imo every water metaphor people throw at faulkner gets better when you remember he can't swim. “stories are currents, and he plunges headlong into those rushing waters, time and time again" yeah and he can't swim. he's drowning in the narrative he's making for himself. "speak now of the man you will leave behind, the man you have been... drown him in the river’s depths" yeah he's been trying to. he kinda always is, a little bit, just by virtue of being there.

it just speaks to such a fundamental incompatibility in my eyes. he's still scared - he ran out of the hotel when he sainted the hotelier in season one and he runs away from the angel he summons in s3e6. it seems like he can only partake in violence through abstraction - it's just water and symbols until someone's dead or changed in front of him, and then it's real. the withermark is a holy triumph until he counts the houses and the people inside, and then it's something no one should ever have. sacrifice is foundational to all faith in this universe. this isn't something he can avoid, even if the upcoming schism lets him steer his part of the faith where he wants.

(and, to tangent, someone telling him that they finally killed her in some distant town isn't real because he didn't see her face when she hit the soil. if that happens then she's just someone who's not there anymore and he can keep on missing her like he's been doing. i am convinced this is why he gave the shoot on sight order.)

it’s mentioned that he's left alone in his room at the gulch for hours at a time, just like when his father would neglect him and his brothers and leave them to their own devices. he wants a real and genuine love like family, but instead gets worship and idolatry from one hand and schemes to kill him from the other. he keeps climbing the ranks, distancing himself from the potential of gaining the closeness he craves, all in the hope of getting closer to the god he's losing faith in. he's crawling towards the river and he can't swim.

he is trying to love something that wants to drag him under. even if there wasn't a god in the river, the water would greedily swallow him anyway. river currents do not care about your love. he is putting the sunk in sunk cost fallacy. he’s participating in reverse self-immolation. he is drowning in deep water and has only just learned how to keep his eyes open without goggles. he needs to reach the surface but he still can't fucking swim. he is going to die thrashing in the river he loves so much, trying to get out once he realized it wasn't ever going to love him back the way he wanted.

and if he can’t learn how to swim in time, he’s going to need the help of someone who can to pull him out.