#I disagree with takes where Ophelia is the villain of the books

[strikeslip]

Me, trying to describe the Scholomance setting from the point of view of an enclave leader for my game setting document:

Take two once-in-a-generation talents, put them through hell together, and sometimes they’ll fall in love, blow up multiple major pieces of infrastructure, and upend every plan anyone had for the next ten years. This probably shouldn’t be a surprise, but…

[complete-mess]

I’ve already said it before but Ophelia 2019 is awful in so many ways and here’s just some of them. I’m going on the basis that this is an adaption of the play so if you didn’t read the play it probably won’t make sense

I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again, my main problem with this adaption is they turn Ophelia into the personification of ‘I’m not like other girls’ archetype. The film separates Ophelia from all the other female characters. Ophelia has no female friends amongst the other ladies in waiting ‘cause they’re all bitches who just don’t understand me.’ Can we please, in all types of media, allow women to be friends??? It’s not that fucking hard. 

The film as a whole tries to make characters either good or bad, heroes or villains, which is just.......why. Like Hamlet’s entire character is oh so good until he refuses to go with Ophelia in the last 15 minutes of the movie. Hamlet kills Ophelia’s father and is like ‘Ophelia forgive me’ in passing and Ophelia is just like k???? and seemingly all good after that. Like am i just supposed to equate play Hamlet who when killing Polonius is like ‘ Thou wretched rash intruding fool, farewell, i took thee for thy better’ and shows absolute no empathy or remorse for his actions to movie Hamlet who is just oh so sorry.....nah just nah

They completely changed Claudius’ character for no reason and made him into a macho aggressive man. Claudius in the play is compared to King Hamlet a lot. King Hamlet was almost always at war which is shown by ghost Hamlet appearing in his ‘war like form’. Claudius isn’t obsessed with war the same way K.Hamlet was. He’s more of a political king (if that makes sense). In the second scene of the play Claudius decides to contact the king of Norway to tell him to get a hold on Fortinbras rather than going straight to war. Also Claudius is crafty, cunning and sneaky. He’s not all that aggressive. He rarely gets angry in the play. If anything he manipulates others anger for his own use (see Laertes). I think making Claudius this big tough man was a stupid mistake. It’s cringey and is yet another archetype which undermines the more complex characters Shakespeare wrote.

I really didn’t like how they rewrote or interpreted Ophelia and Hamlet’s relationship. It was just .....bad. Ophelia and Hamlet get married in secret which completely disregards one of the many reasons Ophelia goes mad in the end of the play ‘Before you tumbled me you promised me to wed’. It’s implied in the play that Hamlet and Ophelia’s relationship was a sexual one. Given the time period the loss of Ophelia’s ‘chaste treasure’ (virginity) would have been societal suicide. Ophelia becomes a ‘fallen woman’ and her life prospects are instantly diminished. By adding in the fact that Ophelia and Hamlet are actually married it takes away her nuances.

I didn’t like Gertrude either (just assume i hate how every character was written in this version). Although I will say this comes from how I saw Gertrude in the play. In the play it’s never stated how Gertrude came to marry Claudius. Were they having an affair whilst King Hamlet was still alive? Did Gertrude see the coup Claudius was planning and realise the only way for Hamlet to ever sit on the throne was to marry Claudius? Was Gertrude just as power hungry as Claudius and couldn’t stand not being queen? Did Gertrude have a hand in the murder of King Hamlet? It’s ambiguous, strategic opacity and all that. I personally saw Gertrude as  conniving. She saw Claudius coup and wanted to remain in power. I don’t think she had a hand in King Hamlets death and I don’t think she did it for Hamlet. I will say I can respect the way they wrote Gertrude’s character even if it wasn’t how I liked (personal preference and all that). However I hated her at the end of the play.

The end of the play was just.......unusual if anything. In the play Hamlet is the last to kick the bucket. He has his little talk to Horatio about Fortinbras and then dies. I don’t understand why in this version they chose to kill Hamlet first??? If my memory serves me right the deaths went as follows, Gertrude, Laertes, Claudius and then Hamlet. Hamlet and Laertes sword fight was good enough (except it’s technically a fencing match but thats just me being pedantic). My only issue is Laertes doesn’t have this moment where he realises he’s been manipulated by Claudius and apologises to Hamlet (I don’t think he needs to apologise to Hamlet because Hamlet’s a dick but I wanted to see how he was used). Also I know Gertrude killing Claudius was supposed to be this big feminist moment but I just wasn’t gone in it. I also wasn’t gone in the idea of Gertrude purposefully drinking the poison. I guess it was supposed to be Gertrude atoning for her sins but if anything I thought it was her taking the easy way out. It’s not a necessarily bad end, I just didn’t like it personally.

I don’t think I need to explain why having a Gertrude twin was stupid

I’ve already talked about Ophelia’s characterisation but Imma do it again, just cause. In my eyes Ophelia is the victim of the play. As a women she is mostly powerless (in this time period). I like play Ophelia. She’s doesn’t have power, she can be quite passive, she’s arguably ‘weak’. But she’s extremely resilient. She arguably has to deal with the most shit in this play. Her father forces her to break up her relationship with Hamlet. The breaking up of their relationship causes Hamlet to treat her shitty. He publicly humiliates her during the play Murder of Gonzago. He literally kills her father and shows no empathy towards her, at all (which is highly hypocritical considering his motivation throughout the entire play is to get revenge for his fathers murder). Overwhelmed with everything, she goes mad and finally freely expresses herself. It feels....cathartic in a way . Ophelia deserves to go mad, she’s earned the right. I also think it was one of the more emotional parts of the plays. Like we have all of Hamlets soliloquies which are undoubtably emotional. But it’s different with Ophelia. For me at least, when reading the play or watching it you......kinda forget about Ophelia. So much other shit is happening and you’re focused on that. But then you suddenly see Ophelia go mad and you realise all the shitty things that happened to her. It’s a moment where both the audience and the characters realise the damage done to Ophelia’s psyche. I hate how this movie just took that away with Ophelia pretending to go mad. The movie pushes the narrative that Ophelia isn’t weak, she’s strong, she could never go mad. But...... why does she need to be strong. If Ophelia was as weak as everyone thinks she was, she would have become as corrupt and power hungry as everyone else in the play. She remains morally good and if thats what you call weak, I’ll happily be weak any day of the week

Feel free to disagree. Also before someone says it, I’m aware this isn’t necessarily an adaption of the play but an adaption of the a book based on the play. But I think if they wanted to separate it this much from the original text they should have distinguished it more. Change the names or something. The names Hamlet, Gertrude, Claudius and Ophelia are synonymous with the Shakespeare play. They must have known people would assume it was adaption and I’m sure they used that to promote the film