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According to legend, the Phrygian city of Gordium once housed a certain pillar and,
tied to this pillar was an ox-cart. Apparently in ancient times, a farmer had ridden this cart
into the city, fulfilled some obscure prophecy, declared himself king, and ended an interregnum.
The Phrygians had tied this new king s cart to the pillar in commemoration, and it had remained
there ever since because the knot, this Gordian knot was well, it wasn t an ordinary knot. It
was unthinkably complex, amazingly tight one ancient historian described it as several knots
all so tightly entangled that it was impossible to see how they were fastened . Perhaps because
of this mystique, a tradition emerged that whoever managed to unfasted the Gordian knot would become
king of Asia. Many tried, many failed, until Alexander of Macedon came to town, during his
conquests. He saw the knot, and knew untying it would be impossible so he drew his sword,
and sliced the cart free. The Gordian Knot was unfastened, and having passed this test,
Alexander went on to conquer land all the way to India fulfilling, in a sense, the prophecy. Now
let s jump forward a couple thousand years. The new Rian Johnson film Glass Onion,
which, uh, spoilers, by the way opens with a sequence showing intricate puzzle boxes being
delivered to the inner circle of tech billionaire Miles Bron. My last video was all about these
puzzle boxes, what they and the solving of them tell us about Glass Onion, its themes,
and where the film s headed. But we didn t talk too much about the way this sequence ends. We re
shown one final box but this recipient doesn t do what the others do play the recognition game,
strip back the puzzle layer by layer. No, she picks up a hammer and smashes her way
in. Like Alexander, she s passed this inscrutable test, but on her own terms,
by ignoring the implied rules of play. And like Alexander, this is only the beginning.
Over the course of the film, we learn this is Helen Brand. We learn the box was sent to
her sister Cassandra Andi Brand, who Miles had recently, secretly, murdered, with an invitation
to his Greek island in order to cover his tracks, dispel suspicion. We learn that Helen had posed
as Andi and accepted the invitation, gone to the island, to try and figure out what had happened
to her sister. And she succeeds. In plain view of the other guests, Miles circle, his so-called
disruptors , Helen and ace detective Benoit Blanc had exposed Miles crimes but not before
the billionaire had burned the only shred of evidence incriminating him. Seeing what seems to
be the writing on the wall, the disruptors close rank, and begin to deny that they saw anything.
It looks like Miles has won, that this puzzle s proven too complex for Helen she
can t solve it on Miles terms, or even on Blanc s. She can t untie the knot.
So she stops trying and follows Alexander s example one more time. She starts smashing.
She keeps smashing, keeps destroying Miles little trophies, his monuments to abstract status,
the piano, the statues, until, in a final flourish she uses Miles own experimental
fuel to incinerate his biggest prize, the Mona Lisa itself, as well as the mansion housing it.
Miles isn t harmed, not physically, but this act destroys him. He d invited a bunch of leaders to
the island in the near future, to sell this new disaster-fuel, but when word gets out that his
house is in tatters, that he got the Mona Lisa destroyed? That same empty significance he d
used to built his image will turn against him, and destroy it utterly. The reality distortion
effect obscuring his malice and incompetency will finally shut down. And while Helen didn
t end up getting the evidence to pin Miles to Andi s death, the others all understand that
something has shifted so like rats jumping from a sinking ship, they agree to testify against him.
This revenge is messy. It s chaotic. It doesn t play by the rules and Helen s only able to
succeed by destroying something which ought to be beyond destruction. This is disruption. But
you don t have to take my word for it take Miles . (Intercut Bron s description with Helen s actions)
To start with, the shitheads cheered on this destruction, when it seemed symbolically powerful
but actually meaningless. This is acceptable disruption. This doesn t really change anything.
And, despite what they or Miles would tell you - this is where all these others stopped. But when
Helen doesn t stop, when she starts wrecking genuine artifacts, their support wavers,
they start to get cold feet. This is the inflection point - or as Miles would call it,
the infraction point they tell her to stop, but Helen doesn t waver. And to beat Miles,
she breaks the thing that nobody wants her to break. The shitheads kind of come around
afterwards, but it s less getting on board than it is adjusting to a new status quo.
Because what Glass Onion s telling us here, to the letter, is that Helen is the one true disruptor.
But, so what. Right? I mean, don t get me wrong, this is a cool beat. It underscores the hubris
and hypocrisy of Miles Bron, those like him, his hangers on, and so forth, and it s another
little detail that blossoms beautifully upon rewatch, adding to that whole interrogation
of perspective and viewership in this film that I ve talked about before. This is a neat little
conclusion, but it is just that little, and I am hardly the first person to notice it. So,
how about we take a leaf out of Glass Onion s book, mix things up, and use it as a jumping off
point instead? Helen is the One True Disruptor here. So what? What does that tell us about how
Glass Onion understands Helen, understands her actions here, understands disruption?
Well that s where things get really interesting. Let s talk about this idea of disruption, because,
just like pretty much everything else he gets credit for Miles Bron didn t come up with this.
Disruption theory is a thing in business and Glass Onion s aware of it. That book in which Andi finds
the napkin? That s all about disruption. The Innovator s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen lays
out the way disruption, or disruptive innovation , can pose an existential risk to even the biggest
companies and the way it also allows outsiders, new entries, disruptors to leverage that risk
to make it big, change the landscape of the market. Now I m sure there is another point
to be made here about hubris and irony that while the shitheads of Glass Onion have a superficial
knowledge of these ideas, they ve misidentified themselves that Miles doesn t consider he s become
part of the establishment, that he could be the target of disruption, not its originator but
that isn t what I want to focus on. No, for now, let s just ask a question. Is disruption good?
Certainly, it is for the disruptor, right? Christensen would agree, Glass Onion s shitheads
presumably would, but what about in the abstract? Is this ongoing cycle of disruption and innovation
good for the market, for the economy, for the world? Well, in Miles eyes it would seem so.
Whenever he talks about this process, disruptors are figured as bold, innovative, building the
world of tomorrow. Disruption is understood almost as economic evolution. As development,
tending toward perfection. As good. This is a point Neelesh Rathi makes in a post on medium.com,
entitled Glass Onion: A Materialist Mystery, which I ve linked below. Rathi links Miles valorising
of disruption to the way our culture has long championed capitalist innovation , the celebration
of Thomas Edison, the captains of industry, the way we see this trailblazing as progress and then
links Helen s rejection of this, her awareness that Miles so-called disruption is built on wealth
siphoned from Andi s labour, to an observation Marx and Engels made in that seminal Manifesto:
The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production,
and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society
Paraphrased, then? These tycoons don t disrupt things because disruption is good they do
it because they want to maintain their status, maintain the system which grants them this status,
and that continuing disruption, paradoxically, is necessary for this. As Rathi puts it, the rich,
in order to win out over each other, must change the world around them in order to find new ways to
profit off of it . The constant revolutionising of the instruments of production or, y know,
disruption in Miles sense isn t thinking outside the box it s an essential part of
the box s self-regulation. Returning to Marx and Engels for a moment, the Manifesto continues:
Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social
conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the
bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. In other words? Disruption is the essential
characteristic of capitalism. So looking at the shitheads, looking at Miles Bron,
regardless of their revolutionary posturing, all this disruption occurs firmly within the bounds of
capitalism, and within the bounds of the cultural superstructure which legitimises and maintains
this system. So if you re a wildly successful businessman, maybe this type of disruption,
in the abstract, is good in a macro sense but for the rest of us? Yeah not so much.
So if this is disruption, and Helen is Glass Onion s one true disruptor
does that mean Helen bad? Well, no. See, the way Glass Onion theorises disruption, hell,
even the way Miles Bron theorises disruption, is a little grander than the way Marx and Engels,
even Christensen, approach their similar concepts. Seemingly inspired by the latter,
by the Innovator s Dilemma s focus on innovative disruption as an S-curve, Miles talks about the
inflection point leading to a bigger decision, the decision to break the thing nobody wants broke,
the system itself. Miles thinks that s what this lot have done, are doing but he s misjudged their
positioning. Maybe Birdie s use of sweatpants to un-cancel herself is, in some way, innovative.
Maybe Claire s soccer-mom gubernatorial success is, too. Maybe the same could be said for Miles
new fuel Klear, y know, if it worked properly. But none of these things break the system. They
just slightly reshuffle it. At most, if we re being generous, these things break subsystems
the mechanics of cancel culture, the PAC-oriented machine of American politics, and in Klear s case,
the energy economy. Some of these things are significant, but they aren t the system, and
they re only broken, or, perhaps more accurately, lightly jostled, in order to raise the would-be
disruptor to a higher rung on that ever-present, unshakeable late-capitalist ladder. Basically,
the shitheads have taken that ladder for granted, assumed its presence as an inevitability and so it
can t be the system, because systems can change. The system, the thing they re striving to break,
must be within, must be smaller in scale. But Helen, as usual, goes one step beyond.
Helen breaks the thing she isn t supposed to break. That thing isn t the Mona Lisa itself,
but the painting s destruction is what topples the thing. This artifact had been entrusted to
Miles because his power and status had created an illusion of competence and sophistication.
The money helped, obviously, but do you think the Louvre would ve loaned it out
if they d known Miles was fuelling his house with unstable, flammable material? If they d
even been aware it was a possibility? If they d thought for one moment that Miles was the type to
do something this thick? Simply put, the mythology of capitalism asserts that the best people will be
the most successful. Miles is the most successful, so he must be the best the type of person who you
can trust to hold the Mona Lisa, who deserves a life of luxury and influence. And this is what is
broken here the false justification the wealthy give us for their wealth, for their prominence,
their respect, the acceptance of this myth, and the resulting reality distortion field
that surrounds our perception of people like this. Helen doesn t overturn the system, in its entirety
by burning the Mona Lisa. Capitalism itself isn t vanquished with Miles Bron. But what
Helen does here is impressive. She sees that the fiction of capitalism, and this web of status and
control which governs the shitheads actions here these aren t a given. The thing, that thing she
isn t supposed to break isn t some immutable truth, external to the system it is a system,
an artificial one, it just pretends otherwise. The basic hierarchy that underpins their relationship,
their dependency, their obedience to Miles isn t natural, isn t inevitable, that it is something
constructed and, that as a result? It can be demolished. It isn t beyond disruption. The others
have seen the system, the box, have succeeded at playing it s game, have come out on top,
and convinced themselves that s disruption. Helen smashes the box. And that s what we see
in this beautiful, explosive ending sequence. After cutting the Gordian Knot, Alexander of
Macedon, perhaps better known as Alexander the Great, went on to become the ruler of one of
history s largest empires a feat he accomplished in a decade or so by never losing a battle. His
reign saw the Hellenization of vast swathes of land and marked the end of Greece s classical era,
and the decline of the polis system. The time of the city-state had drawn to a close and in
becoming King of Asia, in building this empire, Alexander would unknowingly inspire kings, rulers,
Caesars, for centuries. The previous status quo? The system which seemed to immutably govern the
Mediterranean? Alexander reduced it to dust. At the end of the day, there are a lot of ways
you could read the ending of Glass Onion. You could take it simply as ridiculous,
maximalist action the fitting end for Miles Bron s gaudy idiocy. You could do what I ve seen a few
people do, and take this cathartic iconoclasm as autobiographical Rian Johnson is, after all,
a man who s been subjected to plenty of vitriol for attempting to question the substance behind
beloved fictions. Put that together with this film s derision for ultimately empty puzzles, and hey,
maybe Johnson was drawing from experience here. But I think this is a powerfully,
fiercely hopeful scene. See I ve seen a few people criticising Glass Onion s treatment of wealth for
not going far enough it shouldn t have pointed out that some billionaires aren t deserving,
because that implies some are. I think that s a valid feeling to have, but I don t think it s the
only thing we should take away. Because to me? What Glass Onion shows us here, through Helen,
though her defeat of Miles Bron, his hold over these people, over the world,
the Mona Lisa, the mythology of capitalism? Is simply that Nothing is beyond disruption.
And a film ending on such a powerful affirmation of impermanence might seem bleak,
but now? Today? I think it s uplifting. We need that reminder. Disruption, real disruption,
has become a necessity. Real wages keep dropping, year on year, global wealth disparities keep
shooting upward, and, oh yeah, unless we change our course like tomorrow, we re a few short years
away from catastrophic shifts in the global climate, which will displace and endanger
millions. Either we take hold of that idea, that nothing, not even the system itself, is immutable,
and we change it or, yeah. We re in trouble. It isn t always as simple as Helen makes it seem
here. None of us can fix this ourselves, not right now, but in the meantime we can help. So vote.
Spread the word. Protest. Organise. And if you want to get started having an impact right now,
let me tell you about TabForACause. It s really simple a web extension you add to your browser,
that just puts a couple of ads in the corner of the screen when you open a new tab,
and uses that to fund charitable donations. That s it there s no catch, no fees. All you have to
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That s the end of this video, anyway. I d love to know what you all thought,
and what you think about disruption in Glass Onion more widely. Is it a force for good? Or
is it just chaotic neutral? I really appreciate everyone who s liked, subbed, and shared after
watching my previous Glass Onion videos, I think that s why they re doing so well, so y know,
feel free to keep that going here. And I wanna extend a quick thanks to all my current Patreon
supporters onscreen now I will be posting a few additional thoughts on this topic over there,
so if anyone else wants to check them out, see your name up here next time, and help keep videos
like this possible, that link s in the description below too. Thanks for watching, though,
and I'll see you all in, like, a few days, for a video on Knives Out and Trumpism. Gonna be fun!