The phrase 'we won't get fooled again' (from The Who) suggests that society can improve but not perfect itself, and the perfect is the enemy of the better—supporting McCarthy's vision of modest rather than utopian progress.

Tobin and Toadvine (characters in the gang) get hanged in Los Angeles, showing that whites were not unified and did not all survive—the novel refuses to present any group as monolithic or safe.

This is Sugrue's meditation on Thomas Hobbes' political philosophy—the 'war of all against all' that civilization overcomes, illustrating that the discomforts of civilized air-conditioning are preferable to the terror of actual wilderness.

The violence in Blood Meridian, including mass killing of Indians and settlers, resembles the imagery of Hieronymus Bosch's 'The Garden of Earthly Delights'—unapologetic, terrifying, and comprehensive, much like the Iliad's depiction of war.

The book 'Empire of the Summer Moon' documents the history of the Comanches, providing historical context for Blood Meridian's depiction of indigenous violence and brutal capacity.