My allegiances are to the the High Table. - Adjuicator
And mine are to New York City. - Winston
Anarchy is a world without rulers, not a world without rules.
John Wick lived in a world with both. The rules of the coins, of the Continental, of Markers, of respect, family, friendship, and loyalty. The rulers of the High Table, and the Elder who sits above it. The elite who hold themselves above the rules and excercise authority over those under the Table.
The story of John Wick is a story of friendship, family, loyalty, and respect for the humanity of others. The sins committed against John are those that deny him his humanity and those that serve the caprice of the elites. The story begins, of course, with death. First the death of John's wife, by cancer, then the death of his dog.
But a dog is never just a dog. A dog is family. A dog is love and joy and loyalty. And in the case of John Wick, Daisy is hope and the memory of his wife, she's love and a reason to live. In a moment of emotional intelligence surprising for an action franchise, John recognizes that she's an aide to processing his grief. And Iosef killed her because her terrified yelps were annoying. Iosef killed her while viewing John as less than human, as an obstacle to stealing a car, as a means to an end. John responds with vengeance.
Oddly, vengeance strikes me as the opposite. Seeking vengeance means recognizing the target of your revenge as wholly human and wholly responsible for their actions. You don't seek justice from a storm. You don't hunt a hurricane. You don't demande recompense or apology from a flood. In stalking Iosef and flooding the streets of New York with the blood of the Tasarov crime family, John is acknowledging him as the architect of his suffering. John's response is terrible, but it's a response consistent with the medium.
Iosef's father, Viggo, recognizes the gravity of the crime and tries to appeal to John. When he fails, he knows that his son is a dead man, and he knows that Iosef brought this on himself through his ignorance and arrogance, but Iosef is his son and he has to try. He places his army in John's path, and John kills them all.
All but one. A man who knows John, respects him, and steps aside. He recognizes John's humanity and the justice of his goal, and lives. And Iosef dies. Ultimately, Viggo values his life and his empire more than his son and gives him up to John. However, he demands his own vengeance. Unable to get it against John, he gets it by killing John's friend, Marcus, who never actually accepted the contract on John's life and instead aided him from a distance. Viggo kills him and calls John to gloat, using Marcus as a means to an end. John gets vengeance in turn, killing Viggo and the last of his allies. He also rescues a dog scheduled for death. A pit bull, mirroring John as a breed that is kind, loving, and gentle, but which can be turned monstrous through careful abuse.
And a dog is never just a dog.
The second film expands on the mysterious and increasingly mystical Underworld of John Wick, introducing the High Table and its 12 members as well as Markers, tokens of obligation much more severe than the prosaity of Gold Coins and the everyday transactions they represent. A Marker is a recognition of epic service and a demand for the same in return, signed in blood and guaranteed by death. John gave Santino D'Antonio a Marker when the latter aided him in the Impossible Task that earned John's exit from the Underworld. Santino was content to hold it while John remained inactive, but views John's quest for vengeance as his re-entry to the Underworld and its obligations, so calls the debt in. John begs him not to and refuses, so D'Antonio burns his house down, destroying the last mementos John had of his wife, Helen.
By the rules, John is in the wrong and should be glad all that he lost was his home. He agrees to fulfill the Marker and Santino tasks him with killing Santino's own sister, because he wants her seat at the High Table. Killing anyone is monstrous, fratricide moreso, and he does it only for personal gain. What's more, he views John as nothing more than a tool to use in his rise to power, and doesn't merely discard him when the task is done, but tries to kill him. He's using John as an object and attempting to keep his hands clean so the authorities will see clear to accept him as one of their number.
John, again, seeks vengeance. Vengeance for having been used and abused, and for being tasked with doing what he sought to escape to live with the woman he loved. Santino seeks refuge in the Continental, established in the first film as hallowed ground, sacrosanct, a place of refuge where "business" may not be conducted. John kills D'Antonio in the lounge with a pistol, because it's personal. In the first film, Ms. Perkins conducted business in the Continental and was executed for her temerity. John's life is likewise forfeit.
However, Winston, the manager of the New York Continental is a friend. Not just a friend, either. The fourth film establishes that he is Ruska Roma, as John will be in the third. Indeed, he may even be John's adoptive father. So where Ms. Perkins was dispatched with no ceremony, John is given first a display of the Continental's power and second an hour's grace. Friendship and family buy you a great deal in the Underworld. Unfortunately, the High Table aren't as gracious.
The third film showcases John's quest to save his life, so that he can keep his wife alive, if only in memory. He seeks out a doctor, a friend who is willing to mend his wounds up to the last second of his hour's grace. John repays his kindness by shooting him precisely where he indicates so that the High Table will be convinced he acted under duress but without putting his life too much at risk. John then seeks out his family, the Ruska Roma, to ask for safe passage to Casablanca. They very reluctantly agree, and only because he's family, and make it clear that he will never again be welcome in their home.
In Casablanca, John calls in his own Marker with the Manager of the Casablanca Continental. Sofia, the Manager, wants to refuse, she should refuse, but John earned the Marker by absconding with her daughter, hiding her away from the Underworld. She desperately wants to see her daughter, but refuses even to know where she is, because any connection would be enough to draw the girl into the Underworld. Sofia contents herself with the comforts awarded her as Manager of the Continental and consoles her grief through her dogs. She agrees to take John to a member of the High Table.
John begs an audience with the Elder, who sits above the Table. The aristocrat concedes, telling John how he can walk to his death in the hope that the Elder will see him, then demands punishment from Sofia for honoring John's request. Because Sofia respected her friendship and her Marker, he demands one of her dogs. Naturally, she refuses, so the aristocrat kills the dog. Against John's advice, Sofia kills him and the two murder their way to freedom.
Because a dog is never just a dog.
John walks through the desert until he collapses, and is wakened by the Elder, who grants him absolution so long as he pledges lifelong service to the Table. John agrees, giving the Elder his ring finger, his wedding ring, and his pledge to kill Winston, the Manager of the New York Continental. His friend. His father.
On his return to New York, John learns that the High Table sent the Adjudicator to punish his allies. For his loyalty to John, Winston's life was declared forfeit. For aiding John in hunting D'Antonio, the Bowery King, a man who came from nothing to build an army, is left for dead. The Bowery King was a henchman whose life was spared by John while the latter was working, but because he helped John kill a member of the Table, a member who had just killed his own sister, the member of the Table whose seat he had just taken, the Bowery King was judged. For respecting John and valuing the man more than the money killing him would earn, the Bowery King was cut down by the Table.
Winston offers John a choice: join me and save your soul, or serve the Table for the rest of your life and lose it. John chooses his family. They make a stand against the High Table and are successful enough that the High Table negotiates. They offer Winston reconsecration, provided he kills John Wick. He shoots John, causing the latter to fall off the roof of the Continental. The Bowery King, who survived his own execution, rescues him and sets the table for the final installment of John's story.
Notaby, the only killers to survive John's wrath are those who recognize him as a man, as a worthy opponent. The agent of the High Table, Zero, does not, because he doesn't view John as a man, but as an icon to be defeated for his own glory.
Authority will always protect itself for its own sake. It will never act out of good will or to protect others.
In the fourth film, Winston is punished for having failed to kill John. He is again declared excommunicat, and his hotel is not just Deconsecrated, but destroyed, and his best friend, Charon, the man at the front desk, is murdered by the Marquis. The High Table has tasked the Marquis with eliminating John Wick and given him a free hand. The Rules are suspended and he can do whatever he wants to whomever he wants. John seeks refuge at the Osaka Continental with his old friend Koji. Koji grants it without hesitation because "friendship means little when it's convenient". Also at the hotel is Caine, a man whose name is doubly ironic. Not only does he walk with a cane due to being blind (having given his eyes to the High Table like John gave his ring finger and wedding ring), but because he's been tasked with killing his brother, John. This is an Impossible Task that he only accepts because the Marquis will kill Caine and his daughter if he doesn't.
Also on the hunt is the Tracker, a man who calls himself Nobody, a capable hunter who travels with a dog. He wants to kill John for the money because, like John, he wants out of the life. John's ever escalating bounty is his path to retiremenet. The Marquis, with his excesses and his bloodthirst, sends an ever-growing army after John, but he, an arrogant fool, doesn't realize that he's set his assassins against one another. Caine has to stop other assassins because if anyone else kills John, his daughter will die. Nobody likewise kills other assassins because he can't win the bounty and because he will die if someone else kills Wick.
The Marquis continues to harass and assault Wick's allies, but he does nothing but alienate them and his own would-be allies. Meanwhile, Winston recalls the Rules. He advises John that he can challenge the Marquis to a duel, winning his freedom, but only if he has backing from his family. John returns to the Ruska Roma, regains membership, and challenges the Marquis.
The Marquis, of course, doesn't care about the spirit of the contest, but only the outcome, sending a horde of assassins after John with an ever-increasing bounty. Nobody is also hunting (and helping) John for this bounty, but John confounds him. In a melée à trois with one of the Marquis' elite guards, John spares Nobody's life, choosing instead to save his dog from the Marquis' elite.
And a dog is never just a dog.
The culmination of forty-five brutal minutes of fighting is a duel between Abel and Cain at the Sacré Couer in Paris. John and Caine injure each other, with John receving a fatal wound in the third round. But John chooses not to fire, sparing his friend's life and sparing his daughter's life. This is also a gambit, as the Marquis, in his foolishness and arrogance, chooses to step into the dueling ground in place of his second and deliver the coup de grâce himself. John's final bullet goes through the Marquis' head. Caine is free. John is free. Winston is re-instated as the Manager of the New York Continental, rebuilt at the High Table's expense. The Underworld's faith in the High Table is seriously shaken, and John, finally, allows himself to die.
His last request is to his father, Winston, that he be taken home. Winston and the Bowery King, who now holds the leash to John's beautiful dog, memorialize their fallen friend, whose gravestone bears the epitaph "Loving Husband". John served his friends and his family. John was loyal, kind, and respectful. Against that he was opposed by the arbitrary and capricious authority of the High Table and the Elder. By this light, the saga of John Wick is a deeply communist tale.
By any light, a dog is never just a dog.
