# True Grit (Coen bros) Plot Question - Open Spoilers **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 20, 2011, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-grit-coen-bros-plot-question-open-spoilers/568297 "2011-01-20T05:33:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![fighting\_ignorant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ac8455/32.png) [@fighting\_ignorant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fighting_ignorant)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-grit-coen-bros-plot-question-open-spoilers/568297/1 "2011-01-20T05:33:48Z")
Loved the film. One question I had: When the girl finally catches up to the bad guy, how is it that he seems to recognize her? My understanding is that when he shot the father, the girl had been out of town? Or did I misunderstand the plot? Thanks ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-grit-coen-bros-plot-question-open-spoilers/568297/2 "2011-01-20T05:56:43Z")
Tom Chaney (the bad guy) was an employee of Mattie’s father. From the True Grit script: > [@](#): > > _Papa was a Cumberland Presbyterian and a Mason. He’d > hired Chaney—for paid wages, not on shares—when Chaney > was “down on his luck.” If Papa had a failing it was his > kindly disposition; I did not get my mean streak from him._ > > The crumpled shape is a body. We hear the thunder of approaching hooves. > > _He had taken Chaney up to Fort Smith to help lead back a > string of mustang ponies he’d just bought from a stock trader > named Stonehill._ Chaney was hired near where Mattie and her father lived and probably met her there. They didn’t begin the job in Stonehill- they’d traveled there from wherever they started to pick up the ponies. ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-grit-coen-bros-plot-question-open-spoilers/568297/3 "2011-01-20T06:02:44Z")
Too late to edit: By “wherever they started” I mean “Cumberland”. It’s stated in the part of the script that I quoted! ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-grit-coen-bros-plot-question-open-spoilers/568297/4 "2011-01-20T06:26:39Z")
The original makes it a bit clearer. He knows her on the ranch mentioned above where her father hires him, and notices her because it’s impossible to not too as she controls the cash box and does most of the business end of the ranch for her father- she pays him in other words. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-grit-coen-bros-plot-question-open-spoilers/568297/5 "2011-01-20T15:27:40Z")
It just occurred to me that Josh Brolin has now played both a Bush (Oliver Stone’s _W_.) and a Chaney. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-grit-coen-bros-plot-question-open-spoilers/568297/6 "2011-01-20T17:38:29Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > It just occurred to me that Josh Brolin has now played both a Bush (Oliver Stone’s _W_.) and a Chaney. A Chaney who’s shot a man at that. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-grit-coen-bros-plot-question-open-spoilers/568297/7 "2011-01-20T21:03:13Z")
True, but Mattie’s dad didn’t ask for his forgiveness. ---
**Author:** ![vertizontal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/ad7895/32.png) [@vertizontal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vertizontal)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-grit-coen-bros-plot-question-open-spoilers/568297/8 "2011-03-01T13:29:29Z")
Another question… I saw the movie, but so maybe I just missed it, but in the movie or the original novel do they mention why Rooster wears an eye patch? ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-grit-coen-bros-plot-question-open-spoilers/568297/9 "2011-03-01T15:40:49Z")
It’s implied he wears the patch because at some point, he lost one of his eyes. [/smartass] ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-grit-coen-bros-plot-question-open-spoilers/568297/10 "2011-03-01T16:57:25Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > It’s implied he wears the patch because at some point, he lost one of his eyes. It was all the damned grit. Tough on the corneas. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-grit-coen-bros-plot-question-open-spoilers/568297/11 "2011-03-01T17:25:40Z")
> [@Spoke](#): > > It was all the damned grit. True. ---
**Author:** ![Pedro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/919ad9/32.png) [@Pedro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pedro)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-grit-coen-bros-plot-question-open-spoilers/568297/12 "2011-03-01T17:40:21Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > The original makes it a bit clearer. He knows her on the ranch mentioned above where her father hires him, and notices her because it’s impossible to not too as she controls the cash box and does most of the business end of the ranch for her father- she pays him in other words. That’s why Chaney recognizes her as “little Mattie the book keeper”. > [@vertizontal](#): > > Another question… > > I saw the movie, but so maybe I just missed it, but in the movie or the original novel do they mention why Rooster wears an eye patch? In the book Rooster says he lost the eye in a fight. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-grit-coen-bros-plot-question-open-spoilers/568297/13 "2011-03-01T22:01:01Z")
> [@AClockworkMelon](#): > > Too late to edit: By “wherever they started” I mean “Cumberland”. It’s stated in the part of the script that I quoted! Wrong. “Cumberland Presbyterian” is a denomination of Presbyterian. [http://www.cumberland.org/center/believe.htm](http://www.cumberland.org/center/believe.htm) Mattie Ross is from “Dardanelle in Yell County”, Arkansas. > **[Dardanelle, Arkansas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dardanelle,_Arkansas)** > > Dardanelle is a city in northeast Yell County, Arkansas, United States. The population was 4,517 at the 2020 census. Along with Danville, it serves as a county seat for Yell County. It is located near Lake Dardanelle. > Dardanelle is part of the Russellville Micropolitan Statistical Area. > Dardanelle is one of the oldest cities in the state of Arkansas. Officially incorporated in 1855, Dardanelle celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2005. However, the area had been settled for years before that,... Tom Cheney was a hired hand that worked for Mr. Ross on his farm. They went on the trip to buy ponies, and that is why they were in Fort Smith, where Cheney got drunk and belligerent, and murdered Ross. He wasn’t hired by Ross away from the farm; of course he met Mattie on the farm, especially since she was the business manager for daddy. He wasn’t sophisticated with letters and numbers. The confusion comes because all this is told in a quick monologue instead of shown, like in the John Wayne version. I don’t recall mention of specifics of how Rooster lost his eye. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-grit-coen-bros-plot-question-open-spoilers/568297/14 "2011-03-01T23:24:33Z")
> [@Pedro](#): > > That’s why Chaney recognizes her as “little Mattie the book keeper”. > > In the book Rooster says he lost the eye in a fight. Cock fight?