#And then Juliet kills herself seeing Romeo dead in her tomb | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

samnyangie · 3 years ago

Text

Hehehehe I was bit hesitant to post this but it’s too gold not to share it! Plus, it’s a great contrast to this interview as he was being mature discussing acting in depth and overall, just serious(but cute haha). This one is light hearted (also bit cringey) as it talks about his past crush, Love letter, ‘snogging’ aka kissing(!!!!) and Romeo and Juliet, it’s more gossipy in a way? But I wholeheartedly love this interview, he’s so adorable.

So, I hope you also like this as well:D

*warning: there’s a slight mention about suicide and shooting!

(Credit)

__________________________________

"Robert Sean leonard's Lip Service..." (My Guy & Girl Interview Feb 1991)

Robert Sean Leonard's Lip Service...

What a kiss-and-tell merchant this boy is!

Robert couldn't wait to talk about snogging...wet ones, ones that make you want to puke! Eee...yuk!

But first we wanted to find out what he'd been up to since Dead Poet's Society and what his new film Mr and Mrs Bridge is about.

So Robert, what have been doing since Dead Poets Society?

"Oh, I filmed that a little over two years ago now. At the moment I'm in the stage production of Romeo and Juliet with the Riverside Shakespeare Company in Manhatten. I've also just made a movie called Married To It. I hope the title will change 'cause I don't like it very much. It's about three couples and I play the husband who's married to Mary Stuart Masterson. Cybil Shepherd is in it too.

"For a While after Dead Poets I went back to college. I took a year off and did some theatre. I also wanted to wait for a good film. A lot of the films that came my way were just typical teenage American junkie films. I waited and waited for something special until Mr & Mrs Bridge came along. I was so thrilled to get it."

What is it about then?

"It's about a family at a time before the war when four individuals spoke up, rebelled. It's sort of the last family unit in America where father knows best. The children don't have any rights-because they're the children.'

I play the strong silent type, who rebels when his father won't let him join the army. Paul Newman plays the father, and he's just such a brilliant actor. To me Mr and Mrs Bridge is about the importance of communication.

Going back to Dead Poets, is it true you got the part because you were unknown?

"Yes. The director, Peter Weir, had the talent and the guts to tell Touchstone pictures that he didn't want any famous actors. I was 19 when I got the part of Neil Perry, but i'd been working on stage in New York for five years before that-I started young.

"I still remember the weekend when we filmed the shoot-it was really depressing, just like the whole film. I'm just glad I didn't have to shoot myself on screen-all that mess!"

Was your school much like Dead Poets? All those stuffy traditions and horrible uniforms?

"My school was very, very, very different. I went to an ordinary public high school. It was much less restrictive. And we didn't have to wear uniforms. At my school there were the metalheads, leatherheads, deadheads and band fags -and I was a leatherhead, wore all the biker gear!"

So you were a rebel just like Neil then?

"Ha ha ha! Well I wasn't exactly a goody goody, thats for sure! I suppose I was a bit of both really. I was so focused on acting I didn't become too rebellious as a teenager. Besides I got to rant and rave on stage every night.

"But I was never at school that much anyway. I had to leave lunchtimes to go to the theatre. Strangely I didn't have many good friends like "The Society" But I did get along with everyone. There were a lot of similarities between Neil and myself, though. His passion for acting and learning. But unlike his parents, mine were, and are, incredibly supportive. The Dead Poets Society still get together you know. Most of the guys from the film live in New York and I've kept in touch with them all. There was a real camaraderie between us on the set that's carried over.

What subject did you hate the most at school?

"Well I loved things like history but my worst subject was gym. I always 'forgot' my trainers. I mean I like sports, but it's just that i'm such a miserable failure at them.

Did you get lots of Valentine cards when you were younger?

"I got a lot of cards at school, but not since. Actually I got a Valentine card last year from a fan, a girl in London would you believe. I don't know if I'll get any cards this year, but it would be nice. Am I sending any this year? Ahh Now that would be telling....!"

Have you ever sent love letters?

"I've never sent a love letter to someone I didn't know. I sent a secret one at school. There was a girl in High School that I had a heavy crush on, for four years! But I never had the guts to ask her out. I wrote her a card and I actually quoted a Blues Bothers song. 'I have everything I need, almost, but I don't have you. And that's the thing I need the most'. But I didn't sign it. She may have thought someone else sent it.

So, who was this lucky girlie, then?

"Her name was Joanna, she was my first big crush. From 13 to 17! She never ever knew 'cause I was really shy...I still am! Her last name was Lenz, so her locker was right next to mine, Leonard. So I got to see her every morning when we got our books. I did talk to her, and tried to make her laugh. Her house was pretty near mine too. I had a few pretty late nights where I'd go and sit on her lawn. She didn't know, but i'd just sit on the grass and think. I suppose that's just a normal thing about growing up."

Have you met her since you've become a famous filmstar?

"Well she moved to Florida when I was 17. It was the last I heard of her. Maybe I'll see her at our class reuinion. In America you always have a five-year reunion when you're 22 and you go back to school. I don't know if I'll still fancy her though..."

What first attracts you to someone?

"When I was 13 it was simply the way a girl looked and talked, and moved. Those things are still important now. But also someone who can make me laugh and talk about the same things and who has the same dreams"

What is your favourite romantic movie?

"It has to be 'Singin' In The Rain' I just loved the dancing and the scene where Gene Kelly sings to Debbie Reynolds in the studio. I'd love to do something like that, but I don't think I'd have the talent for it.

Have you, erm, heard of the word 'snogging'?

"Ha ha ha! That's a really English word. If you had asked me before I'd done Romeo and Juliet, I wouldn't have had a clue! But our stage director is English.

There's this one scene in Romeo and Juliet, the kiss goodbye, and he used to snap his fingers and shout "Come on, come on you two, we don't want this to be a snogging session"."

Do you remember your first snog?

"My first proper girlfriend used to play the piano and I played the guitar...we used to play music together (we'll bet!). That was when I had my first real kiss. I was terrified! She blew me away. There was a lot of fumbling, not knowing what to do. I remember kissing, then feeling nauseous (ie. wanting to puke). I just wanted to go home. I didn't feel pressurised into doing it, or anything. I just felt strange 'cause it was something new. In some ways I wasn't quite ready for it. Like it was something you're expected to do. But it's kinda hard to tell a girl you feel nauseous and you want to go home!!"

What's your biggest snogging turn-off?

"Gosh! Well it really turns me off when girls kiss wildly, when they try to swallow you. Or when their mouths are wet. I prefer it when it's relaxed and tender."

Have you had any other dating disasters?

"Not lately. I'm much to busy for girlfriends just now. But there was something in Romeo and Juliet, though. On the opening night I was in the tomb and I had to kill Paris then go and talk to Jiliet. I realised my dagger was missing, and she needs it to kill herself. So I just had to stop the show. I just looked at the audience and said 'Er, excuse me, but I've just lost the dagger! We'll have to stop until I find it'.

So I looked and looked until I found it...underneath Paris actually, who was lying dead in the corner. So I put it back in my sheath and said 'Okay, move on!"

Are you a good Romeo?

"Yes, indeed. Luckily I didn't have to climb up the wall to the balcony or anything.

Shakespeare really made an error at that point. If Romeo and Juliet touched or kissed in the balcony scene I think Shakespeare would surely have written about it. Whereas there's no indication where they touch at all. Did I have to wear tights? Oh, yes, I had to wear them all right. I've worn them before too. You get used to it. You forget you're wearing them after a while." Could be dangerous that...

#robert sean leonard #rsl #interview #dead poets society #theatre

100 notes · View notes

opera-ghosts · 3 years ago

Text

"Romeo et Juliette," a grand opera in five acts, words by Barbier and Carre, the subject taken from Shakspeare's tragedy of the same name, was first produced at the Theatre Lyrique, Paris, April 27, 1867, w i tn Mme. Miolan-Carvalho in the role of Juliet. The story as told by the French drama- tists in the main follows Shakspeare's tragedy very closely in its construction as well as in its dialogue. It is only necessary, therefore, to sketch its outlines. The first act opens with the festival at the house of Capulet. Juliet and Romeo meet there and fall in love, notwithstanding her betrothal to Paris. The hot-blooded Tybalt seeks to provoke a quarrel with Romeo, but is restrained by Capulet himself, and the act comes to a close with a resumption of the merry festivities. In the second act we have the balcony scene, quite literally taken from Shaks- peare, with an episode, however, in the form of a temporary interruption by Gregory and retainers, whose appearance is rather absurd than otherwise. The third act is constructed in two scenes. The first is in the friar's cell, where the secret marriage of the lovers takes place. In the second, we are introduced to a new character, invented by the librettist, — Stephano, Romeo's page, whose pranks while in search of his master provoke a general quarrel, in which Mercutio is slain by Tybalt, who in turn is killed by Romeo. When Capulet arrives upon the scene he condemns Romeo to banish- ment, who vows, however, that he will see Juliet again at all hazards. The fourth act is also made up of two scenes. The first is in Juliet's cham- ber, and is devoted to a duet between the two lovers. Romeo departs at dawn, and Capulet appears with Friar Laurence and announces his determination that the marriage with Paris shall be celebrated at once. Juliet implores the Friar's help, and he gives her the potion. The next scene is devoted to the wedding festivity, in the midst of which Juliet falls insensible from the effects of the sleeping-draught. The last act transpires in the tomb of the Capulets, where Romeo arrives, and believing his mistress dead takes poison. Juliet, reviving from the effects of the potion, and finding him dying, stabs herself with a dagger, and expires in his arms. While many numbers are greatly admired, the opera as a whole has never been successful. Had not " Faust," which it often recalls, preceded it, its fate might have been different. Still, it contains many strong passages and much beautiful writing. The favorite numbers are the waltz arietta, very much in the manner of the well-known " II Bacio," at the Capulet festival, the Queen Mab song, by Mercutio (" Mab, regina di menzogne "), and the duet between Romeo and Juliet (" Di grazia, t' arresta ancor ! "), in the first act ; the love music in the balcony scene of the second act, which in- evitably recalls the garden music in "Faust;" an impressive solo for Friar Laurence ("Al vostro amor cocente "), followed by a vigorous trio and quartet, the music of which is massive and ecclesi- astical in character, and the page's song (" Ah ! col nibbio micidale "), in the third act ; the duet of parting between Romeo and Juliet, " Tu dei partir ohime ! " the quartet, " Non temero mio ben," be- tween Juliet, the nurse, Friar Laurence, and Capu- let, and the dramatic solo for the Friar, " Bevi allor questo filtro," as he gives the potion to Juliet, in the fourth act ; and the elaborate orchestral prelude to the tomb scene in the last act.

8 notes · View notes

butterflies-dragons · 4 years ago

Note

Hi. You said in your Jon and women meta that Lyanna is a combination of both Sansa and Arya. Can you give her parallels with both girls?

Hello Anon,

Yes this past week I’ve said that Lyanna Stark was a mixture of the Stark Sisters.

I also said that I always thought that the Sansa from the original outline was very similar to Lyanna Stark:

Now ¿How marrying the heir of the Iron Throne/King of the 7K is supposed to be an act of dubious loyalty? Because GRRM has stated that in high nobility there is no marriage without the Lord Father of the bride’s blessing. Furthermore, from the wedding the bride belongs to her husband’s house, that’s all the fuzz with the cloaking ceremony, going from the maiden’s cloak to your husband’s cloak. You left your paternal house to belong with your husbands house. Sansa’s loyalty was with her husband, and more important, Sansa’s love and loyalty was with her baby boy. So, how choosing his baby over her paternal house could be seem as an act of dubious loyalty then? And even if she wanted to come back to her paternal family, does she really get a chance without the risk of being captured, separated from her baby, accused of treason and executed, leaving her baby boy motherless?

Oh I get it, there was an enmity between Starks and Lannisters. So, Or Joffrey abducted Sansa? Or Sansa eloped to marry Joffrey? How very Shakespearean of you George! This is Romeo and Juliet all over again. Or even better, this is Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark oll over again.

Original Outline Sansa was Queen of the Seven Kingdoms and mother of the heir to the Iron Throne.

It is implied by the fandom that this Sansa dies because the outline says that Jaime dethrones and kills Joffrey and “everyone ahead of him in the line of succession” (Sansa’s baby). Well, Sansa was not in the line of succession, but it’s probable that Jaime had to kill her to get to her baby boy, which reminds me of Elia Martell & her babies’ tragic and devastating deaths.

And landing more on the subject, I said that: Arya and Sansa play different roles in Jon’s life: Sansa is the distant half sister, the archetype of the princess in the tower, that he thinks he would never get. While Arya is the closest sister, the comfortable presence of a girl with less feminine inclinations. And both of them resemblance different aspects of Lyanna Stark. While Arya got Lyanna’s spirit and physical features, Sansa Stark got the less known romantic nature of Lyanna, after all, Lyanna cried while listening Rhaegar playing the harp, eloped with him, bore him a son, found herself trapped in a tower, and unwillingly caused the death of her father and older brother. Like a Lady in a sad and beautiful song.

We can draw parallels between Lyanna and her two nieces, but there are also parallels shared by the three of these She-wolves of Winterfell. Let’s see:

LYANNA & ARYA

Appearance:

“You remind me of her sometimes. You even look like her." "Lyanna was beautiful," Arya said, startled. Everybody said so. It was not a thing that was ever said of Arya. "She was," Eddard Stark agreed, "beautiful, and willful, and dead before her time." —AGOT - Arya II

Carrying a sword:

"Lyanna might have carried a sword, if my lord father had allowed it. You remind me of her sometimes. —AGOT - Arya II

The wolf-blood:

“Arya, you have a wildness in you, child. The wolf blood, my father would call it. Lyanna had a touch of it."—AGOT - Arya II

"She was," Eddard Stark agreed, "beautiful, and willful, and dead before her time." —AGOT - Arya II

This willfulness of yours, the running off, the angry words, the disobedience … at home, these were only the summer games of a child. Here and now, with winter soon upon us, that is a different matter. It is time to begin growing up." —AGOT - Arya II

Punching annoying brothers & friends:

Now two children danced across the godswood, hooting at one another as they dueled with broken branches. The girl was the older and taller of the two. Arya! Bran thought eagerly, as he watched her leap up onto a rock and cut at the boy. But that couldn't be right. If the girl was Arya, the boy was Bran himself, and he had never worn his hair so long. And Arya never beat me playing swords, the way that girl is beating him. She slashed the boy across his thigh, so hard that his leg went out from under him and he fell into the pool and began to splash and shout. "You be quiet, stupid," the girl said, tossing her own branch aside. "It's just water. Do you want Old Nan to hear and run tell Father?" She knelt and pulled her brother from the pool, but before she got him out again, the two of them were gone. — ADWD - Bran III

When the spirit stepped out of the open tomb, pale white and moaning for blood, Sansa ran shrieking for the stairs, and Bran wrapped himself around Robb's leg, sobbing. Arya stood her ground and gave the spirit a punch. It was only Jon, covered with flour. "You stupid," she told him, "you scared the baby," but Jon and Robb just laughed and laughed, and pretty soon Bran and Arya were laughing too. —AGOT - Arya IV

The dragon prince sang a song so sad it made the wolf maid sniffle, but when her pup brother teased her for crying she poured wine over his head. —ASOS - Bran II

"My lady?" Ned looked embarrassed. "I'm Edric Dayne, the . . . the Lord of Starfall." Behind them, Gendry groaned. "Lords and ladies," he proclaimed in a disgusted tone. Arya plucked a withered crabapple off a passing branch and whipped it at him, bouncing it off his thick bull head. "Ow," he said. "That hurt." He felt the skin above his eye. "What kind of lady throws crabapples at people?" "The bad kind," said Arya, suddenly contrite. She turned back to Ned. "I'm sorry I didn't know who you were. My lord." —ASOS - Arya VIII

Half-horses:

"You ride like a northman, milady," Harwin said when he'd drawn them to a halt. "Your aunt was the same. Lady Lyanna. But my father was master of horse, remember." —ASOS - Arya III

Horses … the boy was mad for horses, Lady Dustin will tell you. Not even Lord Rickard's daughter could outrace him, and that one was half a horse herself. —ADWD - Reek III

"Brandon was fostered at Barrowton with old Lord Dustin, the father of the one I'd later wed, but he spent most of his time riding the Rills. He loved to ride. His little sister took after him in that. A pair of centaurs, those two. —ADWD - The Turncloak

This is a contrast with Sansa: "I hate riding," Sansa said fervently. "All it does is get you soiled and dusty and sore." —AGOT - Sansa I

LYANNA & SANSA

Beauty:

Both Lyanna and Sansa are considered beautiful:

Lyanna:

"She [Lyanna] was," Eddard Stark agreed, "beautiful, and willful, and dead before her time." —AGOT - Arya II

Lyanna had only been sixteen, a child-woman of surpassing loveliness. Ned had loved her with all his heart. Robert had loved her even more. She was to have been his bride. —AGOT - Eddard I

"The maid's a fair one," Osha said. —AGOT - Bran VII

The northern girl had a wild beauty, as he recalled. —ADWD - Epilogue

Sansa:

Sansa’s needlework was exquisite. Everyone said so. “Sansa’s work is as pretty as she is.”

Sansa had the grace to blush. She blushed prettily. She did everything prettily.

Worse, she was beautiful. Sansa had gotten their mother’s fine high cheekbones and the thick auburn hair of the Tullys.

“I saw Sansa at the court, the day Tyrion told me his terms. She looked most beautiful, my lady. Perhaps a, a bit wan. Drawn, as it were.”

Men would say she had my look, but she will grow into a woman far more beautiful than I ever was.

“You are very beautiful, my lady,” the seamstress said when she was dressed.

Ser Kevan told her she was beautiful, Jalabhar Xho said something she did not understand in the Summer Tongue, and Lord Redwyne wished her many fat children and long years of joy.

"Ser Ossifer speaks truly, you are the most beautiful maid in all the Seven Kingdoms.”

“Had we known such beauty awaited us at the Gates, we would have flown,” Ser Roland said. Though his words were addressed to Myranda Royce, he smiled at Alayne as he said them.

Inner Strength:

"You never knew Lyanna as I did, Robert," Ned told him. "You saw her beauty, but not the iron underneath”. —AGOT - Eddard VII

My skin has turned to porcelain, to ivory, to steel. —ASOS - Sansa V

Pleading Ned to protect part of themselves:

He could still hear Sansa pleading, as Lyanna had pleaded once. —AGOT - Eddard IV

Lyanna was pleading to her brother Ned to protect her son, while Sansa was pleading to her father Ned to protect her direwolf, Lady, part of Sansa’s soul. Later, Ned regretted failing Sansa...

Knights & Queens of Love and Beauty:

Lyanna was a Mystery Knight AND was crowned Queen of Love and Beauty at the Tourney of Harrenhal.

Lyanna as the Knight of the Laughing Tree:

But late on the afternoon of that second day, as the shadows grew long, a mystery knight appeared in the lists. Bran nodded sagely. [...] “It was the little crannogman, I bet.” “No one knew,” said Meera, “but the mystery knight was short of stature, and clad in ill-fitting armor made up of bits and pieces. The device upon his shield was a heart tree of the old gods, a white weirwood with a laughing red face.” [...] “Whoever he was, the old gods gave strength to his arm. The porcupine knight fell first, then the pitchfork knight, and lastly the knight of the two towers. None were well loved, so the common folk cheered lustily for the Knight of the Laughing Tree, as the new champion soon was called.” —ASOS - Bran II

Lyanna as the Queen of love and beauty. Rhaegar wearing rubies (red) gave her a crown of winter roses (blue):

The Targaryen prince armored all in black. On his breastplate was the three-headed dragon of his House, wrought all in rubies that flashed like fire in the sunlight. —AGOT - Eddard I

Ned remembered the moment when all the smiles died, when Prince Rhaegar Targaryen urged his horse past his own wife, the Dornish princess Elia Martell, to lay the queen of beauty's laurel in Lyanna's lap. He could see it still: a crown of winter roses, blue as frost. —AGOT - Eddard XV

Sansa attended the Tourney of the Hand at Kings Landing, met Petyr Baelish who told her that Catelyn was his Queen of Love and Beauty, and received a (red) rose from Ser Loras Tyrell, the Knight of Flowers, who was wearing an armor adorned with sapphires (blue). During the second day of the tourney, Sansa wore the red rose in her hair:

"Your mother was my queen of beauty once," the man said quietly. His breath smelled of mint. "You have her hair." His fingers brushed against her cheek as he stroked one auburn lock. Quite abruptly he turned and walked away. —AGOT - Sansa II

When the Knight of Flowers made his entrance, a murmur ran through the crowd, and he heard Sansa's fervent whisper, "Oh, he's so beautiful." Ser Loras Tyrell was slender as a reed, dressed in a suit of fabulous silver armor polished to a blinding sheen and filigreed with twining black vines and tiny blue forget-me-nots. The commons realized in the same instant as Ned that the blue of the flowers came from sapphires; a gasp went up from a thousand throats. Across the boy's shoulders his cloak hung heavy. It was woven of forget-me-nots, real ones, hundreds of fresh blooms sewn to a heavy woolen cape. —AGOT - Eddard VII

Her eyes were only for Ser Loras. When the white horse stopped in front of her, she thought her heart would burst. To the other maidens he had given white roses, but the one he plucked for her was red. "Sweet lady," he said, "no victory is half so beautiful as you." Sansa took the flower timidly, struck dumb by his gallantry. His hair was a mass of lazy brown curls, his eyes like liquid gold. She inhaled the sweet fragrance of the rose and sat clutching it long after Ser Loras had ridden off. —AGOT - Sansa II

The boy from Highgarden did something with his legs, and his horse pranced sideways, nimble as a dancer. Sansa clutched at his arm. "Father, don't let Ser Gregor hurt him," she said. Ned saw she was wearing the rose that Ser Loras had given her yesterday. Jory had told him about that as well. —AGOT - Eddard VII

At this point in the Books, Sansa, as Alayne Stone, is organizing a Tourney to elect the members of Robert Arryn personal guard, named the Brotherhood of the Winged Knights. As the daughter of Petyr Baelish, Lord Protector of the Vale, Alayne Stone could be crowned as the Queen of Love and Beauty.

This is a contrast with Arya who thinks tourneys are stupid: "I don't care about their stupid tourney." —AGOT - Arya II

Failed betrothal to a Baratheon:

Both Lyanna and Sansa were betrothed with a Baratheon, Lyanna with Robert and Sansa with Joffrey:

If Lyanna had lived, we should have been brothers, bound by blood as well as affection. Well, it is not too late. I have a son. You have a daughter. My Joff and your Sansa shall join our houses, as Lyanna and I might once have done. —AGOT - Eddard I

There is also this parallel between Jenny of Oldstones, Lyanna & Sansa [I wrote about it here]:

Note the parallels between Duncan Targaryen, his betrothed Baratheon and Jenny of Oldstones & Rhaegar Targaryen, Lyanna Stark and her betrothed Robert Baratheon: A Targaryen prince breaking an engagement with a member of House Baratheon that then originates a rebellion.

And this: Sansa was betrothed with Joffrey “Baratheon” and the engagement was broken in the middle of a war with Robb Stark leading an army against King Joffrey, and Jon almost breaking his vows to join Robb’s army to avenge Ned’s death and rescue their sisters. All of which makes me think about these parallels: Sansa being a hostage in King’s Landing & Lyanna’s “abduction”, Ned’s death & Rickard’s death, Robb’s death & Brandon’s death. And that leaves Jon to possibly play the role of Ned Stark in the future.

Basically if Jon and Sansa happens, they will parallel two stories: Rhaegar and Lyanna, a Targaryen/Stark couple; and Ned and Cat, a Stark/Tully couple.

And right now in the Books, Sansa Stark, under the disguise of Alayne Stone, is betrothed with a Robert-like young man: Harry Hardyn.

The Rose of Winterfell:

This is the tale:

According to free folk legend, Lord Brandon Stark, the liege of the north, once called Bael a coward. To take revenge for this affront and prove his courage, Bael climbed the Wall, took the kingsroad, and entered Winterfell under the guise of a singer named Sygerrik of Skagos. ("Sygerrik" means "deceiver" in the Old Tongue.) There, he sang until midnight for the lord.

Impressed by his skills as a singer, Lord Stark asked Bael what he wanted as a reward, but he requested only the most beautiful flower blooming in Winterfell's gardens. As the blue winter roses were just blooming, Brandon Stark presented him with one. The following morning, the maiden daughter of Lord Stark had disappeared, his only child, and in her bed was the blue winter rose.

Lord Brandon sent the members of the Night's Watch looking for them beyond the Wall, but they never found Bael or the girl. The Stark line was on the verge of extinction, when one day the girl was back in her room, holding in her arms an infant: they had actually never left Winterfell, staying hidden in the crypts. Bael's bastard with Brandon's daughter became the new Lord Stark.

Thirty years later, Bael was King-Beyond-the-Wall and led the wildlings' army south, and he had to fight his own son at the Frozen Ford. There, incapable of killing his own blood, he let himself be killed by Lord Stark. His son brought back Bael's head to Winterfell, and his mother who had loved the bard, seeing the trophy, killed herself by leaping from the top of a tower. The son was eventually slain by the Boltons.

[Source]

Ygritte told this story to Jon in ACOK - Jon VI, and it resembles Jon’s own story: Bael/Rhaegar (both harp players/bards) abducting/eloping Brandon's daughter/Lyanna, ‘the fairest flower that blooms in the gardens o' Winterfell’. Immediately after this chapter, comes ACOK - Sansa IV, where she flowered for the first time, next chapter is Jon again. (Jon-Sansa-Jon).

Also take note that Sansa was “abducted” by Petyr Baelish, a known deceiver, whose surname has a resemblance with the name Bael.

Ladies of Winterfell

Lyanna’s and Lady’s bones are buried at Winterfell, what makes them literally Ladies of Winterfell:

"She was more beautiful than that," the king said after a silence. His eyes lingered on Lyanna's face, as if he could will her back to life. Finally he rose, made awkward by his weight. "Ah, damn it, Ned, did you have to bury her in a place like this?" His voice was hoarse with remembered grief. "She deserved more than darkness …" "She was a Stark of Winterfell," Ned said quietly. "This is her place." —AGOT - Eddard I

Shortly, Jory brought him Ice. When it was over, he said, “Choose four men and have them take the body north. Bury her at Winterfell.” “All that way?” Jory said, astonished. “All that way,” Ned affirmed. “The Lannister woman shall never have this skin.” —AGOT - Eddard III

Bran felt all cold inside. "She lost her wolf," he said, weakly, remembering the day when four of his father's guardsmen had returned from the south with Lady's bones. Summer and Grey Wind and Shaggydog had begun to howl before they crossed the drawbridge, in voices drawn and desolate. Beneath the shadow of the First Keep was an ancient lichyard, its headstones spotted with pale lichen, where the old Kings of Winter had laid their faithful servants. It was there they buried Lady, while her brothers stalked between the graves like restless shadows. She had gone south, and only her bones had returned. —AGOT - Bran VI

I wrote about this before:

Now, back to Lady’s death. We know that this event is a turning point in Sansa’s arc, but other than that, the paragraphs leading to the direwolf’s execution are laden with symbolism and foreshadowing, not only for Sansa, but for Ned as well.

During the “trial”, Ned decides that he will take Lady’s life himself, in order to avoid having a butcher like Ilyn Payne do the execution. Then, before he struck, he pronounced her name in the same fashion Robb and Jon called the name of their direwolves before they both died. This for me foreshadows Ned’s own death. Also, before Lady’s death, Ned pleads King Robert to change his decision on putting down the direwolf, appealing to the memory of Lyanna, the woman Robert loved. Similarly, before Ned’s execution at the steps of the Sept of Baelor, Sansa pleads King Joffrey to spare her father’s life, appealing to the love he has for her. As we know, both pleas fell on deaf ears and both Lady and Ned lost their lives; bringing the story full circle, as Ilyn Payne himself cut off Ned’s head.

Another interesting thing is that before Lady’s death we have direct and indirect references to Lyanna Stark. We have the direct reference when Ned appealed to the love Robert Baratheon bore Lyanna, in order to save Lady’s life, and the indirect one when he ordered Jory to choose four men to return Lady’s body to the north, to bury her in Winterfell. This order Ned gave to his men alludes to his own decision to take Lyanna’s body to Winterfell to be buried in the crypts, after her demise, brought on by her doomed love affair with Rhaegar Targaryen.

Dubious Loyalty?

Both Lyanna and Sansa got infatuated by Golden Princes: Rhaegar Targaryen and Joffrey Baratheon, and because of that they both unintentionally played a part in the deaths of their fathers and older brothers, Rickard and Brandon & Ned and Robb. They both also ended trapped in towers regretting their doomed romances.

As I mentioned before, I always thought that the Sansa from the original outline was very similar to Lyanna Stark. That Sansa was described as member of dubious loyalty for her family; but while Lyanna is glorified by the fandom, both Outline Sansa and Asoiaf Sansa are unfairly vilified for committing the same actions that Lyanna did.

Also, as it was pointed out before, Rickard Stark and Catelyn Stark both saw their firstborn sons murdered in front of them, while convinced that their daughters were far away being raped and abused by cruel princes, and then were brutally murdered themselves.

Dead before their time:

"She [Lyanna] was," Eddard Stark agreed, "beautiful, and willful, and dead before her time." —AGOT - Arya II

And so many others were missing. Where had the rest of them gone? Sansa wondered. Vainly, she searched for friendly faces. Not one of them would meet her eyes. It was as if she had become a ghost, dead before her time. —A Game Of Thrones, Sansa V

Lyanna and Lady (part of Sansa’s soul) both died in the south, before their time.

Lyanna’s ghost has haunted Cersei: Cersei wanted to marry Rhaegar but ended married with Robert. Both Rhaegar and Robert loved Lyanna.

Lady is mentioned in the Books as a “shade”, a synonym for ghost. And after Ned’s death, Sansa became a ghost at the Red Keep’s court.

And to finish this section, here some gifsets that illustrate some of the Lyanna & Sansa parallels that were mentioned:

Sansa Stark and Lyanna Stark + parallels

Pleading

She-wolves of Winterfell

Beautiful, Captivating Child-Women

Hidden Metal ft. hair parallels

Broken ‘Baratheon’ Engagements ft. more hair parallels

Fair Maidens

LYANNA & ARYA & SANSA

The wolf-blood:

I have already mentioned this aspect of Lyanna and Arya above, but Sansa has the wolf-blood too. It’s subtle, but it’s there:

"I've never seen an aurochs," Sansa said, feeding a piece of bacon to Lady under the table. The direwolf took it from her hand, as delicate as a queen. Septa Mordane sniffed in disapproval. "A noble lady does not feed dogs at her table," she said, breaking off another piece of comb and letting the honey drip down onto her bread. "She's not a dog, she's a direwolf," Sansa pointed out as Lady licked her fingers with a rough tongue. "Anyway, Father said we could keep them with us if we want." The septa was not appeased. "You're a good girl, Sansa, but I do vow, when it comes to that creature you're as willful as your sister Arya." She scowled. "And where is Arya this morning?" —AGOT - Sansa I

"It won't be so bad, Sansa," Arya said. "We're going to sail on a galley. It will be an adventure, and then we'll be with Bran and Robb again, and Old Nan and Hodor and the rest." She touched her on the arm. "Hodor!" Sansa yelled. "You ought to marry Hodor, you're just like him, stupid and hairy and ugly!" She wrenched away from her sister's hand, stormed into her bedchamber, and barred the door behind her. —AGOT - Sansa III

Jeyne yawned. "Are there any lemon cakes?" Sansa did not like being interrupted, but she had to admit, lemon cakes sounded more interesting than most of what had gone on in the throne room. "Let's see," she said. The kitchen yielded no lemon cakes, but they did find half of a cold strawberry pie, and that was almost as good. They ate it on the tower steps, giggling and gossiping and sharing secrets, and Sansa went to bed that night feeling almost as wicked as Arya. —AGOT - Sansa III

After my name day feast, I'm going to raise a host and kill your brother myself. That's what I'll give you, Lady Sansa. Your brother's head." A kind of madness took over her then, and she heard herself say, "Maybe my brother will give me your head." —AGOT - Sansa VI

Knights protect the innocent:

Lyanna, as herself and as the Knight of the Laughing Tree, defended Howland Reed, a bannerman of House Stark:

"None offered a name, but he marked their faces well so he could revenge himself upon them later. They shoved him down every time he tried to rise, and kicked him when he curled up on the ground. But then they heard a roar. 'That's my father's man you're kicking,' howled the she-wolf." "A wolf on four legs, or two?" "Two," said Meera. "The she-wolf laid into the squires with a tourney sword, scattering them all. The crannogman was bruised and bloodied, so she took him back to her lair to clean his cuts and bind them up with linen. There he met her pack brothers: the wild wolf who led them, the quiet wolf beside him, and the pup who was youngest of the four.

(...)

“Whoever he was, the old gods gave strength to his arm. The porcupine knight fell first, then the pitchfork knight, and lastly the knight of the two towers. None were well loved, so the common folk cheered lustily for the Knight of the Laughing Tree, as the new champion soon was called.” —ASOS - Bran II

Arya defended Mycah, the butcher’s boy:

Mycah shook his head. "It's only a stick, m'lord. It's not no sword, it's only a stick." "And you're only a butcher's boy, and no knight." Joffrey lifted Lion's Tooth and laid its point on Mycah's cheek below the eye, as the butcher's boy stood trembling. "That was my lady's sister you were hitting, do you know that?" A bright bud of blood blossomed where his sword pressed into Mycah's flesh, and a slow red line trickled down the boy's cheek. "Stop it!" Arya screamed. She grabbed up her fallen stick. Sansa was afraid. "Arya, you stay out of this." "I won't hurt him … much," Prince Joffrey told Arya, never taking his eyes off the butcher's boy. Arya went for him. Sansa slid off her mare, but she was too slow. Arya swung with both hands. There was a loud crack as the wood split against the back of the prince's head, and then everything happened at once before Sansa's horrified eyes. — AGOT - Sansa I

Sansa, as a lady armored with her courtesy and wits, defended a defenestrated knight turned fool:

The king stood. "A cask from the cellars! I'll see him drowned in it." Sansa heard herself gasp. "No, you can't." Joffrey turned his head. "What did you say?" Sansa could not believe she had spoken. Was she mad? To tell him no in front of half the court? She hadn't meant to say anything, only . . . Ser Dontos was drunk and silly and useless, but he meant no harm. "Did you say I can't? Did you?" "Please," Sansa said, "I only meant . . . it would be ill luck, Your Grace . . . to, to kill a man on your name day." "You're lying," Joffrey said. "I ought to drown you with him, if you care for him so much." "I don't care for him, Your Grace." The words tumbled out desperately. "Drown him or have his head off, only . . . kill him on the morrow, if you like, but please . . . not today, not on your name day. I couldn't bear for you to have ill luck . . . terrible luck, even for kings, the singers all say so . . ." Joffrey scowled. He knew she was lying, she could see it. He would make her bleed for this. "The girl speaks truly," the Hound rasped. "What a man sows on his name day, he reaps throughout the year." His voice was flat, as if he did not care a whit whether the king believed him or no. Could it be true? Sansa had not known. It was just something she'd said, desperate to avoid punishment. Unhappy, Joffrey shifted in his seat and flicked his fingers at Ser Dontos. "Take him away. I'll have him killed on the morrow, the fool." "He is," Sansa said. "A fool. You're so clever, to see it. He's better fitted to be a fool than a knight, isn't he? You ought to dress him in motley and make him clown for you. He doesn't deserve the mercy of a quick death." The king studied her a moment. "Perhaps you're not so stupid as Mother says." He raised his voice. "Did you hear my lady, Dontos? From this day on, you're my new fool. You can sleep with Moon Boy and dress in motley." —ACOK - Sansa I

She-Wolves of Winterfell:

Lyanna and Arya are often referred as She-Wolves in the Books, but in a very subtle and poetical way, Sansa is referred as a She-Wolf too:

He smiled at her. "Now, wolf girl, if you can put a name to me as well, then I must concede that you are truly our Hand's daughter." —AGOT - Sansa I

"I forgot, you've been hiding under a rock. The northern girl. Winterfell's daughter. We heard she killed the king with a spell, and afterward changed into a wolf with big leather wings like a bat, and flew out a tower window. But she left the dwarf behind and Cersei means to have his head." —ASOS - Arya XIII

"May the Father judge him justly," murmured a septon. "The dwarf's wife did the murder with him," swore an archer in Lord Rowan's livery. "Afterward, she vanished from the hall in a puff of brimstone, and a ghostly direwolf was seen prowling the Red Keep, blood dripping from his jaws." —ASOS - Jaime VII

"Your Grace has forgotten the Lady Sansa," said Pycelle. The queen bristled. "I most certainly have not forgotten that little she-wolf." She refused to say the girl's name. "I ought to have shown her to the black cells as the daughter of a traitor, but instead I made her part of mine own household. She shared my hearth and hall, played with my own children. I fed her, dressed her, tried to make her a little less ignorant about the world, and how did she repay me for my kindness? She helped murder my son. —AFFC - Cersei IV

What a kick-ass reputation: Sansa, the wolf that killed King Joffrey!

Fond of Flowers:

Lyanna, Arya and Sansa are linked with flowers:

Ned could recall none of it. "I bring her flowers when I can," he said. "Lyanna was … fond of flowers." —A Game Of Thrones - Eddard I

None of which stopped Arya, of course. One day she came back grinning her horsey grin, her hair all tangled and her clothes covered in mud, clutching a raggedy bunch of purple and green flowers for Father. Sansa kept hoping he would tell Arya to behave herself and act like the highborn lady she was supposed to be, but he never did, he only hugged her and thanked her for the flowers. That just made her worse. Then it turned out the purple flowers were called poison kisses, and Arya got a rash on her arms. —AGOT - Sansa I

It was enough that she could walk in the yard, pick flowers in Myrcella's garden, and visit the sept to pray for her father. Sometimes she prayed in the godswood as well, since the Starks kept the old gods. —AGOT - Sansa V

"Do you require guarding?" Marillion said lightly. "I am composing a new song, you should know. A song so sweet and sad it will melt even your frozen heart. 'The Roadside Rose,' I mean to call it. About a baseborn girl so beautiful she bewitched every man who laid eyes upon her." — ASOS - Sansa VII

Songs:

While Arya likes songs about heroes and adventures:

Arya named hers after some old witch queen in the songs. —Bran II - AGOT

She could stay with Hot Pie, or maybe Lord Beric would find her there. Anguy would teach her to use a bow, and she could ride with Gendry and be an outlaw, like Wenda the White Fawn in the songs. —ASOS - Arya XII

Lyanna and Sansa are linked with singers and romantic songs and stories that move them to cry.

As I said before, the story about Bael the Bard and the Rose of Winterfell resembles Jon’s own story: Bael/Rhaegar (both harp players/bards) abducting/eloping Brandon's daughter/Lyanna, ��the fairest flower that blooms in the gardens o' Winterfell’. Sansa is also linked with this story, as was explained above.

The dragon prince sang a song so sad it made the wolf maid sniffle. —ASOS - Bran II

Later, while Sansa was off listening to a troupe of singers perform the complex round of interwoven ballads called the “Dance of the Dragons,” [sung in High Valyrian] Ned inspected the bruise himself. “I hope Forel is not being too hard on you,” he said. —AGOT - Eddard VII

She pulled a chair close to the hearth, took down one of her favorite books, and lost herself in the stories of Florian and Jonquil, of Lady Shella and the Rainbow Knight, of valiant Prince Aemon and his doomed love for his brother’s queen. —AGOT - Sansa IV

After the meal had been cleared away, many of the guests asked leave to go to the sept. Cersei graciously granted their request. Lady Tanda and her daughters were among those who fled. For those who remained, a singer was brought forth to fill the hall with the sweet music of the high harp. He sang of Jonquil and Florian, of Prince Aemon the Dragonknight and his love for his brother's queen, of Nymeria's ten thousand ships. They were beautiful songs, but terribly sad. Several of the women began to weep, and Sansa felt her own eyes growing moist. —ACOK - Sansa VI

So the singer played for her, so soft and sad that Arya only heard snatches of the words, though the tune was half-familiar. Sansa would know it, I bet. Her sister had known all the songs, and she could even play a little, and sing so sweetly. All I could ever do was shout the words.—A Storm of Swords - Arya IV

Once, when she was just a little girl, a wandering singer had stayed with them at Winterfell for half a year. An old man he was, with white hair and windburnt cheeks, but he sang of knights and quests and ladies fair, and Sansa had cried bitter tears when he left them, and begged her father not to let him go. “The man has played us every song he knows thrice over,” Lord Eddard told her gently. “I cannot keep him here against his will. You need not weep, though. I promise you, other singers will come.” They hadn’t, though, not for a year or more. Sansa had prayed to the Seven in their sept and old gods of the heart tree, asking them to bring the old man back, or better still to send another singer, young and handsome. But the gods never answered, and the halls of Winterfell stayed silent. But that was when she was a little girl, and foolish. She was a maiden now, three-and-ten and flowered. All her nights were full of song, and by day she prayed for silence. —A Feast for Crows - Sansa I

This is a contrast with Arya who thinks love songs are stupid: Another stupid love song. Lanna was always begging the singer to play her stupid love songs. —AFFC - Cat Of The Canals

So there you have it. There is more to say, but I think I covered the basics.

Thanks for your message.

#anon ask #sansa stark #arya stark #lyanna stark

65 notes · View notes

princesssarisa · 4 years ago

Text

from @cinefantasticquemitho, for the fictional character asks: Juliet Capulet

@cinefantastiquemitho accidentally answered my ask as a private message instead of a post, so I’m copying and pasting her answer here.

Favorite thing about them: The apeal of Juliet is that she is one of the earliest examples of a young rebel being portrayed positively in western literature. She lives in a world that was screwed over by the violence of the adults around her, and is one of the few people in the story who is inteligent anough to not see this violence as something natural, and question it. Another interesting element of Juliet is that, troughout the play, she learns to be very cunning and witty. Now usually, this characteristics (specially in a female character) would be portrayed as the start of a path to villany, where a character would use them to gain power over the unhapiness of others (think of Tamora and Aaron the Moor, the Macbeths, Richard III, Iago and Edmond). But in Juliet’s writing, she is still the heroine of the story, who as a young woman in the Renaissance, is justified to use cunning and witty as a means of trying to survive and find happiness for her and Romeo, the person she loves, in a world where she lacks power. And this cunning and witty, contrary to the most popular belief, does not contradict her loialty, with is another important characteristic that she shows in relation to her beloved husband Romeo.

Least favorite thing about them: Actually, i don’t have a least favorite thing about Juliet herself. In reality, when i was young and was only familiar with the play trough parodies in pop culture, without actually having readed or watched the play properly, i disliked a caricature of Juliet, that stereotyped her as just “a cute girl who is there to suffer”. Later, when i actually readed and watched montages of the play online, i saw that this wasn’t at all the actual character that Shakespeare wrote.

Favorite line:

So many, is hard to choose just one.

“My only love sprung from my only hate! Too early seen unknown, and known too late! Prodigious birth of love it is to me, That I must love a loathed enemy”.

“Ay me!

O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name; Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.

‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy; Thou art thyself, though not a Montague. What’s Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot, Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part Belonging to a man. O, be some other name! What’s in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet; So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d, Retain that dear perfection which he owes Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name, And for that name which is no part of thee Take all myself”.

“ O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon, That monthly changes in her circled orb, Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.

Do not swear at all; Or, if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self, Which is the god of my idolatry, And I’ll believe thee”.

“The clock struck nine when I did send the nurse; In half an hour she promised to return. Perchance she cannot meet him: that’s not so. O, she is lame! love’s heralds should be thoughts, Which ten times faster glide than the sun’s beams, Driving back shadows over louring hills: Therefore do nimble-pinion’d doves draw love, And therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings. Now is the sun upon the highmost hill Of this day’s journey, and from nine till twelve Is three long hours, yet she is not come. Had she affections and warm youthful blood, She would be as swift in motion as a ball; My words would bandy her to my sweet love, And his to me: But old folks, many feign as they were dead; Unwieldy, slow, heavy and pale as lead”.

“Conceit, more rich in matter than in words, Brags of his substance, not of ornament: They are but beggars that can count their worth; But my true love is grown to such excess I cannot sum up sum of half my wealth”.

“Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds, Towards Phoebus’ lodging: such a wagoner As Phaethon would whip you to the west, And bring in cloudy night immediately. Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night, That runaway’s eyes may wink and Romeo Leap to these arms, untalk’d of and unseen. Lovers can see to do their amorous rites By their own beauties; or, if love be blind, It best agrees with night. Come, civil night, Thou sober-suited matron, all in black, And learn me how to lose a winning match, Play’d for a pair of stainless maidenhoods: Hood my unmann’d blood, bating in my cheeks, With thy black mantle; till strange love, grown bold, Think true love acted simple modesty. Come, night; come, Romeo; come, thou day in night; For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night Whiter than new snow on a raven’s back. Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow’d night, Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die, Take him and cut him out in little stars, And he will make the face of heaven so fine That all the world will be in love with night And pay no worship to the garish sun. O, I have bought the mansion of a love, But not possess’d it, and, though I am sold, Not yet enjoy’d: so tedious is this day As is the night before some festival To an impatient child that hath new robes And may not wear them”.

“O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face! Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave? Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical! Dove-feather’d raven! wolvish-ravening lamb! Despised substance of divinest show! Just opposite to what thou justly seem'st, A damned saint, an honourable villain! O nature, what hadst thou to do in hell, When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend In moral paradise of such sweet flesh? Was ever book containing such vile matter So fairly bound? O that deceit should dwell In such a gorgeous palace”!

“Blister’d be thy tongue For such a wish! he was not born to shame: Upon his brow shame is ashamed to sit; For 'tis a throne where honour may be crown’d Sole monarch of the universal earth. O, what a beast was I to chide at him!

Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?

Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name, When I, thy three-hours wife, have mangled it? But, wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin? That villain cousin would have kill’d my husband: Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring; Your tributary drops belong to woe, Which you, mistaking, offer up to joy. My husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain; And Tybalt’s dead, that would have slain my husband: All this is comfort; wherefore weep I then? Some word there was, worser than Tybalt’s death, That murder’d me: I would forget it fain; But, O, it presses to my memory, Like damned guilty deeds to sinners’ minds: 'Tybalt is dead, and Romeo—banished;’ That 'banished,’ that one word 'banished,’ Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt’s death Was woe enough, if it had ended there: Or, if sour woe delights in fellowship And needly will be rank’d with other griefs, Why follow’d not, when she said 'Tybalt’s dead,’ Thy father, or thy mother, nay, or both, Which modern lamentations might have moved? But with a rear-ward following Tybalt’s death, 'Romeo is banished,’ to speak that word, Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet, All slain, all dead. 'Romeo is banished!’ There is no end, no limit, measure, bound, In that word’s death; no words can that woe sound”.

“It is, it is: hie hence, be gone, away! It is the lark that sings so out of tune, Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps. Some say the lark makes sweet division; This doth not so, for she divideth us: Some say the lark and loathed toad change eyes, O, now I would they had changed voices too! Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray, Hunting thee hence with hunt’s-up to the day, O, now be gone; more light and light it grows”.

“ Art thou gone so? love, lord, ay, husband, friend! I must hear from thee every day in the hour, For in a minute there are many days: O, by this count I shall be much in years Ere I again behold my Romeo”!

“Farewell! God knows when we shall meet again. I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins, That almost freezes up the heat of life: I’ll call them back again to comfort me: Nurse! What should she do here? My dismal scene I needs must act alone. Come, vial. What if this mixture do not work at all? Shall I be married then to-morrow morning? No, no: this shall forbid it: lie thou there. [Laying down her dagger] What if it be a poison, which the friar Subtly hath minister’d to have me dead, Lest in this marriage he should be dishonour’d, Because he married me before to Romeo? I fear it is: and yet, methinks, it should not, For he hath still been tried a holy man. How if, when I am laid into the tomb, I wake before the time that Romeo Come to redeem me? there’s a fearful point! Shall I not, then, be stifled in the vault, To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in, And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes? Or, if I live, is it not very like, The horrible conceit of death and night, Together with the terror of the place,— As in a vault, an ancient receptacle, Where, for these many hundred years, the bones Of all my buried ancestors are packed: Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth, Lies festering in his shroud; where, as they say, At some hours in the night spirits resort;— Alack, alack, is it not like that I, So early waking, what with loathsome smells, And shrieks like mandrakes’ torn out of the earth, That living mortals, hearing them, run mad:— O, if I wake, shall I not be distraught, Environed with all these hideous fears? And madly play with my forefather’s joints? And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud? And, in this rage, with some great kinsman’s bone, As with a club, dash out my desperate brains? O, look! methinks I see my cousin’s ghost Seeking out Romeo, that did spit his body Upon a rapier’s point: stay, Tybalt, stay! Romeo, I come! this do I drink to thee”.

“Yea, noise? then I’ll be brief. O happy dagger! [Snatching ROMEO’s dagger] This is thy sheath; [Stabs herself] there rust, and let me die”.

brOTP: In the plays actual text, we see her being great friends and partners with the Nurse, and get some insinuations that Tybalt, her cousin, was also a very close friend to her. The TV series Still Star Crossed gaved to her a close friendship with her cousin Rosaline, what i apreciate very, very much. And i also like to imagine that in a Everybody Lives!AU she would be very close friends with Benvolio Montague.

OTP: With Romeo Montague.

nOTP: With Count Paris and/or Tybalt Capulet.

Random headcanon: 1. Her favorite colors are red, orange, white and gold; 2. Her favorite story from greek mithology is Eros and Psyche; 3. Her favorite fairy tale is Jack and the Beanstalk; 4. In a Modern Day Everybody Lives!AU Juliet graduates in Philosophy, Psychology and Social Services and becomes a social worker, focused on atend teenage girls and women living at risk of suffering abuse or on abusive situations/child attorney. For more details about it, here is the link for the list of ideas about a Happy Ending Modern Day! AU made in collaboration with @giuliettaluce :

https://cinefantastiquemitho.tumblr.com/post/617097864129200128/modern-headcanon-romeo-and-juliet

Unpopular Opinion: Well, i like some elements of the Zefirelli 1968 movie adaptation: the costumes are beautifull to look at, Nino Rota’s score is the worlds eight wonder of an icon, the casting choice (specially of Leonard Whiting and Olívia Hussey as Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet, respectivelly) is pretty spot on… Buuuut: with the cutting of lines like the “Gallop apace” soliloquy, the lines where she reflects, deduces and concludes that Tybalt started the fight against Romeo with the intention of killing him and the “Potion” soliloquy, i think it reduced a lot of the huge inteligence that Juliet actually has, and with its extremely huge popularity it ended up contributing with the pop culture stereotyped idea that Juliet is just a “cute girl who is there to suffer”.

Song i associate with them: Flor, Minha Flor, by Grupo Galpão de Teatro (from the soundtrack of my favorite Romeo and Juliet montage)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koIO15cI-8Y

And Nino Rota’s What is a Youth, from the 1968 Franco Zefirelli film:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VsgolqoeJw

Favorite picture of them:

#cinefantastiquemitho #fictional character ask #romeo and juliet #juliet #other people's writing

23 notes · View notes

xinnic · 5 years ago

Text

Okay so the Thisbe-Pyramus thing in Red, White and Royal Blue gets me every time. In the myth, Thisbe and Pyramus are lovers separated physically by a wall and socially by their father’s hatred of each other. When they attempt to meet up at a tomb, Pyramus finds Thisbe’s bloody cloak and, assuming she’s dead, acts rashly and kills himself out of grief. When the living Thisbe finds him, she makes a speech, and kills herself to be with him. It should be familiar; it’s one of the earliest versions of Romeo and Juliet.

So, yeah. Henry and Alex? Romeo and Juliet. It’s canon.

Most of this is under a read more, because it’s long.

Henry leaving this note for Alex says a few things. Henry, obviously, sees them as star-crossed lovers, never meant to be together despite their love. It always makes me feel sad for Henry. But also, the very first time I read it, I laughed. Because Henry positions himself as Pyramus, as Romeo, who assumes and acts rashly and dooms them both. The tragic ending of the myth is Pyramus’ fault, the play Romeo’s, if you ignore the thematic cause of hatred. Pyramus and Thisbe is tragic because Pyramus doesn’t wait or consider before he acts.

Henry’s rash act is running when Alex attempts to confess at the lake house. The wall separating him and Alex isn’t a physical wall. It’s their position and homophobia which makes them being together impossible. Henry acts rashly, just like Pyramus, just like Romeo. That was what was obvious to me the first time I read.

But then I went deeper. Some modern readings of Romeo and Juliet say that Juliet’s actions in killing herself are more considered than Romeo’s, acting on behalf of her own happiness and interests and agency by choosing death and Romeo over being married off to Paris. In her speech before she kills herself, she blames the hatred and her desire to be with Romeo specifically for their death. Thisbe makes a similar speech, and would have been in a similar position. Like all Greek women, Thisbe would have been facing being married off to a man who probably wouldn’t love her.

Alex responds to Henry’s emotional decision, running away, by acting in pursuit of his own happiness, and demands Henry return agency in the situation to him by demanding that Henry dump him properly. This is where I was originally going to stop, but I’m not done. Because it goes even deeper, thematically. Because Thisbe and Juliet’s answer to their own pursuit of happiness and agency, the way in which they are able to overcome what is keeping them apart from their lovers (hatred, as well as a physical barrier in Thisbe’s case) is to kill themselves to be with their lovers. Alex overcomes the physical distance between them, which has been between them for most of the novel, by flying to England. And, like Thisbe and Juliet, challenges the hatred which keeps him and Henry apart in the form of homophobia, with his actions, and his proposition to stay together. By meeting Henry’s emotional decision with his own demands, he asserts his own needs, and challenges what keeps them apart.

Thisbe and Juliet challenge this with their deaths. Alex, who has never met a challenge he hasn’t loved, challenges it (and Henry) with basically his own determination and the sheer force of his own personality. Both (or all three) narratives are ultimately about overcoming hatred. Alex and Henry overcome the hatred that keeps them apart not thematically like Pyramus and Thisbe and Romeo and Juliet do, by showing the tragedy of it and showing a middle finger, but actually, by deciding to be together.

At the end of the novel, when Alex and Henry are together, there is no wall. The novel ends with Alex and Henry in the same geographical place, openly together (after Richards’ electoral defeat, if we’re still talking about hatred and Trump allegories, after Texas turns blue, within the narrative symbolically accepting Alex), about to walk into Alex’s childhood home, with the promise of them living together in New York. Hatred overcome. Pyramus and Thisbe, without the wall.

#red white and royal blue #rwrb #long post #rwrb analysis #this is what my english degree is for apparently #my post

346 notes · View notes

enigmaphenomenon · 7 years ago

Text

Noctluna - Ancient, forgotten, overshadowed

If you’re reading this essay I can only imagine that there are a very small amount of people actually curious on what I mean, others ready to rage against me, and others ready to hop on what they think will be a critical post.

Noctis x Lunafreya is not Romeo and Juliet

I’m sure many readers just dropped this. Hear me out though! I have a good reason, I promise!

Romeo and Juliet is a romance criticized today as it is not only overused but the actual story of Romeo and Juliet is rather abrupt. They meet once, decide to get married within a day, hide their love from their warring families, 5 people end up dying by the end of the story, and I believe the timeline of the story itself is 5 days.

Noctis and Lunafreya do fit that mold of a man and a woman who cannot be together due to fighting. This was the case before the wedding had been arranged.

I agree that Noctluna should have had more screentime to show what connection these two had, even if it was through a notebook. Other than the anime which let us know Noctis sent pictures of himself and Prompto stating he made a new friend, or of Ignis holding the Tenebrae dessert and complaining of the sweetness, it would have been nice to see, actually SEE if there was more exchanged between them without player bias to make the pairing feel more intimate (by that I mean close, not sexual)

But, my criticism about the notebook aside and what we weren’t shown with the notebook, they stayed in contact for 12 years.

This reminds me of Pyramus and Thisbe

Pyramus and Thisbe is the poem that Romeo and Juliet is based on/inspired from.

The story of Pyramus and Thisbe are a man and woman who live next to each other but are separated from a giant wall. Their parents are fighting and as such they can’t be together. But in secret, Pyramus and Thisbe talk to each other through a crack in the wall and fall in love. They decide to meet and confess their feelings for each other in a tomb under a mulberry tree.

Thisbe arrives first but sees a Lioness there with bloody fangs, she freaks out and runs away, dropping her veil behind her. Pyramus arrives and sees a bloody veil, and assumes Thisbe has been killed by a beast. Pyramus kills himself and his blood splashes on the Mulberry tree.

Thisbe arrives later to tell Pyramus what happened and finds her beloved dead. After she mourns Pyramus she kills herself with the same sword. The gods listen to Thisbe’s sorrow, and as a response they changed the Mulberry tree to a stained color in honor of Pyramus and Thisbe’s forbidden love.

I feel as though Noctis and Lunafreya resemble the must older, overshadowed story of forbidden love much more than Shakespeare’s famous Romeo and Juliet.

Noctis and Luna stayed in contact for years through the notebook, and when they were to finally be together, tragedy occurs thus keeping them apart. It isn’t until death where the two can finally be together, with the gods showing pity for the lost lovers.

I think Noctluna could have been written better and portrayed better, but honestly they remind me MUCH more of Pyramus and Thisbe. (Their circumstances are much closer to P and T than R and J imo)

#noctluna #noctis lucis caelum #ffxv: spoilers #lunafreya nox flueret #lunafreya nox fleuret

54 notes · View notes

ashensolitude-blog · 7 years ago

Text

Headcanon: j.001

THE TRUE STORY OF JULIET CAPULET BEFORE / UP TO HER DEATH

Juliet before & after Romeo are two almost completely different people, & if anyone thought to pay attention, it would be as evident as the fact that she was ( & continues to be even after death ) a dreamer; the main difference is her absolute & unquestionable obedience to her parents. Before she met Romeo Montague, she was the model child any family would want, though, yes, she was wild, never one to keep her dreams a secret, but she was ALWAYS obedient; so much so, in fact, that when her parents told her she had to hate all Montagues, she did so without a doubt, she would frown at them, she would f o r b i d herself from looking at them, she would claim her hate onto them regardless of the fact that she knew nothing of the reason of her family’s hate onto them at all.

After, when the two met, the kiss in the great Capulet party came to her alike a wake up call; not only because it came on the very same day after her mother had placed the prospect of marriage in front of her ( making of her dreams include romance too ), but because when she learnt Romeo was a Montague, the shock of the revelation made her question everything she knew. She was NOT in love with him, far from it, but there was something about he who she forever after called her poet, that simply didn’t sit right with the whole idea of h a t i n g the Montagues at all; after all, how could anyone as kind, charming & gentle as he had been to her could deserve any hate?

Still, the second she learnt of his identity, her own obedience made it so she forbid herself from seeing him again, from talking to him again, even from smiling in his direction; she blocked herself entirely from liking him, but the kiss they shared sparked a speck of rebellion that had not been set within her before. Thus became the reason for which, when her parents presented the idea of marrying Count Paris ( a man much older than her, & one she really COULD NOT get on with at all ) she came out in her full dramatic splendor claiming that ‘I would rather marry a Montague whom I hate, than Paris whom I despise.’; & she acted in such a way that enrages her parents so much ( even going as far as to falsely threaten kicking her out ) that they c o m p l e t e l y put off the entire idea of marriage for the girl until ‘she comes of mindful age as to accept her duties’, all with fear that she would embarrass them otherwise. Of course, Paris was disappointed, but he moved on quite quickly.

& perhaps that should have been that, but unfortunately it wasn’t; after all, Juliet & Romeo lived in the same city, & as if that was not enough, the Montagues were one of the two Lord families in Verona ( the other one of which was the Capulets ), so it was impossible for them to NOT see each other quite often, whether in church, or city celebrations. In fact, they saw each other at church the Sunday after the party, & it struck Romeo as strange that Juliet was so cold with him ( even from afar, he only smiled at her ) when they had even danced & kissed in the party; not that it was s t r a n g e for a Capulet to be cold towards a Montague, but we’re talking about gentle, dreaming Juliet here, the little sunshine of Verona, whom everyone in the city who knew her loved for her free spirit & ever smiling lips.

Thus, it is for it that, one day, on the celebration of a saint in Verona, Romeo pulled the girl to the side ( a month or two after their first encounter at the party ), & tried to make his case onto why her ignoring him was ridiculous, due to the fact that ‘I know our houses be enemies but I hate thee not, I cannot. If that be why thou art as cold as a winter night since that blessed night I met thee, then I beg thee, kind Saint, hate me not, or if thou must, then put this hopeful worshiper out of his misery by telling me to never speak to thee again, for I knoweth none of what drives our families' enimity, & refuse it keep us apart, thus, speak, dear Lady, speak, & let my heart hope onto thee again.’ They were words so kind & so alike her own thoughts, that Juliet was unable to let herself hate him merely for her parents command; thus, they became friends, kind secret friends ( that sometimes kissed ), a relationship strong enough to bring about her going out in secret to see him, claiming she was going to prayer or to the market with her Nurse ( a Nurse who was POSSESSED by a Protector of Love, thus completely was on Juliet’s side when it came to Romeo, who was supposed to be her absolute soulmate ), & eventually even enough for her to sneak out of her house in the middle of the night to w a l k about the gardens with him or merely sit & talk.

A relationship that did not develop into full on love until about six to eight months after they met, & only when the idea of marriage was brought back into Juliet’s life a few months after her fifteenth birthday, did the two even consider immediately marrying. It is then when everything depicted by the famous play comes to happen: they get secretly married ─ but it FAILED to be secret enough given the fact that Tybalt Capulet had spies everywhere ( specially when it came to Juliet ), thus he found out a day later ( allowing the newlyweds the wedding night ), & it is for it that he w i l l e d for a fight with Romeo ─, Mercutio is slain, Romeo kills Tybalt & Romeo is exiled.

But, & here’s where we finally reach the end of the similarities with the play, after his exile, there was no little plot from the Friar to have Juliet be thought dead; instead, Romeo, a couple of minutes after his exile was announced, sent a letter to Juliet via Benvolio explaining his situation, his exile, his SADNESS onto what he had to do, his inability to avoid killing Tybalt for the name of his dead friend; but he was manipulative, something Juliet didn’t yet know, & he used what is now called ‘reverse psychology’ on her, stating his own s h a m e, his own anger, & how much he would understand if she never wanted to see him again:

...but if thy fair soul wilt, if thy gentle heart sees thus fit to forgive this vile villain, I beg thee, my precious love, meet me within the safety of the monument maker of thy name’s fame, where thou shall meet a man loving of thy person with all his heart, ready to leave this city, something much livelier if it were to be by thy side. Meet me, gentle Juliet, let this marriage be merry in a city far from the loathing of these walls.

It was a long letter that claimed his love for her in prose & song, one that made it easier for Juliet to decide to run away with him, not only for the fact that she really wanted to, but because even if she did not, in times such as the ones she was born in, what one’s husband said was law; thus, it was decided. She went there in the middle of the night, without even her Nurse knowing so ( if she had, Nurse would have stopped her, for she, being possessed by a Protector, KNEW what Romeo planned ) carrying of only a few things, & a hopeful heart. When she arrived, such was their passion & her love, that their kisses of relief turned into more; something which, Romeo soon after t u r n e d into manipulation & deceit, when he then wondered by pretense what she would do if he were to die; something to which Juliet, thriving in drama & theatricality as always, replied by literally reaching for his dagger in order to point it in her heart’s direction. ‘I would rather make mine body into this lonely dagger’s sheath & join thee in death than taking one breath without thy company.’

Those were her last words, for the shock of his actions silenced her, his betrayal when he moved so quickly & managed to push her hand forward to make the dagger go deep into her heart; he said ‘For this truth, I shall say farewell, given in this day, which will mark the arrival of immortality onto mine heart, thus, death shall never touch me, & thy heart cannot live as long as mine might. May age never touch thy beautiful face, nor wrinkle thy perfect lips, may youth be thy eternal companion.’ She did not know whether to cry or scream, whether to be angry or sad; thus, she died, betrayed, crying, left for death by the one person who was SUPPOSED to be her one true love, the one who was her soulmate, but chose immortality instead of a long life with her.

It was when he left her, bleeding & dying in that tomb, that her Nurse ( as stated prior, possessed by a Protector of Love ), came around to find her in order to offer her eternity protecting souls like hers from people like Romeo; protecting kind, gentle, d r e a m i n g souls who could be loved, keeping them safe from the Lifeless reality of those that, like him, chose immortality instead of Love.

#•♱• ][ тнє bяigнтиєรร σf нєя cнєєk wσυld รнαмє тнσรє รтαяร αร dαyligнт dσтн α lαмρ ][ Juliet ]#(| jυliєт: about |)#« this is very important for those who ever want to play with human living j.ules. and just in general too 'cause it's the story I go by »

2 notes · View notes

arisefairsun · 7 years ago

Note

What do you think of the way Baz Luhrmann filmed Romeo and Juliet's deaths?

I must confess it’s not my favorite version of the scene. The fact that it takes place inside a church, for instance, may not be half as symbolic as the original setting in Capulet’s tomb. Think of Friar Lawrence’s lines: ‘The earth that’s nature’s mother is her tomb; / What is her burying grave that is her womb.’ This is unconsciously echoed by Romeo in the last scene, when he arrives in the vault: ‘Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death / Gorged with the dearest morsel of the earth’. What has given them life is also what has brought them to death. The Prologue revealed that ‘from forth the fatal loins of these two foes / A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life’. Capulet’s tomb is the stage of ‘love-devouring death'—Capulet, who would not recognize Juliet’s independence, destroying his own daughter by forcing her to succumb to his orders. But symbolically, the fact that Romeo comes back to Verona to die by Juliet’s side in her family’s tomb establishes his rejection of the feud, of the code of honor and masculinity, of all the destructive ideals that impeded him and Juliet from achieving happiness. The vault is a dark place, replete with ugliness, it is a ‘nest / Of death, contagion, and unnatural sleep’. It should be a scary, deathly place, the residence of malign fate and Death, ‘the lean abhorred monster’. It should correspond, in my opinion, to Juliet’s fears from 4.3. The only beauty, the only light that should be discerned in the crypt is that of Juliet herself (‘Her beauty makes / This vault a feasting presence full of light’). Isn’t this far more symbolic than a random church full of pretty candles? Juliet dying in her father’s crypt, in the womb that made her live; Romeo dying away from his duties as a Montague, choosing Juliet’s bosom as his final resting place (‘Thy husband in thy bosom there lies dead’).

I absolutely love the moment when DiCaprio slowly walks toward Juliet’s body, while this marvelous song is playing. I love his childlike, helpless, broken expression, his weariness, his weakness, his inability to endure the weight of the world anymore, the unmeasurable pain that overcomes him as he comes closer to Juliet’s lifeless body:

I love the tenderness of his kisses and touches, the sweet sorrow of his looks as he delivers his last lines. ‘… And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars / From this world-wearied flesh’, I see a mixture between contempt and fear in his face when he says those lines. It is hard not to get emotional while watching his last speech, isn’t it? The slowness of his whispers, the adoration coming from his eyes—all this peacefulness contrasts beautifully with the turbulence of Romeo’s arrival in Verona.

I often think how beautiful it is that Shakespeare took the time to include Tybalt in the scene. Why remove such a significant factor in Romeo’s dying speech? In the crypt he begs Tybalt’s pardon, assures him that his suicide will compensate for Tybalt’s death. However, if Tybalt could actually hear his words, watch his actions, surely he would find it shameful and offensive that this Montague is about to kill himself in Capulet’s vault, that this unworthy Montague loves Juliet to the point that he has come there to die for her and by her side. But Romeo is back to his idealistic thinking, where he believes, maybe foolishly and blindly, that he can talk people out of hate, that he can supplant it with love. I think it was a kind gesture of Shakespeare, to let Romeo apologize to Tybalt himself, to let us know that Romeo seeks absolution, that the violence that he himself practiced was occasioned by external forces (duty, fate, the unbearable yoke of social oppression) rather than by an inherent violence living in his heart. Besides, Romeo’s brief interaction with Tybalt is a turning point in his long, last speech. Before he spotted Tybalt, he thought of the tomb as ‘a feasting presence full of light’, where Juliet lied unconquered and triumphant. But after he finds Tybalt’s ‘bloody sheet’, he suddenly becomes aware of the obscurity of the place. This is when he refers to the tomb as 'this palace of dim night’, where worms have become Juliet’s chambermaids. It is Tybalt who takes Romeo out of the ecstasy of meeting Juliet again and introduces him back to the cruelty of reality.

I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I’m not too fond of Juliet waking up before Romeo’s death. Of course we want to see them interact one last time, but the fact that they don’t, the fact that they die alone, seems to me a much sadder ending. The repressive isolation, the loneliness which their society forced on them, devour them in the end. Even if they die for each other, I think it’s significant that they also die individually, with only each other’s lifeless bodies to talk to. Besides, Romeo dies thinking that death will bring him back to Juliet. That’s why he seals 'with a righteous kiss / A dateless bargain to engrossing death’. Unable to be Juliet’s husband in life, he now becomes her groom in death. Indeed, he finds life in death: 'O true apothecary! Thy drugs are quick’. 'Quick’ also means 'lively’ here. But DiCaprio’s Romeo dies knowing that death will part him from Juliet, so the whole Liebestod trope loses part of its color. His last kiss shouldn’t truly be a farewell kiss, but a 'dateless bargain’. Moreover, if Romeo dies after Juliet’s awakening, it is as if there was something lacking in his speech. I don’t think Shakespeare’s text can mold satisfactorily into this change—if Romeo had indeed seen Juliet come back to life, he would have said something else apart from simply 'Thus with a kiss I die’. It seems to me that Luhrmann was trying to twist the text to make it more dramatic, but didn’t quite work for me.

Where is Friar Lawrence in this scene? Where is that wonderful last line, ‘I dare no longer stay’? This wise, experienced man, who spent the whole play advising the young lovers and who now finds himself in a situation that is too terrific, too ill-fated for him to handle—where is he and his last attempt to save Juliet’s life? In suggesting that she hide at a convent, he offers Juliet a very suitable future insofar as religion is concerned. It would have been such a powerful moment, considering that Luhrmann situated the scene in a church. Juliet rejects the offer, and prefers to stay there and take her own life. Perhaps she is not ready to confine herself to a convent, where she will no longer be able to 'tear the cave where Echo lies / With repetition of my Romeo’. Perhaps she is too weary of restraining herself, of setting limits she is not allowed to surpass.After arising like a fair sun and killing the envious moon, she is no longer willing to go back to the shadows.

I don’t enjoy Juliet’s death, namely because she doesn’t say a word after Romeo’s death. She was cut out her last words, which are actually full of potency again. It saddens me enormously that Luhrmann decided to silence Juliet this way. How unfair! Where is her brave resolution, her boldness? ’Then I’ll be brief’, she says in the play. We don’t truly see the moment she shoots herself—right before she triggers the gun, the camera distances itself from her so that we don’t see the violence of her death. This, I believe, is yet another way of silencing her. When performing the scene in a theater, unless the audience close their eyes, they won’t be able to elude Juliet’s stabbing and the consequent blood that comes out of her breast. I think we have to witness that. It’s both the culmination of all the violence of Verona and the longed freedom that Juliet seeks. Her own father is disturbed by his daughter’s blood: 'O heavens, O wife! Look how our daughter bleeds.’ It makes sense, though, that Luhrmann’s Juliet uses a gun instead. Guns were the beloved weapon of all the men in the movie, and Juliet shooting herself becomes a much bolder death than that of Romeo, who used poison instead—often attributed to women and weakness. But although it makes more sense within the context of the movie, part of the symbolism of the dagger cannot be translated to the gun, i.e. the sexual connotations of Juliet ordering Romeo’s dagger to 'rust’ in her and 'let me die’ ('die’ meaning to reach sexual fulfillment as well as to lose one’s life).

Still, I love the position of the lovers’ bodies. It exposes the grandeur of the Liebestod trope for once. It echoes Romeo and Juliet’s sleeping position the morning after the consummation of their marriage.

I find this resemblance very metaphoric, considering that Juliet’s bed might have actually doubled as Juliet’s grave in the first performances of the play in late 16th-century London. All the links between death and marriage ('my grave is like to be my wedding bed’) culminate in the last scene. As I said, Romeo’s last words resemble the wedding rituals, while the dagger in Juliet’s breast (and the subsequent blood) resembles the 'amorous rites’.

And yet I wish Luhrmann hadn’t ended the scene there. In the play, a lot of characters come inside the vault to find the dead lovers together. It’s the revelation of their love, of their marriage, of their sacrifice. While their society could not know of their marriage in life, this 'death-mark’d’ wedding does become public. The moment when the Prince, the households, and the watch find Romeo and Juliet in the tomb is, to me, the epitome of the lovers’ triumph and downfall—the last oxymoron of the play, the presentation of their 'misadventured, piteous overthrows’ as well as their 'tempering extremities with extreme sweet’. But what’s even more frustrating to me is the absence of the reconciliation between the families. It’s not made explicit by Luhrmann. We only get to see Capulet and Montague stand side by side while the Prince reprehends them, but Capulet does not stretch out his hand to Montague as he does in the play, and Montague does not promise to pay tribute to Juliet. Will they cease the feud? It is not clear. The play does guarantee the end of violence, the final triumph of love over hate. Romeo and Juliet become civic examples made of gold. Juliet gets to shine in all her splendor, finally free from the shadows. She will now be the sun of Verona: '’For I will ray her statue in pure gold; / That while Verona by that name is known, / There shall no figure at such rate be set / As that of true and faithful Juliet.’ Romeo, on the other hand, gets what he has always longed for: to remain next to Juliet. 'As rich shall Romeo’s by his lady’s lie’.

I must say I’m too picky with this scene, because it is my favorite part of the whole play. Luhrmann’s scene is beautiful indeed, but these are the things I would change.

#answered #thoughts #Romeo and Juliet #Romeo and Juliet 1996 #Baz Luhrmann #Romeo + Juliet #Leonardo DiCaprio #Claire Danes #I love this scene to death

14 notes · View notes

charlyns-blog · 6 years ago

Text

Synopsis: Romeo and Juliet

An age-old vendetta erupts in bloodshed between two powerful families. A group of masked Montagues risks further conflict by crushing a party of Capulet. A young lovesick Romeo Montague immediately falls in love with Juliet Capulet, who marries the choice of her father, County Paris. The women arrange the couple to marry the next day with the help of Juliet's nurse. But the attempt by Romeo to stop a street battle leads to the death of Juliet's own cousin, Tybalt, for whom Romeo is banished. Juliet follows the Friar's plot and falsifies her own death in a desperate attempt to be reunited with Romeo. The message fails to reach Romeo, and he takes his life in her tomb, believing that Juliet was dead. Juliet wakes up next to her to find Romeo's body and kills herself. The sad family agreed to put an end to their feud.

Act I

Romeo and Juliet started when the Chorus introduced two feuding Verona families: the Capulets and the Montagues. The young men of each faction are fighting on a hot summer day until the Prince of Verona intercedes and threatens to banish them. The head of the Capulet family is planning a feast soon afterwards. His goal is to introduce his daughter Juliet to a Paris Count who wants to marry Juliet.

Montague's son Romeo and his friends (Benvolio and Mercutio) hear about the party and are determined to disguise themselves. Romeo looks forward to seeing his beloved Rosaline at the party. Instead, he meets Juliet while there and immediately falls in love with her. Juliet's cousin Tybalt recognizes the boys of Montague and forces them to leave as Romeo and Juliet discover each other.

Act II

When she appears in her window, Romeo lingers near the Capulet house to talk to Juliet. The couple declare their love for each other and intend to marry the following day. The lovers arrange to marry with the help of Juliet's nurse when Juliet goes to confession in Friar Laurence's cell. They're secretly married there (speaking of a short commitment).

Act III

Juliet's cousin Tybalt sends a challenge to Romeo after the secret marriage. Romeo refuses to fight, which angered his friend Mercutio, who fought against Tybalt. As Romeo intervenes to stop the fight, Mercutio is accidentally killed. Romeo pursues Tybalt in anger, kills him, and the prince banishes him.

Juliet is anxious when Romeo meets her late and learns about the brawl, the death of Tybalt and the banishment of Romeo. Friar Laurence arranges for Romeo to spend the night before leaving for Mantua with Juliet. Meanwhile, the Capulet family is grieving for Tybalt, so the next day Lord Capulet moves Juliet's marriage to Paris.When Juliet doesn't want to marry Paris, Juliet's parents are angry, but they don't know her secret marriage to Romeo.

Act IV

Friar Laurence helps Juliet with a sleeping draught that makes her seem dead. When the wedding party comes next day to greet Juliet, they think she's dead. The Friar sends a messenger to warn Romeo about Juliet's plan and invites him to come to the monument to the Capulet family to save his sleeping wife.

Act V

Romeo's vital message doesn't arrive in time because the plague is in town (so the messenger can't leave Verona). When Romeo heard from his servant that Juliet was dead, he bought poison from a Mantua pharmacist. He returns to Verona and goes to the tomb where he surprises the mourning Paris and kills them. Romeo takes his poison and dies as Juliet wakes up from her drugged coma.

She learns from Friar Laurence what happened, but she refuses to leave the tomb and stabs herself. With the Prince, the Capulets and Romeo's recently widowed father, the Friar returns. Their children's deaths lead families to peace, and they promise to build a monument in the memory of Romeo and Juliet.

0 notes

uchuuryokou · 8 years ago

Text

Nightmares

"True, I talk of dreams,

Which are the children of an idle brain,

Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,

Which is as thin of substance as the air"

�� Romeo and Juliet

Vax dreams about fire.

The orange flames are everywhere around him, engulfing him, eating him alive. He tries to escape, but he can’t find a way out. He sees his clothes catching fire and flames on his body covering him, as if trying to catch him. He can feel his skin melting in terrible, burning sensation. He sees Keyleth, jumping into flames and wants to call out to her, but he can’t make any sound. He follows her, but there’s more fire, and he can’t jump, he can’t, he’s such a coward. So he just watches, as his body turns to ash and vanishes in hot flames.

In his dreams, he sees his sister in a cold stone tomb, dead. She’s wearing his attire- the Raven Queen’s armour. He prays and prays, but no matter how long he is kneeling on the ground, there is no response.

He touches his sister’s face, and it transforms, and grows, and soon he stands before the Raven Queen’s unmoving, unforgiving mask. Her cold eyes are judging his every move, and he realizes she’s holding a familiar golden thread.

She pulls it and Vax wakes up just before it snaps, covered in cold sweat.

In her dreams, Vex sees a fire as well, but it’s a different one.

She watches her village being burnt to the ground, with cold realization that her mother is dead. She watches Thordak burn her childhood house, and she wants to take her bow out and shoot an arrow, but she’s a helpless child. So she cries, for her mother, brother, Vox Machina, anyone but no one ever comes.

In her dreams, she sees Percy, covered in some, with his mask on his face.

“Take off the mask, darling,” she pleads, but he doesn’t move. The gun in his hand twitches a little bit, as he leans to her ear and whispers.

“Don’t worry, my dear. I’ll break the world for us.”

She dreams about her father’s disappointed face, as he mocks her.

“You are nothing,” he says “You are a merely a nuisance. Do you think you could ever achieve anything by yourself?” Syldor sighs deeply. “If only your mother wasn’t human.”

If only.

She dreams about her meeting with Saundor, but in her dream, it’s different. She is holding a bow and arrow pointed at him, but she hesitates.

“I agree,” she says, and watches in horror, as her bow turns into roots of a tree, and they pierce her arms, slowly and painfully turning her into a tree as well. She looks at Percy and sees his shocked face, full of disbelief. She wants to say she’s sorry, but as she opens her mouth the roots grow into it and she can’t speak anymore.

And Saundor smiles.

Before his eyes close for the last time, Tiberius sees the fall of his homeland, and it’s worse than any nightmare he could’ve had.

Grog doesn’t dream often, but when he does, it’s about blood. He holds Craven Edge in his hand, slashing at his enemies, as the sword whispers to him.

And he wants more.

So Grog fights on, and on, and on, unless he’s too tired and he stops to ask his friends where they are eating dinner today, and he sees them all on the ground, bloodied and dead. And he realizes it’s his fault, that he killed them all when he wasn’t paying attention.

“NO!” he roars and runs to them, but it’s too late. There’s Vax lying on the ground with his head cut off. Vex is lying nearby, her bow nowhere to be seen. Percy and Keyleth are right by his feet, and none of them are breathing. Scanlan is crushed into the ground, his tiny body broken and slumped over a rock.

As he finds Pike, he takes her into his arms, tears rolling off his face. She is yet alive, barely breathing. When she opens her eyes, he can see that they are full of fear.

“Why?” she asks, and he cannot find an answer.

The Craven Edge laughs in his mind.

Percy has more nightmares than he can count, and they are all connected to people.

His first nightmare consists only of sounds: of his family’s screams, Delilah laugh, sounds of fighting, sound of Cassandra’s body hitting the ground when he escapes. He hears his breath as he runs, his heartbeat, and except that there’s only darkness.

His second nightmare is made of smoke and shadows, and he sees himself in it; a lost man with a demon ruling over his soul. In the dream, he talks to Orthax like he’s an old friend, someone to rely on.

He puts his mask on and takes a shot into the darkness.

His third nightmare is Anna Ripley, and it’s more terrifying than Percy would ever admit. She always finds a different way to torture him, even after her death.

He dreams of Briarwoods, he dreams of Anders, he dreams of Vex falling in the Ziggurat.

He won’t tell anyone that some nights he’s too afraid to close his eyes.

Scanlan sees his mother’s face, with every possible detail. He doesn’t remember anything other than that about his dream, but as he wakes up, he feels like he never went to sleep in the first place.

He dreams about the power of suude travelling in his vains, but after short moments-it disappears, and so does his confidence. He is normal again, and he can’t do anything.

He realizes how useless he is, and it hurts.

He sees Vox Machina, the demigods he travels with, walking in front of him, talking between each other. He slowly watches as they walk further and further away, not realizing that they are leaving him behind.

No one looks back.

He dreams of Kaylie, looking at him with a mix of rage, sadness and disappointment.

“You promised!” she yells, and he tries to explain, but she does not listen. She walks away, and it’s almost as the moment he saw his mother for the last time, and he runs after her, but never catches up.

She doesn’t look back either.

Pike dreams about storms on the sea, about the harsh wind and cold water. She fights with exhaustion, as the captain yells at her; an order that she barely hears because of the storm. Another wave comes, and before she realizes, she gets thrown off the ship. Salty water fills her mouth and she tries to swim up, but she realizes after a moment, she doesn’t know where up is anymore.

She dreams about Vox Machina, coming back to her, everytime with another friend dead. She sees the hope in her eyes as they look at her, and she knows how much everybody relies on her. So she prays, but Saren Rae is cold and distant and in that moment, Pike realizes she failed.

In her dreams, she sees Scanlan in the Thordak fight, as he dies. She rushes over to resurrect him, and he looks up at her, but as he does, she sees his face is half rotten. He smiles at her and reaches to her with his arm, but there is no flesh on it. Cold bones touch her cheek, as he speaks.

“Don’t worry, I’m just a little cold.”

In her dreams, Keyleth sees her father.

He’s different than usual. His eyes are cold and his voice harsh. He explains that she is not fit to be their leader. That she is disposable. That she should give up on her Aramente.

She dreams about her people, looking at her with dismay and anger. She was not able to protect them, and she should be replaced. So she gives up and leaves, being a disappointment to everyone, but most of all- to herself.

In her dreams, she watches Vax and all of her friends grow old. She watches them wither and die, and as the years go on, she’s the only one alive. In her dreams, she’s the only one left to care for their tombs, because nobody else remembers or cares.

In her dreams, they all die during a fight with the Kraken except her, and she is not even able to recover their bodies.

Sometimes she dreams about Vax, with a large shadow of Raven Queen lurking over him, always watching, waiting. She realizes that it is inevitable, that his fate would always be connected to his goddess and she fears that there might be not enough of his time left for her.

Sometimes when she wakes up and she thinks the shadow’s still there.

#critical role #cr spoilers #critfic #vox machina #Percival Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski De Rolo III #vax'ildan #vex'ahlia #pike trickfoot #scanlan shorthalt #grog strongjaw #tiberius #keyleth #tw: death #tw: drugs #tw: fire #tw: abuse #nightmares

16 notes · View notes

isitandwonder · 8 years ago

Text

As I was reading @monikakrasnorada posts on Eurus and Moriarty, I contemplated a name of that ship, and came up with Morus.

Now, Morus is Latin for mulberry (’Round and round the garden, like a teddy bear’... a bit like “Here we go round the mulberry bush”, another nursery rhyme, but anyway).

There is a legend connected to the mulberry bush, the oldest surviving record stemming from Ovid’s Metamorphoses:

In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Pyramus and Thisbe are two lovers in the city of Babylon who occupy connected houses/walls, forbidden by their parents to be wed, because of their parents' rivalry. Through a crack in one of the walls, they whisper their love for each other. They arrange to meet near Ninus' tomb under a mulberry tree and state their feelings for each other. Thisbe arrives first, but upon seeing a lioness with a mouth bloody from a recent kill, she flees, leaving behind her veil. When Pyramus arrives he is horrified at the sight of Thisbe's veil, assuming that a wild beast has killed her. Pyramus kills himself, falling on his sword in proper Babylonian fashion, and in turn splashing blood on the white mulberry leaves. Pyramus' blood stains the white mulberry fruits, turning them dark. Thisbe returns, eager to tell Pyramus what had happened to her, but she finds Pyramus' dead body under the shade of the mulberry tree. Thisbe, after a brief period of mourning, stabs herself with the same sword. In the end, the gods listen to Thisbe's lament, and forever change the colour of the mulberry fruits into the stained colour to honour the forbidden love. (x)

Yep, Romeo and Juliet...

Does this mean anything? That those two people somehow, mixed together, lead us to one of the oldest forbidden tragic love tropes in literature?

#sherlock #s4 #eurus #moriarty #morus #mulberry

74 notes · View notes

alygumgum · 8 years ago

Text

Romeo and Juliet Holiday Homework

When the plague broke out in 1593 the theatres were forced to close so Shakespeare had to turn to writing poetry. From 1594 onwards he was a member of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men company of theatrical players. William Shakespeare’s work has been performed within countless hamlets, village, cities and metropolises for more than 400 years. William was the third child of six. By 1952 there is evidence that Shakespeare earned his living as an actor and a playwright in London. 15 of the 37 plays Shakespeare had written were published by 1597. By 1599 he and his business partners had built their own theatre on the south bath of the Thames River which was called the Globe. He was also an entrepreneur as well as an artist selling real estate which made him £60 a year. When William Shakespeare was born Queen Elizabeth the First was the monarch and remained queen until she passed away in1603 in which James the First took her place on the throne and remained there when Shakespeare passed on in 1616. Many of Shakespeare’s plays were first performed within the Globe which was the theatre that he built himself. Actors did not usually wear historically accurate costumes however sometimes a toga was sometimes worn for a Roman play so instead they typically wore gorgeous modern dresses, especially leading parts. They often used second hand clothes that had once been used by real life nobles. Shakespeare’s plays had little or no scenery excluding objects required by the plot (e.g. a throne, grave or bed.) The exits and entrances done within the performance were in plain view of the audience. Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet to be performed on a simple stage in an Elizabethan playhouse in the daylight. The stage would have a balcony at the rear of the stage for Juliet's bedroom window and a trapdoor for the tomb. There was no scenery and only a minimum amount of props to be used so that the audience to focus on the language and the performance moved with a swift speed. The first performance of Romeo and Juliet had an all male cast because women did not legally appear on stage until the late 17th century. The costumes for the women have a lot of materiel to them which would make them heavy however if you used these costumes within a modern performance it would help the actors be more realistic within their characters because it will make it easier to move like they would originally. When Romeo and Juliet was first performed, the theatre contained over 1,500 seats making the theatre very large in size meaning that the actors would have to project their voices a great deal so that everyone within the audience can hear them. Cast: Romeo Juliet Friar Lawrence Mercutio The Nurse Tybalt Capulet Lady Capulet Montague Lady Montague Paris Benvolio Prince Escaulus Friar John Balthasar Sampson Gregory Abram The Apothecary Peter Rosaline The Chorus Act 1 Scene 1: There is a giant fight which Capulet and Montague get involved with even though there wives disapprove. The Prince then arrives and declares that any more fighting between the two families will be punished with death. We also learn that Romeo is in love with a woman who is sworn to chastity and his cousin Benvolio tries to get him to consider other women however Romeo ignores this. Act 1 Scene 2: When Paris asks Capulet for his permission to marry Juliet he agrees that if he can get her affections during the forthcoming banquet he can marry her. When an illiterate servant asks Romeo to help him read instructions he sees the guest list for the forthcoming banquet and sees his Juliet’s name so decides to go with Benvolio in disguise. Act 1 Scene 3: The Nurse remembers Juliet’s childhood in length and Lady Capulet tells her daughter about her fathers plans about marrying her off to Paris. Act 1 Scene 4: When Romeo, Benvolio and Mercutio arrive at the banquet Romeo tells the others that he won’t be dancing due to his sadness. Act 1, Scene 5: Romeo sees Juliet but Romeos identity is spotted by Tybalt but is told to leave it. Romeo and Juliet get together end up kissing and their love is obvious from the start however when they both find out they’re rivals they are both distressed. Act 2 Prologue: The chorus expresses that Romeo and Juliet cannot easily but because their love is so strong that they find a way. Act 2, Scene 1: Romeo and his friends separate and they assume that he has gone in search for Juliet so they leave. Act 2, Scene 2: When Juliet appears at a high window Romeo stops to admire her beauty and as she believes that she is alone she expresses her love of Romeo to herself and how she regrets that he is a montague. Romeo shows himself to her and they exchange their love for each other until Juliet is called away by the Nurse but agrees to send him a messenger the next day to make plans of their wedding. Act 2 Scene 3: Romeo goes to Friar Lawrence to ask if he will help them get married and he agrees hoping that it will end the feud between the families. Act 2 Scene 4: Tybalt challenges Romeo to a duel and Romeos friends wonder if he’s up to it. Romeo goes to see Juliet and tells The Nurse about their plans to be married by Friar Lawrence that afternoon and for the Nurse to leave a rope for her to get out. Act 2 Scene 5: The Nurse tells Juliet Romeos message and she departs to go meet Romeo immediately. Act 2 Scene 6: When they meet up in Friar Lawrence’s cell he prepares to marry them. Act 3 Scene 1: Tybalt and Romeo bump into each other but when Tybalt challenges him into a duel Romeo just tries to get them to be friends but Tybalt draws his sword regardless and ends up killing Mercutio which causes him to flee. Tybalt returns so Romeo agrees to fight him and ends up killing him. Romeo is then banished from Verona. Act 3 Scene 2: Juliet longs for night time as Romeo will be coming but The Nurse comes and alerts Juliet of his banishment due to Tybalts death. Juliet speaks of suicide so the Nurse agrees to bring Romeo to her. Act 3 Scene 3: Romeo is hiding with Friar Lawrence and hears about his banishment thinks about how life isn’t worth it without Juliet. When he hears of how distressed Juliet is he too talks about suicide. Friar Lawrence tells him to stop being so weak and he goes to see Juliet. Act 3 Scene 4: Capulet tells Juliet that she has to be married to Paris within three days. Act 3 Scene 5: Romeo and Juliet say their goodbyes and Juliet is told about her marriage from her mother and she refuses because of the hastiness however when her father hears her refusal he is furious. Her nurse tells her to ignore her marriage with Romeo and marry Paris. She goes to Friar Lawrence to seek aid. Act 4 Scene 1: When Juliet goes to meet Paris in front of Friar Lawrence she ignores Paris and then goes to him for help, once again talking about suicide he suggests that she uses a potion that makes her look like she’s dead and once she’s in the crypt she can meet Romeo and they can flee. Act 4 Scene 2: In the Capulet household everyone is busy with plans for the wedding and once Juliet apologises for her behaviour her dad moves the wedding up to the morning after. Act 4 Scene 3: Juliet is alone and is worried that the potion might actually kills or that she might awake in the crypt surrounded by the spirits of the dead especially Tybalt but she ignores these thoughts and drinks the potion. Act 4 Scene 4: It is the morning of the wedding and everyone is doing last minute preparations so Capulet sends the Nurse to wake Juliet. Act 4 Scene 5: The Nurse is unable to awake Juliet so she raises the alarm that she is dead so everyone grieves for her rather than celebrating her wedding. Act 5 Scene 1: Romeo hears the news that Juliet is dead and plans to return to Verona and join her in death, he buys a fast acting poison on the way. Act 5 Scene 2: Friar John tells Friar Laurence that he was unable to deliver his letter to Romeo so Laurence asks for a crow bar so that he can get Juliet and look after her until Romeo can be summoned. Act 5 Scene 3: Paris goes to visit Juliet until he is warned that someone is coming so he hides and sees Romeo with Balthasar until Balthasar is sent away with a letter for Montague although he hides to watch. Romeo breaks in to see Juliet and then Paris confronts Romeo before Romeo kills him. He addresses Juliet who he believes to be dead then drinks the poison killing him instantly. Friar Laurence arrives and Juliet awakens so Laurence begs her to flee as he hears the Watchmen coming however she refuses. She kisses Romeo then stabs herself as the Watchmen appear. Balthasar is arrested and so is the Friar however he tells the story of what has happened which is confirmed by Balthasar and Romeo’s letter. The whole situation means the family agrees to stop their hostility towards each other and create statues for the lovers.

Bibliography on Romeo and Juliet holiday homework

http://m.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/romeojuliet/characters.html

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.biography.com/.amp/people/william-shakespeare-9480323?client=safari

https://www.reference.com/history/were-king-queen-william-shakespeare-alive-48a9c5e3e914c8b6

http://hudsonshakespeare.org/Shakespeare%20Library/Synopsis/synopsis_romeoandjuliet.htm

http://www.shakespearesglobe.com/uploads/files/2014/01/the_globe.pdf

http://www.folger.edu/shakespeares-theater

https://www.rsc.org.uk/romeo-and-juliet/past-productions/stage-history https://wwwhttps://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/r/romeo-and-juliet/summary-and-analysis/act-i-prologue.cliffsnotes.com/literature/r/romeo-and-juliet/about-romeo-and-juliet

1 note · View note