a line of children separates the two assassins. In saying so he foreshadows that even though he pledged fealty, John still IS special, that he IS more human than all other denizens of the underworld combined.
They make it to the Continental, and once again John, freshly readmitted to the criminal sect, calls upon the rules of the underworld to survive.
Charon reacquaintances John with his dog, a key event, as the pet is another symbol for what The Elder wanted him to renounce and suppress. Note that John seems rather reluctant to accept the dog’s affections — his resolve to stay loyal to the Table is slowly breaking when confronted with what John knows is right.
I’ve always wondered about Charon’s heavy accent. Lance Reddick has one of the most beautiful american english accents I’ve ever heard, but for some reason he was specifically told to speak unlike in his other roles. Charon’s African roots are used as a symbol. Even though he’s a cog in the huge machine of the system, he’s also a man who’s very close to his nature and the cradle of humanity.
The overwhelming blueish lighting makes it clear that the room where Winston awaits John has the aspect of the organization. Winston hands John a gun while making a case for rebellion. After coming back to New York JW knows where his heart is, he finally decides who he wants to die as and joins Winston’s battle against the Table. Adjudicator declares the hotel desacralized and for Zero (who’s apparently been killing time by having his head shaved even more) it’s open season once again.
Winston hides in his shelter with John’s dog — at this point they represent two ideas John fights for: friendship and love. Note how between action sequences Winston never pets the dog. Charon, a man of the same heart as John, fights in Winston’s stead.
Hotel lobby turning green symbolizes the changing of its aspect and symbolism. Green is the symbol of a person’s psyche, their inner space. To be free of the religion of the Table, John needs to purge all its traces from his mind. He’s existed within it for a long time, mastered it and now he needs to let go of it, kill it within himself. We scarcely see Charon fighting, but he’s a mirror of John throughout this sequence, coming back when he does, with the same attitude even, as if he represented John’s Shadow — the unconscious parts of his psyche.
John abandoned the idea of ever getting back to the fold of this criminal world’s organized religion. He wanted to broker peace, but they demanded of him something he was unable to give.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.
When the heavily armored soldiers are dead, John enters the Manager’s office, which is basked in blue light again. This time he has no power here, it’s no longer his aspect, so he gets his ass kicked. Zero, as if he was testing John, switches lights to a neutral color. That’s when John finally starts to fight back.
The two assassins who repeatedly help John up imply that something’s different about this fight. This school of assassins is different from other villains of this movie. They don’t exactly follow the Table’s orders and don’t seem to hold its rules as sacred, as if they were okay with being uncomfortably close to beastdom. Instead, they respect John and want to deserve his respect, be recognized by him as his peers, or more — as the same as him. Their morality, if it can be called that, seems to be founded on a primal cult of strength.
As John makes his way up to Zero, we feel there’s more to this villain than meets the eye, this encounter has action sequences seamlessly mixing with symbols.
The managerial room’s screen shows colors mixing, flowing into one another, mirroring the internal battle of individuation happening within JW’s mind. What does Zero symbolize, then? In one shot we see John lunging towards Zero with a punch and missing. As he looks up after that, the bald man appears behind red samurai armor standing in a display case that also reflects John’s image. “See, we’re the same” he says. And he’s right.
Bald head symbolizes giving up one’s individuality, and the character’s name (which I had to check on IMDB) makes it almost explicit. He symbolizes the final foe John needs to take down to complete his apostasy, the part of him that let him to thrive in the organized religion of the criminal underworld. John needs to kill what made him squash his human reflexes and suppress his emotions, that which wants him to revel in one feeling only — the joy of battle. Whether or not this is John’s superegoic conscience imprinted in his mind by the Table (which the Adjudicator, symbolizing Wick’s inner censor, awakened to clean up the mess created by John’s raging id), this fight completes John’s arc as a member of the criminal sect. As they fall down, exhausted, an ad of a watch is clearly visible out the windows, foreshadowing that John isn’t done running after all.
I’ll catch up with you.
No you won’t.
Again, note how it’s Charon who staggers back into the shelter after John’s battle, as if he’s fought it himself. He definitely wasn’t happy with Winston’s last minute heel turn. In chapter 4, he will either enable John to kill Winston, or do it on his own.
The sequel hook is interesting, to say the least. After his bloody apostasy John is cast down to the place below the lowest layers of the criminal underworld, reluctantly allying himself with the fallen king marked by seven cuts for handing him seven deadly bullets.
I don’t remember the exact words, or which character exactly said that, but it’s exactly as foreshadowed earlier in the movie:
“The road to salvation leads through hell.”
I’ve somehow missed it when originally publishing this piece, but the film’s promotional poster confirms the symbolic connections I’m making in this analysis.
That’s as close to Word of God on the subject as I’m going to get. John Wick is a fallen saint who makes the pilgrimage to see the god of the criminal underworld, refuses to accept his penance, then allies himself with the devil.
[1]: Not just this movie, this is a very simple key to understanding more subconscious messages in a lot of movies and even some TV. Obviously Nicolas Winding Refn is famous for using vivid colors meaningfully as his signature move, but also see if you can use those to predict plot twists in e.g. John Woo’s Face/Off or Paycheck.
