ANo. In the books, Miho [Devon Aoki] is referred to as an assassin, (for example, in The Big Fat Kill: "...with a whore and her assassin pal,") but never as a prostitute. According to some sources, Miho means "beautiful guardian." She is a friend and a protector of the Old Town Girls, but not their colleague.
ATwo key scenes are required to piece it together.1. Marv is in the car with Wendy, and he tells her that he heard it has something to do with Cardinal Roark, but that sounds crazy. Wendy says "No it doesn't, Goldie worked the clergy." Goldie was a hooker, so what Wendy means is that Goldie often had sex with priests for money. Marv replies "Just like that, a whopper of a puzzle piece falls smack in my lap. I'm too dumb to put the whole picture together yet, but..."2. The other scene is where Marv is about to torture Cardinal Roark. He was explaining how he and Kevin killed and ate whores, and then he says "And then your... Goldie almost ruined everything", if we put two and two together... Goldie was regularly around Clergymen. How could she have ruined everything for Kevin and the Cardinal? By seeing something that she shouldn't have seen, and learning exactly what they were up to. They couldn't risk her telling anyone, so she had to be next. The initial plan was to do her just like the others, but the Cardinal says to Marv "She stayed in public places", so they couldn't get to her. He continues "And then with you...You were so convenient. You'd broke a man's jaw that very night. Who would believe a thug like you?"So basically, Goldie was killed because she learned what Kevin and the Cardinal were doing. She was not eaten like the others, so that they could frame Marv. Marv was framed because he was there, and was convenient to setup as the fall guy for the entire string of killings.
QWhat's with all the swastikas? Is Miho a Nazi?
AThere are two swastikas in the film. One is a shuriken held by Miho. Miho is Asian, and thus not likely to be a member of the Aryan Nation (since she is decidedly not Aryan). The swastika (or manji) has a long history in South Asian culture (Indus Valley Civilization) as a symbol of peace and good luck (long before it was co-opted by the Nazis), and there have indeed been actual shuriken designed in its image. It is far more likely that Miho's shuriken was representative of the South Asian culture than that of the Nazi party. For more on the swastika and its origins, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika The second swastika was tattooed on the forehead of Stuka, a bald gang member. He can be assumed to be a Nazi, or at least someone who pretends to be one to look tough (since he seems to have no issues with taking orders from Manute, a black man). Also his name, Stuka, is taken from the name of a German dive bomber used by the Luftwaffe in the Second World War. While this swastika does imply Nazism, there is no glorification of said party in the film. Stuka is clearly a bad guy, and he meets his end with an arrow through the skull--which actually goes directly through the swastika. This arrow is courtesy of Miho, not so coincidentally. If one is into symbolism, the act could even be seen as a form of taking back the symbol from those who have perverted its meaning. The swastika appears several times in Frank Miller's original works. In his 4-part graphic novel, Give Me Liberty, it's hero, Martha Washington, does battle with a group of gay Nazi men who use the swastika as their emblem. It also appears in The Dark Knight Returns as an emblem covering the breasts of a female gang member with whom Batman does battle.The shuriken that Miho uses appears in The Dark Knight Strikes Again, Miller's sequel to his largely successful 1986 graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns.
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