Sullivan wrote and essay entitled The Worst Muckers which was a criticism of Kipling's work. This essay stated that, "the movement from man to king involve[d] a conversion through which the ordinary person must die so that the symbolic moral person [could] live" (351) Dravot's original goal to merely become king of Kafiristan had been forgotten because in becoming a king, the original person had died. This jump to kingship confirmed his ability to improve his own stature, and this realization increased his desire for even more power. Being a king was no longer enough, Dravot wanted to achieve godly stature, and so, Dravot set off to do just that. After leaving Carnehan for a while, Dravot returned with "a great gold crown on his head" (172) as "the son of Alexander and a God!" (172). They had both now undergone the transformation from man to God. This new Godly power put them above everyone else. Dravot began running things as though he was the ultimate head of everything. People came to worship him daily. They were Gods, and "a God [could] do anything" (180). It was this desire for Godly stature that led to this belief, and it was this belief that led to the downfall of the power of Dravot and Carnehan.
Dravot's Godly power to "do anything" led to his fall from a god, to less than where he began, to decapitation. It was the basis of his idea to break the contract that he and Carnehan had signed months before. They vowed not to look at "any woman, black, white or brown so as to get mixed up with one" (164). Dravot's sexual desire and power as a God demanded that he pick a wife, even though Carnehan urged him that the "dealings with a woman in foreign parts could not but be risky." Everyone but Dravot sensed the danger that this woman could cause to their Godliness. Even Billy Fish urged Carnehan to make Dravot "drop all this nonsense about marriage" (181) because he knew that would be doing all of them "a great service" (181).
