aight, so my brother is now into Spaghetti Westerns (we got one, fellas). He asked me to show him another western, and I showed him this movie. He feels the same way you do 
I told him that I think Murph may have just thought that there was no other way of life outside of being stomped on, and so, with that view, he reared Scott accordingly: to obey the rich (Abel and them) and to do the best you can otherwise. Stay true to yourself, but don’t get in folks’ way, etc. That view, obviously, was flawed and went against Scott’s natural ambition to be someone other than a booty-crack-smelling broom boy.
Talby, on the other hand, did teach him how to defend himself, taught him to boot submission, and taught him that it’s other folks’ prerogative if you’re “in their way” - screw them, right? Good pointers, but pointers that can easily be inflated. That’s what I make of the scene following the gunfight with Perkins’ family (?): Scott got very hostile with everyone (rightfully so with the judge and Murray; not so much with the sheriff (imo) and the poor doctor. I also feel like his hostility was shock). That’s what I make of the scene after he killed Cross and them: he picked up the other guy’s harmonica and said, “his songs were sad, but he knew how to play. He won’t play anymore…”
Talby is a Magnificent Bastard who definitely saw himself in Scott, being lowly at one point too, and tried loving on him as a surrogate father (I loved him calling the boy “scotty”). He definitely felt very bad about the mere prospect of having to call the boy out. However, I feel like there’s something to that. He knew that, for a sensitive and forgiving boy like Scott, his way of life was going to be too much. And for a sensitive and forgiving boy, Murph kinda (unfortunately) catered to that! In all honesty, I think each man has qualities that the other is envious of (Murph’s sense; Talby’s bravery). Murph is embittered, probably does know how much he could have helped Scott, but Talby is bitter too, threatening to send Scott “back to the stables”, calling him “sentimental” at one point (like someone we know…), etc. Toward the last act of the film, Talby himself even begins to feel some type of way, seeing himself again in Scott during the duel - a bitter young man who let pride blind him. The last lesson Talby gives is told regretfully, “once you start killing, you can’t stop it”.
So then, my brother says, “oh well, Scott’s just a dumbass.” And… he is. But again, that just makes him more real to me. Scott’s young, and torn between two sources of wisdom - both at their respective extremes. Scott was raised to think pacifism is good, but he can’t stand being stepped on - no one does! So yeah, he’s gonna fall under Talby’s wings. But he learns that Talby’s rooting-tooting-cowboy-shootin’ ways ain’t all that it’s cracked up to be. “It’s all in the gun”; it’s all a façade.
So, Scott kills Talby, throws away the prized gun Murph gifted him, and takes the hand of Bill - a blind character who is extremely insignificant to the plot, but a character who wasn’t Murph or Talby. He was the closest thing to Scott. So, neither man was right…
Bill was right.
