Black as Symbol of Death! Tony's Dead!

Wow, those symbols, so subtle we almost miss them. I just noticed there was a cat?? Must have meant Christopher haunting from the grave.

A conversation came to mind the other day. It occurred in the 2nd season. I am quoting loosely... A.J. is trying to interpret some literary tale for a school paper, and he can't understand it. Meadow tells him, "Snow, get it? Snow is white. White means death."

A.J. responds, "I thought black is death?"

Meadow says, sometimes it is, not always, and sometimes sometimes white is birth, it all depends. It was, at the time an interesting discussion, self-conscious of the show.

In light of The Sopranos conclusion, Chase may have really manipulated symbolism, implying meaning when there was none. Of course, symbolism is that, symbols for other things they might represent, and so symbolism is very much in the viewers' perception.

However, Chase certainly made the audience hyper-aware that he was aware of symbolism. It seemed to make sense that the audience deduce the show, too, could be read and mined like classic literature has been. Unfortunately, it seems, Chase and team abused the audience's willingness to believe. Even to the end, somehow he did it with that cat, all sarcasm earlier aside. A lot of people have asked what the cat means, as we've been so obediently trained to wonder these things by Chase. It was probably a big nothing.

Jonathan Kleier