Django Kill… If You Live, Shoot!

Oaks and the white gang members turn on their Mexican companions because they want to keep all the stolen gold for themselves. After ambushing the Wells Fargo wagon and killing the U.S. Army guards, Oaks leads the betrayal by forcing the Mexican bandits to dig their own graves before shooting them, leaving only the Stranger for dead in the mass grave.

The flashback reveals the Stranger's gang was already fractured by greed before the ambush even occurred.

The Indian medicine men melt the Stranger's share of the stolen gold into bullets because in their culture, they want to be guided by him toward the happy hunting ground. By literally making the gold into ammunition, they bind themselves to his revenge quest, it becomes both a literal and symbolic weapon driving the story forward.

The act of transforming wealth into weapons foreshadows how gold will consume and destroy everyone who seeks it.

Alderman shoots Templer using the Stranger's pistol to eliminate his rival for town control and to claim the gold for himself. By framing the Stranger, Alderman turns the townspeople against him while positioning himself as a false ally who offers the Stranger shelter, allowing Alderman to manipulate the situation and pursue both Elizabeth and the treasure.

Earlier, Alderman's eagerness to isolate Elizabeth from Templer hints at his personal ambitions beyond moral concerns.

After the Stranger returns to town with Evan's corpse, Flory and Templer hide the gold inside Evan's coffin to keep it from Sorrow's gang. When Alderman later leads the townspeople on a graveyard search, he secretly hauls away the gold from the cemetery before anyone else can find it.

Flory's knowledge of the gold's location after Evan dies sets up the cemetery as the ultimate prize everyone seeks.

Sorrow's muchachos capture and crucify the Stranger, using vampire bats to torturously force a confession. The Stranger eventually reveals that the gold is buried in the cemetery, but this is actually true, Alderman had already moved it there, making the Stranger's confession both coerced and accurate.

The Stranger's earlier confession that he buried the bandits foreshadows the cemetery becoming the final resting place for the gold.

The gold has been hidden in Alderman's cabinet, and when Elizabeth sets the house on fire, the intense heat melts the buried treasure into molten metal. When Alderman opens the cabinet trying to recover it, the boiling gold smothers his hands and face, killing him and Elizabeth as they stand together.

The repeated motif of gold causing death, from the gold bullets killing Oaks to the gold driving all character conflicts, culminates in this fiery transformation.

After the Stranger saves Evan during Sorrow's drunken shooting game, Evan wakes the next morning in a state of despair. The trauma of being kidnapped, used as a pawn between factions, and witnessing the brutal violence overwhelms him, leading him to take his own life rather than continue living in such a corrupted world.

Evan's earlier destructive jealousy toward Flory and instability hint at his psychological fragility.

Sorrow uses Evan as leverage to pressure Templer into surrendering the bandits' gold. When Templer lies and claims Alderman holds the gold, Sorrow callously orders Evan killed to punish the deception, demonstrating his ruthless willingness to use violence to obtain the treasure.

Sorrow's earlier demand that Templer surrender the gold establishes his greedy intentions from the start.

As the Stranger rides away from the burning, ruined town, he passes two children pulling strings to distort their faces, a surreal, haunting image showing that greed and violence have scarred the next generation. It reflects the film's theme that the cycle of corruption and vengeance infects even innocence.

The entire film shows adults destroyed by gold lust; the final image suggests children are already learning to warp themselves for survival.

Flory witnesses Alderman shoot Templer and frame the Stranger, then sees him lead the mob to the cemetery. Realizing Alderman will kill anyone who gets in his way, she flees and tells the Stranger the truth, exposing Alderman's crimes while also ensuring the Stranger knows where the gold actually is.

Flory's earlier arousal during the argument between Templer and Alderman shows she thrives on the power plays of violent men.