She's not a ghost. I don't think anyone believes that she's a literal booooo ku klux klan hood type ghost. It's not a puzzle movie. Calling her a ghost is just one of the ways to express a specific type of cinematic irreality that's all over this movie which I think is a natural progression from the Master(it's like calling that theater dream phone call telepathy). It's one of those things that are ok to do in literature but when you do in movies people take issue with because they're so used to movies being externally explainable and logical.
Agreed! I couldn't have said it better myself, or at all actually. I know because I tried yesterday and it was so awful I had to delete it. So I'll add a few of my feelings here instead.
So Shasta's gone but not gone and not in a literal sense. It's something that's a part of Inherent Vice. Like the movie Inherent Vice but it's also part of Doc's inherent vice. Like his disposition. As I believe we've established, there's no Inception,
that was no dream, change the entire meaning of the narrative malarkey going on here. I think Paul did a similar sort of thing with The Master, in regards to using ambiguity as a means for expressing both sides of the coin. Throughout the movie we're thrown snippets of this brotherhood and love between Freddie and Master that appears to transcend the realm of ordinary human connection. Like something strong and real that's more than the sum of it's parts and at the same time, to me, feels so fragile because all we have to go on is that the characters believe it and care for it. There's always the looming possibility or "reality" that tells us we're probably just watching two humans and their dreams. So when it comes to it's climax, near the end, the connection between the two feels so meaningful that it's not necessary or even wanted to differentiate between reality and irreality or surreality or any kind of permutation on reality. It's cinema and I wouldn't have it any other way. This goes for Inherent Vice, this post is still partially about Inherent Vice. Actually it's not. I made a post about The Master in the Inherent Vice thread. Sorry about that.