Warning! SPOILERS for The Gray Man.

Claire and Six have a notable chat in The Gray Man about the meaning of his tattoo of a Greek name, though he never tells her the identity of the mythological figure. Netflix’s The Gray Man follows Sierra Six, whose real name is Court Gentry, a CIA assassin whose prison sentence was commuted in exchange for a lifelong commitment to the agency. After he uncovers dark secrets about the CIA, Six goes on the run. As the CIA tries to track down their most accomplished assassin, the antagonistic Lloyd Hansen (Chris Evans) captures Six’s mentor Donald Fitzroy and his niece Claire, the two people closest to family that Ryan Gosling’s character has.

When Six discovers that Claire has been taken captive, The Gray Man launches into flashbacks to when the two first met. While Donald was away, Six was tasked with watching over the orphaned Claire, who has a heart condition that requires a pacemaker. Six and Claire’s first real meeting sees the confident young girl ask Six about a curious tattoo on his arm, which she rightly guesses that he got while in prison. The Gray Man’s title character explains that the tattoo is the name of a Greek guy who was punished by the Gods, being forced to push a boulder up a hill for the rest of his life – an apt connection to how Six perceives his own struggles.

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While The Gray Man never explicitly states the mythological figure’s name, the Greek man whose name Six has tattooed is Sisyphus. In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was the founder and king of Corinth, who was punished by the Gods for escaping death twice through trickery. On the first occasion, Zeus ordered Thanatos to chain Sisyphus in a torturous abyss, but Sisyphus tricked Thanatos, the divine personification of death, and tied him instead, preventing death from occurring on Earth. After Ares intervened, Sisyphus cheated death a second time by tricking Hades to allow him to briefly return to Earth, only for the king to stay and live to old age. As The Gray Man movie mentions, Zeus condemned Sisyphus to roll a massive boulder up a hill, though it would roll back to the bottom once it neared the top, with the Greek figure repeating this effort for eternity in the afterlife. The meaning of Sisyphus’ Greek myth is often related to laborious or impossible tasks and is used to describe hopeless struggles.

How The Sisyphus Myth Connects To The Gray Man's Sierra Six

Six's Tattoo in The Gray Man

After Claire asks Six whether the Greek figure ever made it to the top, The Gray Man’s character replies that he’ll let her know, suggesting he sees himself as Sisyphus. With Six feeling such a personal connection to Sisyphus and having gotten the tattoo while in prison, he likely sees his struggle for freedom as his own version of rolling a boulder up a hill that always falls back down. Every time that Ryan Gosling's character nears his own freedom, he’s punished and placed into a new situation that puts him back in chains, as Six can never push the boulder over the hill.

When Six tried freeing himself from his father by killing him, he was placed in prison. When Six was nearly granted freedom from prison by becoming a Sierra agent, he was simply put into new chains. When Six attempted to flee the corrupt CIA, a hit was placed on him with an international manhunt. Although he escapes with Claire in The Gray Man’s ending, it’s clear he hasn’t earned his freedom yet. The Gray Man’s Six sees himself as a figure who has been punished by the gods for eternity, wondering whether he’ll ever be able to get the boulder over the hill. While Sisyphus was never successful in this attempt, Sierra Six still has a chance in The Gray Man’s future.

Next: The Gray Man Ending Explained (In Detail)