Re: Hands up who loves Carnivàle [now with spoiler
Some excellent points. I remember that Iris and Justin were running from "someone" though I'm not sure it was their father (aka, Management.)
Iris does refer to their father as "a bad man," when speaking to Justin in the vision. Very odd, isn't it. Management was the "Creature of Light" yet his children know him as a bad man.
Then again, Ben's mom called him filth.
Granny Scudder had an opposite reaction. She adored and loved her boy and killed all the Scudder males the day he was born. Referred to his pretty "golden curls."
It's odd that things are flip flopped. Mothers that give birth to evil children seem to think the world of them, though we don't know how Justin's mother felt about him, we do know how Granny Scudder felt.
Mothers that give birth to good children seem to think their kids are no good, filth, evil. Ms. Hawkins is one. Appy could be another. If Sophie is indeed a good egg, her mother sure wanted her dead.
It's also interesing that 10 brings up the strange beginnings, then again, JMS addressed this in his own writing. I recall him saying that Kosh was an alien who was mysterious, cryptic, does some pretty negative things, yet he's considered a good guy. Morden, on the other hand, goes around helping people and is automatically considered the bad guy. JMS said it was great to write that.
It could be that the writers thought "ok, let's take this to the extreme." The oddest fit for a do-gooder, creature of light, is a young boy who was just let out of jail for murder, running from the law and being a bit stand-offish, closed to intimacy and private.
The oddest fit for a creature of dark is a preacher who goes out of his way to help others, is openly caring and giving.
Perhaps it's just the story's way of saying "you can find good and evil in the strangest places."
Though I agree with 10, neither seem completely good or completely evil. Ben has quite a mouth on him for a messiah, using "G* Da**" frequently, making threats, beating the heck out of people, etc.
Justin struggles hardcore with his evil nature. He seems more in anguish over it in season 1 (where he begs Norman to kill him.)
I guess this is another reason I can see Sophie being the key. It wasn't until Sophie and Ben hooked up and started their friendship that Ben started to open up and be less of a crab.
Now, Sophie is with Brother Justin and his spilled milk routine isn't working, he'd rather help her pray and forgive. She inspires him.
I know that Brother Justin is the Usher, or will become the Usher once Scudder is dead. Some of these roles don't seem terribly well-defined. Perhaps the reason it's skipped from Tatooed man to Justin (instead of going from Tatooded man to Scudder to Justin) is that Scudder turned his back on his destiny and never embraced the usher.
Management tells ben that the Usher is flesh and that this is a sign that the end times are upon us. That the Usher had many names, including "The Lord of Shadows" (and some other things I could not fully comprehend.)
Another strange thing I uncovered while googling some stuff, was this:
LORD OF SHADOWS
Every light casts its shadows, and the Lord of Shadows is the other face of the Lord of Light. Lord of the Underworld is the title of the God in Winter when He goes underground with the animals to hibernate. Some traditions had Him alternate with His brother as husband to the eternal Goddess. Others, as in the Greek Hades, had a year-round God of the Underworld, "The Devil."
From the Sumerian Beliefs: That evening the Lord of Shadows caused the rain to fall, a rain of filth.
*Very odd if you consider it rained when Ben and Sophie had sex.