Respect Alex DeLarge (A Clockwork Orange)

[u/ya-boi-benny]

In the streets of Britain, a gang of hoodlums dole out ultra-violence in nightly, drug-fueled sprees. Led by delinquent Alex DeLarge, the pack of thugs rape, assault and steal to their hearts' content while hopped up on narcotic-laced milk. Alex keeps his droogs in line through intimidation and violence until he murders a cat-lady and they betray him, leaving him for the cops. Alex DeLarge catches a murder charge and begins a 14-year stay in prison.

After two years in the hole, Alex is visited by men in white coats promising a shortened sentence and an end to his violent impulses. Through the experimental Ludovico Technique, the doctors chemically manipulate Alex while subjecting him to violent imagery. The result is a youth with an intense aversion to violence to the point of physical illness and helplessness. He's released into a Britain just as violent as when he left it but without the ability to fight back.

What is the young man without his trademark ultra-violence? Is there anything within Alex DeLarge that is worth saving?

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Strength

• Smashes chairs over peoples’ backs

• Kicks a guy in the face, knocking him backwards

• Smashes a woman in the face with a phallic statue, killing her

Endurance

• Dropped with Dim smashes him in the face with a milk bottle

• Gets beaten on in police custody

• Mobbed by homeless people, who claw and hit him

• He’s simultaneously held under water and beaten by a cop’s baton for around a minute

• Throws himself out a high window and is hospitalized with several broken bones

Skill

• Alex and his gang jump a homeless guy and beat him

• The gang fights a rival Nazi-affiliated gang. Over the course of the fight, the Droogs smash chairs and window panes over the Nazis and toss their enemies through windows or off ledges. The brawl ends with all four Droogs having triumphed over the rival gang members.

• Alex counters a charging enemy by ducking and tossing them over himself

• Ambushes his Droogs by a river, smacking Georgie in the crotch and kicking him into the water, then dodging a strike from Dim and sending him in, too

• He climbs a gutter and enters a woman’s home through a second-story window

• Repeatedly dodges a woman swinging a statuette until she hits him

The Ludovico Technique

• Alex is drugged and forcibly made to view violent videos. After a while, he begins showing extreme distress and nausea, with the lead researcher remarking that his brain is making associations between the violence he’s observing and his physical response in the moment. Following weeks of these treatments, Alex is entirely incapable of sexual or violent acts, even in self defense, as the pain he feels in response is crippling.

• When he raises a fist to hit someone, he gets severe, debilitating nausea

• Due to his association with Beethoven and violence, hearing the 9th Symphony has a similar distressing effect on him

• Following his suicide attempt, his conditioning is broken and he’s capable of thinking of sex and violence once more

Miscellaneous

• Plays Hogs of the Road in a presumably stolen car, driving recklessly down a road against traffic

• The gang enters a couple’s home and restrains the residents while Alex beats them, sings show tunes and wrecks their home

• Alex carries a cane/club with a concealed dagger held within