Movies Question about Django Unchained: What did Calvin Candie do wrong?

Lord Sovereign

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Aside from being a semi-stereotypical slave owning southern gentleman of the 1850s, I don't see how Calvin instigated the situation which eventually resulted in him and his family being murdered. He does react rather violently to realising he's been deceived, which is evidence that he's not an overly pleasant man, but I doubt any of us would respond well to our hospitality being abused so badly. All he did was buy a slave that ended up being far more trouble than she was worth, and he'd probably have been glad to get rid of her if he was approached honestly on the matter.
 

Husky_Khan

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He did have D'artagnan ripped apart by dogs which isn't the most ethical way to dispose of your living property you no longer want. He didn't put Brunhilde into the hot box but it seemed like both practices were fairly unexceptional for his estate to engage in.

And they already explained through the hypothetical story why they wouldn't just sell some random slave to a pair of strangers with that but about a horse they needed.

You can disagree with it and the setup it implies but the movie at least established a fairly believable reasoning for the approach they made. Plus they don't really have any idea on what Candie feels she is worth anyhow beforehand.

But no he didn't directly instigate the violence and the movie didn't really make it seem that way either. The reason the violence occurred is because Dr. Schultz wouldn't compromise himself enough to shake Candie's hand. Which if you look at it, seems minor considering the context of everything

And morally, it's a revisionist Western based on Spaghetti Westerns and that plays out in the main protagonists finding Slavery in itself as being an evil institution and they had few compunctions about killing people for that reason alone even if it maybe anachronistic to the setting or whatever.
 
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Free-Stater 101

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He was morally evil. Even under the interpretations of slavery being a product of it's time Calvin knowingly killed his slaves cruelly at times to make a point which contrary to popular beliefs that that slave owners could get away with murder wasn't an commonly accepted practice as shown by the case of Delphine LaLaurie.

Literally the entire movie is a revenge flick like John Wick of course their is going to be extrajudicial killing in it, especially when Calvin was no angel or plain passive slave owner either.

What did Django or the Doc do wrong besides lie to deserve the type of treatment they received? Calvin is a businessman he should know that deception in bartering isn't illegal and is in fact a necessity that it's been done for thousands of years of human history. He got angry and then flat-out extorted money at gun point from two men by threatening to kill an innocent woman who happened to be one of their wives and even further did the same later after the freedom papers were handed over to the doc and the money had been exchanged when he was refused a handshake on a whim.

Long story short he had it coming if not by Django then someone else down the road.
 
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What did Django or the Doc do wrong besides lie to deserve the type of treatment they received? Calvin is a businessman he should know that deception in bartering isn't illegal and is in fact a necessity that it's been done for thousands of years of human history.

I don't know man. The Old Testament condemns deception in trade pretty harshly.
35. Do not use dishonest standards when measuring length, weight or quantity.
36 Use honest scales and honest weights, an honest ephah and an honest hin. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt.
and that was during a time when they were at the height of their power martially and economically so I'm not sure I'd call deception a necessity. But being defrauded still doesn't justify threatening to kill an innocent woman.
 

Free-Stater 101

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I don't know man. The Old Testament condemns deception in trade pretty harshly.
35. Do not use dishonest standards when measuring length, weight or quantity.
36 Use honest scales and honest weights, an honest ephah and an honest hin. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt.
and that was during a time when they were at the height of their power martially and economically so I'm not sure I'd call deception a necessity. But being defrauded still doesn't justify threatening to kill an innocent woman.
It wasnt deception of the the fraudulent type Django or the Doc were commiting. They approached Candy claiming to want to buy a fighting slave for twelve thousand dollars which is outrageous but in reality they where only there to buy Djangos wife for less which Candy probably wouldn't have sold otherwise but might if ihe felt it would entice him into another larger deal.

The bible passages you are referring to are mainly cheating people out of payment over the game of enticing buyers into selling or price bartering to begin with or barter.

Django was leading Calvin on but if Calvin sold Djangos wife and Django suddenly decided he didnt want to buy anymore slaves that's on Calvin and is a risk he should have accounted for.
 
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Hlaalu Agent

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Going to say that I think what @Lord Sovereign said is that he actually got one of the points Tarantino was making. The hidden moral ambiguity is entirely intentional. The guy even put in the possibility of a cycle of revenge in Kill Bill. The whole point about it not needing to have come to violence was exactly the point, I think, given this is Tarantino and he literally commentary about his own movies in Inglorious Basterds.

I am 90% sure Tarantino was doing the same thing he did in Basterds, and maybe the same thing he did in Kill Bill. And as I understand Tarantino kind of wants to make a couple more sequels about the cycle of revenge.
 

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