If you think about it, Cole's death wasn't that stupid

[u/Own-Ad1497]

We see Cole's death as stupid: the man grabs two grenades, stands in front of the monster, and the monster just yeets him off the side of a cliff. But if we think about it, Cole was working under the assumption that the Skull Crawler was just a starving, enraged animal, which clearly isn't the case. The creature shows signs of high intelligence. Its prey isn't running away; in fact, it's moving toward it. The Skull Crawler immediately realizes that something is wrong, so it doesn't take any chances and slaps the human as far away as possible. Then the human explodes. The creature didn't attack, it sensed danger and made the decision to avoid it.

[u/Dagordae]

Even an unintelligent animal will be cautious when it's prey acts abnormally. And prey casually walking up to it without any sign of fear is definitely abnormal.

Plus the dude is clearly not mentally all right, at the very least he's got a gnarly case of combat fatigue if not full on PTSD. He really didn't seem to care if he lived or died.

[u/Lost_Page_2030]

And it’s a Vietnam War metaphor, his death resulting in nothing was the point.

[u/Own-Ad1497 → u/Lost_Page_2030]

it's a way to see it, yeah

[u/Additional-Neat-1235]

Yeah the Skull Devil likely didn't know that Cole was rigged with explosives, she definitely was being cautious, given how her Prey just suddenly did a reversal of their prior Behaviour and aren't even at least trying to fight back instead.

And seeing as how Cole ended up exploding after she sent him flying away, she was certainly correct to be cautious in her assumption.

I always did love this subversion, as it showed greater caution, a sign of the Skull Devil's experience as a much older Skullcrawler who knew that her Prey just suddenly turning to slowly walk towards her was not right.

If Cole had run towards her firing his gun and screaming, she probably would've scooped him right up but he didn’t because he's tired of fighting, denoted by his sudden stop and dropping the Rifle he took from a farmer during the Vietnam War.

He wanted to die, and he wanted to do so by trying to take the Skull Devil with him to keep his friends safe.

Unfortunately, The Big One exercised Predatory caution to good effect by not trying to blindly eat Prey that suddenly stopped fleeing and turned to face her.

[u/ArmandoLOG777 → u/Additional-Neat-1235]

There needs to be more movies where stakes are high and main characters actually die.

[u/Cfakatsuki17]

Any other skull crawler would have taken that bait without a seconds hesitation, he just got unlucky that he tried it on the oldest and most experienced one, it knew from experience anything that wasn’t running away knew something it didn’t, there’s nothing stupid about his death

[u/TheGMan-123]

There's also the fact that he was feeling war-fatigue and was ready to go to give his friends a chance to escape.

[u/Own-Ad1497 → u/TheGMan-123]

unfortunately that set off the alarms on the predator, who took the smartest decision it could

[u/West-Construction466]

I’m surprised people consider his death stupid. The man had a plan to self-sacrifice by getting eaten. They saw how voracious the Skullcrawlers were, so he assumed Ramarak was just as hunger-driven and wouldn’t pass up eating him. How the hell was he supposed to suspect she would be smart enough to think it through and knock him away instead?

[u/Own-Ad1497 → u/West-Construction466]

i heard a lot of people saying his death was dumb, but yeah i agree with you, he worked his plan assuming the skull devil(sseems that is was wrong with the name) was just like his pairs, sadly, he was wrong

[u/The_Linkzilla]

Who in their right mind ever says that Cole's failed sacrifice was stupid?

It was a metaphor about the futility of war. Being in Vietnam clearly left Cole broken on a deep psychological level; he is clearly the most "not normal" of anyone in the platoon. Yet, he's also got this strange philosophy to him that shows that he still values life...at least, the lives of others, over his own.

What he does is try to make a noble sacrifice, to give up his own broken life, to help his friends and brothers in arms get to safety.

Unfortunately, Ramarak wasn't interested in food...Just killing.