Rube Goldberg suicide machine

Unlike Oedipus who after realizing what he has done decides to “punish himself” there are tragic characters that never reach such anagnorisis. Characters that finish as ignorant (or as knowledgeable) as they begin. And whose self-destruction doesn’t arise from the recognition, but has always been a constant of their behaviour. They are suicidal that, consciously or unconsciously, contrive a series of events that will finish on their destruction. Their Thanatos impulse makes they choose an unnecessary euthanasia instead of an obvious and reachable cure. And then an anagnorisis happens, not for the character, but for the audience, they realized the character has done nothing but design a complex Rube Goldberg suicide machine that has been activated since the beginning, and now it’s fatal ending results inexorable. All this taken ad absurdum recalls what Borges though about Donne’s Biathantaos; that contains a theory about God making the whole world just to be capable of dying in the Cross. It also remembers me many movies, the first that comes to my mind is The Wrestler. But what brought me to this reflection was The Kindly Ones, or more exactly The Wake (the last story arcs of The Sandman). After Morpheus death Matthew the raven asks, “why did he let it happened?” and Lucien answers, “I think he did a little more than let it happened”.