Did the BK in NBK stand for Burger King?

For many years, Burger King advertisements have featured the slogan, "Have it your way."

(The company is now switching to the lame "Be your way," but never mind.)

Eric and Dylan ate at Burger King, yes ... but, more importantly for purposes of this discussion, they took its corporate slogan to heart. They tried to have things their way.

If you could do anything that you wanted to do, without fear of the potential consequences of your actions, would you hesitate for even one second?

I would love to rob a bank, or hijack a Brinks truck, or mug someone carrying a briefcase full of $100 bills. I crave money and I loathe work. My ultra-happy place is anywhere where I have a fat wallet and an empty schedule. What more could I want?

So why don't I do it? What am I waiting for?

Well, I doubt that I could do it and get away with it. I don't want go to prison. I don't want to be killed by the cops (or anyone else, for that matter). I don't want to be punished by some cosmic force - I do believe in karma, or heaven and hell, or whatever you want to call it. And I have a conscience. So I obey the law.

But if I had an overriding desire to kill myself, and to take as many fuckers with me as I could in an awesome orgy of death and destruction that would make me infamous for decades if not centuries to come ... and if I didn't have any fear of prison and/or death, and if I didn't believe that I would be punished by God or Fate or the Universe for my actions ... then would I obey the commandment that "Thou shalt not kill?"

Probably not.

Everything in life boils down to incentives.

My incentive to rob a bank is that I want easy money right now. But my incentive to obey the law is that I don't want to end up spending the rest of my life in a cell with a 400-pound inmate named Butch McDick.

Remove my incentive to obey the law, and I'm off like a light. The nearest bank is ten minutes away - by foot.

Fundamentally, Eric and Dylan's actions can be explained by two factors: a) they wanted to kill other people and b) in their minds, the incentives to kill people outweighed the incentives to let people live.

(They wanted to kill themselves, of course. But that factor, in and of itself, is only relevant to the extent to which their homicidal impulses were caused and/or influenced by their suicidal ones. Thousands of kids off themselves each year, but you don't see their faces on the cover of Time.)

So what were their incentives to kill?

Well, they felt small, and they wanted to feel big. They felt weak, and they wanted to feel strong. They felt like nobodies, and they wanted to feel like somebodies. They felt inferior, and they wanted to feel superior. They were miserable, and they wanted to die, but they wanted to have a little fun before they went. They were sick and tired of obeying the rules, and they wanted to be able to break them with impunity. They were mortals, but they wanted to act like gods.

As for the incentives not to kill ... well, they went to considerable lengths to make sure they'd be able to commit suicide, to avoid being taken into custody. If you have no fear of death, and no desire to live, and no real regard for the people whose lives you destroy or derail, then suicide really is the be-all and end-all solution to any problem.

They seem not to have considered the possibility that their plan might not work. If they had known that their bombs were destined to fail - if someone had told them at 11:15 that morning, "Hey, guys! The bombs aren't gonna go off! You fucked up!" - would they have ended up going NBK?

We'll never know.

I believe that the above statements apply to both boys. Dave Cullen doesn't, but that's life.

If Dylan's first initial was N, it would be NBK. NBK=DBK

Oh man, you got sooo close to an opening post without mentioning Dave Cullen then he snuck in right at the last sentence.

This doesn't add much to the discussion, but it's a common misconception that the Commandment is "Thou shall not kill." It's "Thou shall not murder."