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Ok, thread on the similarities between True Detective season 1 and Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov.
First, a number of the characters are similar- most notably, Ivan Karamazov and Rust Cohle. They both have a nihilist or pessimist philosophy, and reject the Christianity of those around them. But the similarities go deeper than that...
They're both very concerned w/ the suffering of children- see Ivan's rant on child abuse cases & Rust's reactions to the death of his daughter, the baby killed by a meth head, & the kids abused by the Cult of the Yellow King...
They also both experience vivid hallucinations. The Devil who appears to Ivan near the end of Bros K spouts many of the ideas that Rust Cohle would take up...
1. The idea of Eternal Recurrence. Rust famously says "Time is a flat circle," probably referencing Nietzsche. But Bros K also has the idea. The Devil tells Ivan that "our present earth may have been repeated a billion times...the same sequence may have been repeated endlessly"
Also, Ivan and Rust both continue to investigate the respective murder cases after the guilt was pinned on the wrong person, Ivan after Dmitri's arrest and Rust after Reggie Ledoux's death.
The final killer turns out to be a mentally ill person who does menial labor and has been "in plain sight" the whole time.
Ivan and Rust both dream of a world in which people choose morality on its own basis without hoping for eternal reward- as evidenced by the Geological Cataclysm thought experiment in Ivan's vision...
...and Rust's remarks at the preacher's tent revival meeting in Episode 3 that people who are only moral for divine reward are scumbags who should have their hypocrisy exposed.
Ivan and Rust also, despite their stand against child abusers and criminals, have a deep identity with evil that haunts them. Rust has a "shadow over his soul" and Ivan feels responsible for inspiring Smerdyakov's actions with his nihilistic philosophy.
On to other characters- Marty & Dmitri have a certain similarity. They have less nihilistic worldviews than Rust and Ivan but have problems with alcohol and women. In a way they represent the body as opposed to the mind (identified w/ Rust and Ivan).
Finally, we have Billy Lee Tuttle, who I think is supposed to be a living breathing Grand Inquisitor. The Grand Inquisitor is a powerful clergyman who twists Christ's message, controls the people with deception, and doesn't believe in his own words.
The Grand Inquisitor publicly worships God because the common people need religion to keep them in line, but privately admires "the wise and dread spirit," Satan. Tuttle is likewise a secret Satanist within the ranks of the Church...
The Cult of the Yellow King has similarities with the Grand Inquisitor's twisted religion. Both offer "peace" or "release" to let people avoid the hard choices of spiritual freedom. The Inquisitor does this by authoritarian control- the Yellow King's pawns do this with death.
Rust, describing pictures of murder victims, says that they "welcomed it"- "it" being the release from existential freedom found in death. The Grand Inquisitor says that Christ erred when He gave men free will- the Inquisitor and the Yellow King cult both seek to rectify that.
The preacher at the revival in episode 3 who turns up later lost & disillusioned is a picture of what might have happened to Alyosha. After Elder Zosima dies, the body rots instead of staying miraculously preserved. Alyosha at first thinks that this is proof of God's absence...
...but later realizes that faith is not by sight. He has to learn to trust God personally instead of through Zosima. The preacher in True Detective sees that his superiors are part of a pedophile network & loses his faith instead of going alone with God.
Well that's all I have to say on that subject- others should look more into the similarities between two of the best murder mystery stories that I have ever come across.
