The Pale Blue Eye Ending Explained – Who was the killer, Falling Disease and all the Poe references

Based on Louis Bayard’s book of the same name, The Pale Blue Eye is a twisty gothic thriller befitting the classic author who figures prominently in it. Like The Cask Of Amontillado, it is a story of deceit and revenge. With a third-act twist that’s as heartbreaking as it is shocking, the new Netflix addition is a cold tale ideal for a cold winter’s night. With a packed cast including Christain Bale (Augustus Landon, Harry Melling (Edgar Allen Poe, Lucy Boyton (Lea), Gillian Anderson (Mrs. Marquis) and Toby Jones (Dr. Marquis), The Pale Blue Eye is a well-acted, beautiful historical piece that is sure to delight mystery fans and lovers of classic literature.

Augustus Landon is called in to investigate when a heinous crime is discovered at Westpoint military academy. His reputation as a clever ghost prompts the school principals to reach beyond their ranks before more bodies pile up. Landon befriends another cadet, Edgar Allen Poe, and the two discover family secrets and desperate truths. Along the way, the two forge a relationship that is under threat as the conclusion reveals a betrayal that can never be forgiven.

While Christain Bale’s Augustus Landor is the investigator and apparent protagonist of The Pale Blue Eye, the star is unequivocally Harry Melling’s Edgar Allen Poe, whose brand of somber brutality mixes all the complex man’s melancholy brilliance. Here’s everything you need to know about Edgar Allen Poe, who the killer was, and why they did it in The Pale Blue Eye.

Cadet Fry was found dead with his heart cut out in the dead of night. One cadet saw what he thought was an officer near where Fry was found, and another thought he heard someone crying that night. Unfortunately, that’s all the information Landor needs. He enlists the help of wayward cadet Edgar Allen Poe, who soon begins collecting evidence and proving his intellect. When animals are found mutilated and another body is later found, the two must rely on each other to clear Poe’s name and find out who the real killer is.

While all this is happening, Edgar starts spending time with Dr. Marquis, Lea, whom he falls in love with despite her involvement with Cadet Ballinger and being very ill. The more time he spends with her, the more in love he falls. Cadet Ballinger becomes jealous of their relationship and attacks Poe, who saves Landor. Unfortunately, this encounter, coupled with Poe declaring that he would kill Ballinger, makes Poe the prime suspect. When a third cadet goes missing, the school is thrown into chaos. Just when things are looking their bleakest, Poe discovers that Lea and Artemus have stolen Fry’s heart to try and negotiate with the devil for Lea’s life.

He tells her he would do anything for her, and she asks him to give up his heart. Landor, meanwhile, finds the coat of the officer the cadet saw the night of the murder and a photograph of Henry Le Clerc hanging in the Marquis’s study. Le Clerc was a witch hunter accused of witchcraft and devil worship. He wrote the book Landor’s friend Pepe told him about earlier in the movie. The book describes how to communicate with the devil and perform a ritual using a magic circle that could save her life. Artemus and Leah found the book and tried to perform this ritual. She was given only months to live and was desperate to survive. When she used Fry’s heart, she improved for a while, but then deteriorated again. So she asked Edgar to be her sacrifice.

Landor found Poe, Artemus, Lea, and their mother performing the ritual just before killing Poe and rescuing him. Unfortunately, Artemus and Leah were killed in a huge fire when one of the candles fell over during the scuffle. At this point, everything seemed to be settled and the movie would end, however. There was one last twist in store. Dr. Marquis resigned from the school and Mrs. Marquis was left to fend for herself, having lost both of her children. Everyone blamed Artemus and Leah for the cadets’ deaths. Everyone except Cadet Poe.

The end of The Pale Blue Eye

After everything is resolved, Poe returns to Landor’s cottage and confronts him. He tells Landor that he knows about his missing daughter. He claims it came to him while he was sleeping. The first night they met, Poe told him that he still talks to his dead mother. Poe accuses Landor of killing cadets Fry and Ballinger for what they did to Landor’s daughter, Mattie.

Three cadets raped her and left her for dead before the events of the film. Landor found her battered, bloodied and broken. He tried to help her but she was too traumatized and she jumped off a cliff and killed herself. Landor told everyone she was missing, but she didn’t run and he knew exactly where she was. Her death so devastated Landor that he vowed revenge. He knew that Cadet Fry was involved because of the pendant Mattie came back with after her rape. However, Fry refused to tell him who else was involved, and Landor killed him, thinking it would be the last.

When he was wiretapped to investigate his own crime, he gained access to everything he needed to track down the other two cadets involved. Fry’s diary gave him Cadet Ballinger, and it was common knowledge that Ballinger, Fry, and Stoddard were close. Stoddard took all his things and ran because he knew he would probably be killed next.

The scene at the beginning of the film is Landor returning from the academy after killing Fry and literally and figuratively washing his hands. Poe was able to figure this all out thanks to the piece of paper left in Cadet Fry’s hand. He recognized the handwriting of the note Landor had left for him.

All Landor had done during the investigation was find out who else was involved in his daughter’s rape and cover up his crime. When called back to investigate, he was surprised to discover that Fry’s heart had been cut out. Although Landor wrote the note himself, he used Poe’s curiosity to place the blame on someone else. It ultimately backfired though, as Poe was extremely smart. After confessing everything to Edgar, Landor goes to the cliff Mattie jumped off and kills himself. He has no further reason to live with his wife and daughter dead and at least two and possibly all three men who hurt his daughter dead.

Who was the killer?

Landor killed both Ballinger and Fry. Stoddard is supposed to be AWOL, but he could also be dead. Landor could have killed him and hidden all his stuff along with his dead body. In addition, Landor cut out Ballinger’s heart and mutilated the animals to make it look like everything was done by the same person. Artemus and Lea never killed anyone. They just used the dead body that fell into their lap. All they were guilty of was mutilating Fry’s body and attempting to sacrifice Edgar, who was a willing participant. An argument could be made that Artemus was a bully and Lea selfish, but they had not yet become murderers. They performed various psychic rituals in an attempt to appeal to the devil, which is where the magic circle and candle remnants in the ice house came from.

What is Falling Sickness or Sickness?

The illness that Leah suffered from was called epilepsy. It caused her to fall to the floor and clutch when she was on a date with Edgar. She was a sickly girl who was recently diagnosed and had only three months to live. Falling sickness, falling sickness and falling evil were all names for what we now know as epilepsy. Before modern medicine could diagnose and treat epilepsy, it was largely misunderstood. It is less likely that the ritual cured Lea and more likely that she went through a short period of time when her epilepsy was inactive.

All Edgar Allen Poe refers to what The Pale Blue Eye symbolizes

Apart from one of the main characters being the exciting author, there are several other things that have been ripped from his works or what is known about his life. Poe was a gifted storyteller but a troubled soul. He often struggled with depression and addiction, and both are present in the fictionalized version of Poe seen in this film. He finds Landor drinking at the inn and has no trouble taking shots with Artemus and his friends, as he is well on his way to becoming the alcoholic he is later in life.

From Lenore to the ever-present ravens, references to Poe’s works can be found throughout The Pale Blue Eye. The title itself refers to one of Poe’s most famous works, The Tell-Tale Heart. A tale of guilt and violence, it is a clue to what happened to the cadets at the military academy. In the story, a man becomes consumed with the idea of ​​killing an elderly man with one milky diseased eye. The killer believes he can hear voices from hell and he must kill the older man. After doing so, the killer is driven insane (assuming he wasn’t already) by the dead man’s beating heart. The light blue eye in the story is a symbol of a lack of inner sight or understanding. Stuck or blinded by grief, Landor sees no future without vengeance.

I think it was his eye! yes, this was it! One of his eyes resembled a vulture’s – a light blue eye, with a coating over it. Every time it fell on me, my blood went cold; and so I gradually—very gradually—made up my mind to take the old man’s life, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.

The Tell-Tale Heart, Edgar Allen Poe

Poe often wrote about lost love. In Annabel Lee, the speaker loses his love to jealous angels who kill her when they become jealous of their love. It is a poem of unbearable suffering and transcendent love. In Lenore, which many believe is about his wife Virginia, the speaker talks about meeting his love one day again in paradise. Just as Poe’s love in the movie Lea was dying of an illness, in real life the writer tragically lost several women to tuberculosis. Landor was another tragic character who lost both of the women he loved.

Ultimately, The Pale Blue Eye is a bleak tale of grief, violence and revenge. Melling is fantastic, and the fresh take on Poe is fun. You may see the twist coming, but it’s an easy watch on a cold weekend. It is currently in theaters and on Netflix.