#Meta Parallels To Hamlet

[daenerysoftarth]

man I wish there was more tyrion appreciation on this website. he’s such a complex and tragic character. if Alicent is MacBeth, then Tyrion is absolutely Hamlet (and Tysha is the ghost of his father, the king……. how ironic…) even down to his exile and diversion via pirates at sea. I feel as though you see the unfolding of Tyrion’s tragedy throughout asoiaf just as Tyrion himself does, even as he desperately fights against it, yet is ultimately powerless against its fate. you watch the characters fall and the actors collapse, and you know he’s next and there’s nothing you, as a reader, can do to stop it even as tyrion desperately tries. then he fails and lives in that aftermath. he lives with their ghosts (ophelia, polonius, gertrude) until his inevitable end, because it was always written this way

[cto10121]

R&J Clown Takes Special Edition—The Romeo-Hamlet Connection

It’s so nice to take a break from the usual clownery and get into actually reasoned clownery. But alas, clownery is still clownery, however minor. This post especially got a ridiculous lot of notes:

Sigh.

So this is all predicated on the notion that Romeo’s flaw is rashness and Hamlet’s is indecision, and so all you need to do is switch them out of their respective tragedies and—presto! Crises averted.

Hmm, no.

For one thing, Romeo and Hamlet are much more alike than many think. I was actually going to do a whole post about the similarities between Hamlet and Romeo (similarities actual critics have picked up on!). They are both prone to melancholy and passivity, both prone to spurts of bold/rash action, both highly sensitive and intuitive. But I think it is ultimately their upbringing that makes the bulk of their differences.

Hamlet is a prince and Romeo is the son of a minor lord, and that makes a big difference in how they act and react to their given situations. Romeo may not gaf when it comes to youthful shenanigans and falling in love, but he does refuse to fight Tybalt and be involved in feuding. He also had to warm up considerably into killing Tybalt as vengeance for Mercutio. So yes, while he would romance Ophelia regardless, I don’t think he’d be one to kill Claudius right away; it’s a very huge decision after all.

Hamlet, on the other hand, is reared to consider the bigger picture always. He is a prince, and whatever his feelings towards Ophelia, he can and did cut her off when he suspected she had betrayed him to her father and uncle and is now a spy for him (she had no real choice, of course, but even so…). He is also a university student and thus educated in that scholarly (and thus misogynistic) tradition. So with all that said, I doubt he would pursue Juliet.

But what if they were born into their circumstances and not just body swapped? Let’s say Romeo is a prince and Hamlet is the son of a minor lord in a destructive feud. Honestly, they would probably behave more or less the same. OP is right in that if Hamlet did go for Juliet, he would try to broker a marriage of alliance between the two families rather than relying on the Friar. But all things being equal, I don’t see Romeo behaving all that differently from Hamlet.

[catsconflictscopicsandchamomile]

I was just watching a video on men playing women in Shakespeare performances and it said "remember, Ophelia was written to be played by a man" and my IMMEDIATE FIRST THOUGHT WAS

"Oh, so like, Dean Winchester"

[vicshush]

[ID 1: A still from the Critical Role campaign one episode 69, where Percy is resurrected. A closed caption reads "Liam: No Hamlet death for you!"]

I do not particularly have art skills, but I wanted to try to group the characters through this lens.

[ID 2: Art of the four main campaign characters of Taliesin Jaffe, tying them to characters from the play Hamlet. Clockwise from the top: Percy de Rolo (campaign 1 character) grips one of his guns and holds up his plague-doctor-like mask at eye level, in imitation of Hamlet looking at the skull and speaking of Yorick. Caduceus Clay (second campaign 2 character) looks at the viewer with a slight smile while leaning on a large shovel, one leg bent and that foot propped on the flat edge of the shovel blade, in imitation of a pose of actor Charles Rock, who played one of the grave diggers in 1905. In a stream of silver waves meant to represent dunamis, Ashton Greymoore (campaign 3 character) lays on his back, their arms falling from their sides as blood pools from their head, his gaze vacant and his mouth open, in imitation of the pose of Ophelia in the river from the painting by Sir John Everett Millais. Mollymauk Tealeaf (first campaign 2 character) declaims, one hand raised and the other on his chest, smiling, and wearing a large but simple gold crown, posing as the Player King. In the center, between the characters, is a slightly paraphrased quote from Hamlet, "The gods hath given you one face and you make yourself another." /end ID]

i was thinking earlier about Percy de Rolo again and how amazing it is that Taliesen literally created the Byronic anti-hero of a gothic revenge tragedy, and then all his friends went “yeah but what if he got a happy ending through the Power of Love, though.”

and then while I was thinking about that (and also revenge tragedies, in general) I started thinking about Hamlet, as I am wont to do, and how much Percy is Hamlet because he’s so fucking aware of the shape of his own story and the fucking… self-defeating level of narrative savviness it takes to look at your own life from the outside and be like “this is going to end badly” and still do it.

Anyway, the point is I was thinking abt Percy being Hamlet and then I thought about Mollymauk being the Player King and then I realized that Caduceus is the Gravedigger and Taliesen is just slowly going through the entire Dramatis Personae of Hamlet, one-by-one, and I went a little bit feral.

[actual-changeling]

Welcome back to Alex's unhinged meta corner, and today I have something surprisingly not kiss-related—though it is still about the final fifteen because hey, gotta keep the brand image.

I read this post by @goodoldfashionednightingale and began typing a small response. Then I made the mistake of drinking half a litre of coffee on an empty stomach right after taking my adhd meds and my brain began vibrating at the speed of light.

But oh, have I discovered parallels. This, my friends, is about the nightingale, where it comes from, what it means, and what the fuck happened in part 3 of 1941.

Ready? Let's go.

Now, as OP said in her post, s1e3 is important. In the script book, Neil himself says that these flashbacks are where the producers would tell him to cut scenes to save money. They suggested every single one—except for the one he ended up taking out, which was the bookshop opening scene set in 1800. The others are building blocks, you need them to see how their relationship progressed and what kind of important milestones they had.

(side note: author is very miffed that english does not have a separate subjunctive form like german which makes quoting lines way more confusing than it has to be)

The one I want to mention is neither 1941 nor 1967. No, what I want to talk about is 1601. This might be about to get a bit rambly but I will do my best to keep it tidy.

The focus of that flashback is on the Arrangement, yes, but it gives us a lot more information than that.

they both see Shakespeare's plays regularly, maybe even meet in the crowd

Crowley prefers the comedies

Aziraphale does not seem to have a preference, he enjoys the tragedies and presumably the comedies too

there is an oyster woman selling food -> reference to their meeting in Rome when Aziraphale tempted him to try some oysters

Aziraphale reflexively denies their relationship

Crowley might say he is not worried but circles Aziraphale the entire time, keeping watch

they both ask favours of each other and both agree to do them

What stands out to me in relation to what I am about to expand on is the line that Crowley delivers after Aziraphale's little 'buck up'—which Crowley finds adorable btw but that's a post for another time.

"Age does not wither nor custom stale his infinite variety."

Why would he say that? What exactly is prompting this? WHY say that specific line?

At first I thought it might be to tempt Shakespeare because he does commit art theft by just copying that line down, BUT I think there is more to that. So much more, in fact. I am wiggling now because I am very excited about this and my adhd meds are kicking in anyway.

First things first: the line itself.

It appears in Shakespeare's play Antony and Cleopatra, a romantic tragedy, which was first performed in 1607 aka six years after this meeting. Enobarbus is talking about Cleopatra and describing why Antony won't leave her. Her.

Ccrowley uses his—again, who is he even talking about? Hamlet? Shakespeare? Random poetic quote?

No, I think this line is about Aziraphale and it's a code. Right after, the next line from Aziraphale is "What do you want?", meaning that this is their code phrase for 'I have a favour to ask of you'.

Age does not wither nor custom stale his infinite variety

Age will not affect his appearance nor will he ever become boring to Antony. Crowley, who later chooses the name Anthony for himself, tells Aziraphale, an immortal, that he will never age and that he will never grow bored of him.

It's flattery, pure and simple, and it's code at the same time. This establishes the important fact that they might use more of Shakespeare's work as code/already have a system in place (even though he steals Crowley's line for later).

They play their little morality game of back and forth, Aziraphale agrees, Crowley probably manipulates the coin toss, and THEN we find out that the oyster woman is called Juliet.

Why? What is the meaning of that? Why give her a name and that name in particular? Why bring the sexy oysters back into it?

Romeo and Juliet premiered in 1597, so it is safe to assume they have both seen it by 1601, but this is mostly for the audience, not for us-or is it?

Aziraphale gives Crowley puppy eyes until he agrees to make Hamlet popular, and while I don't think Juliet itself is a code word, although it's very interesting that the OYSTER woman is the one with that name (especially adding what we now know about Job), Romeo and Juliet might be.

Yes, the Nightingale song came out in 1940 but the bird has been around for much, much longer, and, as many probably know by now, also shows up in Romeo and Juliet.

This is where I am starting to vibrate at the speed of light because listen to me. Listen.

Crowley is Juliet. Anthony J. Crowley. Antony Juliet Crowley.

(side note: I'm not saying that Crowley chose it based on that—though I am not not saying that—but that it is a clue for us at the audience.)

Why do I think that? In the play, Romeo spends the night with Juliet and then goes to leave as the night begins to end. Juliet tries to stop him and tells him that the birds they are hearing aren't larks, which sing at dawn, but nightingales, which sing at night.

Who is the one always pushing for more? Crowley. He is the one trying to convince Aziraphale it's safe, they're safe to spend time together.

Romeo disagrees with Juliet and says 'I must be gone and live, or stay and die'.

Leave and stay alive, or stay and hell/heaven will punish us. It gets even better though.

We all know how Romeo and Juliet ends: Romeo thinks Juliet is dead, kills himself, Juliet finds him and then kills herself too.

Hey, do you know how Antony and Cleopatra ends?

Antony thinks Cleopatra is dead, kills himself and dies in her arms, then Cleopatra also kills herself—by snake poison; Romeo also died by poison.

The parallels are THERE. They are jumping down our throats! Two tragedies, two sides, several familiar names and phrases, same fear, same ending.

I think by now you can guess how this ties back to 1941.

We do not see how that night ends, but we know it ends. One of them wants to stretch it out, maybe even quotes Romeo and Juliet because look at the setting!

Candlelight, wonderful night they spend together, the threat of Crowley's early demise, and, to quote the play once more, this time Romeo: I have more care to stay than will to go.

Crowley thought it was his last night on earth and went with Aziraphale to his bookshop, to be with him, because he cares more about that than the fact that he will be dragged to hell come morning. Do you remember?

"Expect a legion to come for you first thing tomorrow" THAT is the threat. They have until dawn, just like Romeo and Juliet, which is why she is so desperate for the birds to be nightingales. Fortunately for them, Aziraphale saves the day, BUT there is NO SECURITY. They do not KNOW if a legion will still show up or not. If dawn is a deadline and they will need to fight.

Sure, they improved their chances, but who knows? Maybe they will come for him anyway, it's not like hell is all fair and square.

The best part: it gets even better.

Juliet eventually panics and tells him to go, and Romeo drops a line that huh, sounds oddly familiar, doesn't it?

'More light and light, more dark and dark our woes!'

Remind me, what does Aziraphale say again? Ah, yes. Perhaps there is something to be said for shades of grey.

There is more. Yes, even more. We know the whole rescue relies on a magic trick, a switch. Guess what Juliet yearns for while telling Romeo to go save himself?

Oh, now I would they had changed voices too. While they did not for Romeo and Juliet—they kiss and part—they did for our two. One fabulous switch and we're good.

(side note: Toads? Associated with hell. Larks? Associated with the dawn, yes, but also heaven since Romeo says 'Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat the vaulty heaven so high above our heads.')

So, this was a whole lot of information, let's see if I can summarize my thoughts.

I believe the nightingale is a code word that has existed even before 1941 and gained a lot of importance over the years. In 1941, the song is added to the meaning and whatever happened between the two that we have not seen yet, it fundamentally changed their relationship. Maybe they kissed, maybe one of them tried to convince the other to prolong the night but they parted on not-great terms.

The nightingale and the song become a symbol of hope, a goal to achieve, another uninterrupted night, maybe, or an uninterrupted life.

When they part in the final fifteen, it's morning. Crowley points at the sky and says "no nightingales", which at that point has several different layers to it.

No nightingales because their night is over, just like with Romeo and Juliet, and please, please allow me to add another detail, because I am frothing at the mouth over this. The scene I quoted, known as balcony scene, do you know what it is preceded by?

A ball.

Star-crossed lovers defying their sides, falling in love at a ball, getting a hurried, wonderful night together but torn apart by danger of punishment, the nightingale as a dream, as a wish for unhurried time together. Family rejection, torn apart by parents, willing to die for each other so they can reunite in death.

No nightingales. The ball, the romance, is over, their dancing is over, heaven is tearing them apart, and Aziraphale returns to heaven while they are both stuck in a pit of misunderstanding and miscommunication, all bound together by fear for each other.

The thing is, Crowley hates tragedies, he never liked the "gloomy ones", and he does not want them to end in one—luckily, this isn't the end. Yes, they kiss and part, but the play keeps going. We have an entire act 3 to fix what Romeo and Juliet couldn't, to ensure that this is a COMEDY, not a tragedy.

Both Antony & Cleopatra and Romeo & Juliet died out of fear, hurried into making bad decisions because they knew what would happen if their sides were to catch up with them.

Crowley and Aziraphale can reunite heaven and hell with love, not death. This is THEIR story and they are writing the ending. No more day and night, no more deadlines, no more hiding and sneaking about, no more fear of larks and sunshine.

Good Omens will end the way it began: In a garden with two no-longer-star-crossed lovers embracing the song of a lark as well as that of the nightingale.

I hope this made sense to everyone who was no present while my mind started to vibrate itself into a puddle because the thing is I can see Neil doing all of this completely on purpose.

Thoughts? Questions? Additions? Come and join me in my insanity and until next time I have a mental breakdown over this show (probably in like two hours).

[vidavalor]

Hi! If it's not a bother, I would love to read your thoughts on the picture of Crowley & Az from Hamlet existing in Heaven. I have never been able to get my head around that & your posts always get me seeing things in a different way. I'd be interested to know what you think. Thank you!!!

Hello there. 💕 It's never a bother and thanks for the interest and kind words! You also get a bit of a semi-related, bonus meta, as thinking about this scene for you ended up being how I came up with structuring the thoughts I had for the Jim Sorting Books post. There is hot chocolate today since the photo comes from a Gabriel scene. *gets the angel mugs* You'll need it, most likely, as my thoughts on those photos, while short, are a bit dark.

You mentioned the Hamlet photo as the part that stumps you and I'd agree with that being the most intriguing inclusion here because it brings up the question of how these photos were taken. They all look to be taken in the same way but cameras, as we know them, didn't exist in 1601. While we could get into the ideas of Heaven having different technology, it's the Hamlet photo you're talking about that I suspect could contain the answer. I'm not sure if it's this but I don't think I've seen this possibility mentioned. Apologies if it has been.

In 1601, Crowley and Aziraphale are facing the stage in The Globe, right? That image of them is taken from the perspective of someone with a clear view of them-- someone on stage or just behind it at The Globe. If you look at the other images from St. James' Park, Crowley in 1862 and Aziraphale in 2008 are looking in the direction of the observer, like they feel like they're being watched. Maybe it's not always by people with literal cameras, exactly... Michael said they went through the "Earth Observation Files" to get these photos to give to Gabriel and I think what they mean by that is that they combed through people's memories.

I think these images weren't taken with physical cameras the way we know them but they're images from the minds of people, human or supernatural or both, who observed Crowley and Aziraphale at different times. The Hamlet photo is someone's mental image of Crowley and Aziraphale from seeing them there in that moment. All of this kind of Heaven's data is aggregated from the minds of angels or from humans, likely those who have since died and are in Heaven.

Something I think might be a clue to this is how Crowley quickly goes through the minds of everyone around them to see if anyone is actually looking at them before they swap bodies back in S1. He's scanning the minds of every person in their general vicinity and noting on what their attention is focused in order to determine that they are suitably alone enough to swap bodies back unobserved.

1601 was also a Reece Shearsmith scene about the theatre (a performance; people observing) and its related mirror in S2 is The Blitz, Part 2, where Reece Shearsmith returns and is now playing Furfur, who seeks to gain photographic evidence against Crowley and Aziraphale. The 1941 photo parallels the photo trio from S1.

Furfur has to take a picture with a camera-- a chronologically slightly ahead-of-its-time Polaroid-- to present to Dagon as evidence. This presumes that his own mental observation of Crowley & Aziraphale or that of any of the Zombie Trio's own, wouldn't be seen as enough evidence in Hell. That makes sense, since the demons we've met basically all have Swiss cheese memories from their experiences with Heaven. They wouldn't trust anything but the hard evidence of an image taken with an external device.

I kind of like the idea because it also goes along with the theme of recognition. Even if Crowley and Aziraphale were trying not to be observed, the idea is that the images of them do exist in the minds of others and there are plenty of images that aren't of them being stalked. They also just exist in the observation files of everyone they've ever met throughout all of history.

That Hamlet photo is one that both Crowley and Aziraphale would probably actually want, even with its dubious provenance, and they have maybe one picture of the two of them together from all of history at present. I'm pretty sure that Gabriel has the Hamlet photo in whatever pocket dimension locker he also used to stash his suit when he fled Heaven (you know he stashed the suit lol)... so, I guess, at least Jim knows what he's giving his friends for Christmas this year?

Also hey @tickety-boooo? How did we miss this scene that basically *is* our theory?! Check out the three photos-- one each of all the ways they are presented to us, with the one Gabriel pulls closer being the one of them in the private formation with Crowley on Aziraphale's right. 😲

[agentravensong]

sometimes i think about how fully absent horatio is from r&g are dead even though one of the primary reasons for ros & guil’s existence in hamlet is as obvious negative parallels to him (see pages 42-3 of horatio’s hamlet for more on that);

and i think of those meta takes about how hamlet both starts and ends with horatio because he’s the one burdened with telling the story, and how it brings everything full circle;

and i think about horatio’s appearance at the end of r&g are dead. how, in this context, he’s putting the bow on a story that was by no means his to tell — one he may even severely misrepresent depending on your read / the staging of “he never gave commandment for their death” — but a story whose two protagonists exist in the shadow he casts, and cannot escape it.

a story that’s, in a sense, haunted by him: the “better” version of ros and guil (“we didn’t do anything wrong, did we?” ros asks, and the answer is everything and nothing) who wouldn’t have suffered this terrible fate (horatio’s being a different flavor of tragedy); the version that, if he were ever shown on stage with them, would be an even more obvious signal than the title of the show itself that the two of them were failures, and written to be that way.

and then sometimes i start thinking about a version of r&g are dead that has ros and guil interact with horatio. the one who actually understands hamlet (the man) but still can’t sway his or the story’s course; who gets to see how things play out, but in witnessing and knowing it also knows for a fact how pointless it all was; who, unlike the two of them, is spared from death, but also therefore never gets to rest; who, like the two of them, will never not come when summoned, and yet finds himself ultimately reduced to a spectator (though in both hamlet and r&g are dead all spectators remain complicit).

they would have things to talk about, i think. if only they didn’t forget it all when “next time” rolls around.

[90sbee]

Both friends (perhaps even more?) growing up together. Lives intertwined. We do not know much about Horatio's past, we do not know much about Armin's family and past either.

Both men as the intellect, the brain.

Eren and Hamlet losing their fathers. Both having ghosts (actual ghosts and also memories) haunting them. Fathers giving their kids a mission that will doom them, that will end in death.

The idea of revenge. Avenge your mother, avenge your father.

Armin and Horatio acting as sort of the catalysts for their friends' tragedies. Armin showing Eren the book about the outside world, Horatio deciding to tell Hamlet about his father's ghost.

Armin and Horatio having to see their friend/lover lose more and more of themselves. Eren and Hamlet pushing people away, suffering because of the tragedy they do not want to commit.

Eren and Hamlet being tasked with something awful. To bring death. To cause even more pain than the one corrupting them. They end up killing everyone as the story progresses (the Rumbling, the final court scene).

Eren and Hamlet being isolated. Having to hide their fears, their doubts. Both of them specifically hurting their (more canonical) romantic interests': Mikasa and Ophelia, breaking their hearts.

Armin's self sacrificial nature (pretty much dying against the Colossal) and Horatio wanting to drink from the poisoned cup. Armin dying for Eren. Horatio willing to die for Hamlet.

Eren and Hamlet never being able to achieve the life they wanted. A cabin with a lover, exploring the world with Armin; a wedding with an old friend or returning to Wittenberg to be with Horatio. Having to put their lives on hold, everything paused to deal with an inevitable destiny.

"Good night, sweet prince"/"We'll be together, forever". Eren and Hamlet having their last words with Armin and Horatio. One final hug, one final embrace before death as they try to comfort their other half. Armin and Horatio having to witness such death. Losing their other half.

Armin and Horatio as the narrators of the tragedy. Being forced to continue living to tell the story even when death would be nicer, more comfortable. But they cannot afford that.

And these posts by @dearbraus and @spectralsuggestions felt fitting. Horatio had to live without Hamlet too.

Also tell me the soulmates thing doesn't feel right. "no matter what happens, and what has happened, i want to go through it with you"/"in every possible outcome, i want you there, to share it with me" Armin literally accepting to go to hell with Eren. And I'm sure Horatio would have accepted hell as long as he was by Hamlet's side.

Armin and Eren are SO SO SO Hamlet and Horatio coded. Yes I will elaborate later but. Needed to throw it out there for now.

[toastofthetrashfire]

Shadow the Series and Hamlet

Okay so after finishing the first half of Shadow there’s so much to unpack. So instead of doing the research I should be doing for my dissertation, let’s dig into some connections between literature and BL once again!

This won’t be a fully formed meta, and I’ll probably have to make a whole other post once the whole series is out. But I wanted to start thinking about how the show is dialoguing with and speaking to similar themes as Hamlet within a queer framework.

I thought I’d work my way through some different interpretations of Hamlet and connect back to Shadow. To be clear, I’m working with scholarship on Hamlet rather than any personal interpretation of Hamlet itself (which I unfortunately haven’t read or watched in many a years).

A quick summary

Hamlet and Shadow via Freud's Oedipal Complex

Hamlet and Shadow via Lee Edelman's work on queerness, the death drive, and queer time

Hamlet and Shadow via self-recognition and resistant readings

A few other directions

Hamlet and the Oedipal Complex

Back in 1897, Freud wrote about Hamlet in a letter to a friend noting that “falling in love with the mother and jealousy of the father…[was] a universal event of early childhood.” So Hamlet was one of the texts that Freud was thinking about when he came up with the Oedipal complex as a concept.

You may be asking, as I often do, who gives a fuck what Freud thought? Well over time, Freudian interpretations of the play highly influenced how it was performed and the ways that themes about subjectivity and sexuality were portrayed.

The 1948 and 1990 film adaptations in particular put stress on a sexually charged dynamic between Hamlet and his mother Gertrude. The later film has Hamlet lying on top of and wrestling with his mother before they kiss. More recent adaptations tend to move away from this, but, overall, it’s been extremely influential in terms of how the play has been interpreted and adapted.

So how does this come up in Shadow? 

Dan’s role as Hamlet is closely framed around his relationship with his father who he beats up in the dream world right before his death. We’re introduced to Dan’s dad during his audition for Hamlet. Perhaps in the most obvious parallel, Dan recites Hamlet’s lines as he goes to find his father’s ghost. And of course, this is when Dan’s dad appears as a ghost as well.

Yet, Dan’s narrative with his father seems to buck the expected relationship between father and son. Throughout the play, Hamlet struggles between a desire to fulfill his filial duty and avenge his father and the increasing violence and tragedy this brings. But Dan? In the face of abuse, he chooses to defiantly reject his father and filial piety, accepting and even wishing for his death. In many ways, Dan’s dad is more analogous to Claudius, the usurper and man trying to kill Hamlet. Through his abuse he loses the right to be Dan’s father. 

A shallow oedipal reading of Hamlet, frames Claudius as the father Hamlet is trying to kill, but ignores that this dynamic is born from Claudius’ cruelty. By acknowledging abuse, power, and violence Shadow perhaps takes an interesting step away from a pure Freudian reading. Because ultimately Dan doesn’t want to be his father! In fact, as he speaks with him and beats him up, we can see the way Dan is shaken, not by the act of harming or killing his father, but by the idea of becoming him. His father makes clear that “becoming him” is aligned with ideas about what it means to be a man, to be “the father” within a straight patriarchal society. And in a beautiful moment of clarity and defiance as they discuss what love looks like, Dan clarifies that his mom left his father not him. 

Okay so he "kills" his dad, what about his mom?

To be honest, when I was wrapping up my watch of the episodes, my head went towards the oedipal theory as a crack theory. What if the ghost is his mom, that’d be pretty effed up lol...But now that I’ve seen that the connection isn’t just one I made, it doesn’t seem as far fetched. The scenes between Hamlet and Gertrude in the 1990s film certainly could be an influence on the shadow getting sexual if they went that route. But to be honest I don’t really think they’ll go this way. Or at least I hope not. They’re already doing more nuanced things with the oedipal dynamic. Plus I think there’s more going on if we turn to queerer interpretations anyway.

The Death Drive, Queering Freud, and Queer Time

In Freud’s work, he talked about two opposing forces. The first was the death drive (later termed Thanatos by later psychoanalysts). This was a drive toward destruction that stood opposite to eros or life-producing drives such as sex, survival, and reproduction. 

Now, in 2004, queer theorist Lee Edelman would come in and queer the heck out of these concepts. I’ll be over simplifying Edelman’s points a lot here, but hopefully the core will remain. 

Edelman would point out that the life-drive was often weaponized rhetorically, politically, and socially as a way to reproduce cultural norms. Edelman often writes about "the Child"--that is the mythical idea of a child that we should be building society and the future for. Think of how often the “think of the children” rhetoric gets used in anti-queer politics, for example. In fact, Edelman points to oedipal readings of Hamlet as one way that dominant straight society has attempted to manage a narrative where reproduction and futurity are foreclosed. Oedipal readings of Hamlet, then, could be seen as an attempt to suppress the death drive, to put it out of sight where it can’t cause disruption or anxiety.

Of course, Edelman also notes that the death drive is inherently tied to and projected onto queerness and queer people–onto “those abjected as non-reproductive, anti-social, opposed to viability, and so as threats to the Child who assures and embodies collective survival”. And so, Edelman argues that queer people should embrace the death drive and queer time–that is non-futurity and non-linear, non-productive time. 

So how might these ideas be showing up in Shadow so far?

I might think of even more later, but here’s a short list:

1. All three of our main characters are abjected. Nai is gay, Trin is gay and mentally ill, and Dan is potentially both. I think we could argue that the connection all three of them have to death also quite literally marks them as abjected. And perhaps we could consider how the supernatural elements thematically and symbolically connect to their alterity and the way this is in conflict with social norms. In fact, I’d argue that, unlike Nai and Trin who are explicitly stated to be queer and/or mentally ill, Dan’s alterity is playing out through this more allegorical channel so far. 

2. Literal death as a central focus. 

3. Haunting as a limbo between past and present. This liminality feels very queer here.

4. The idea of vengeful ghosts makes the death drive perpetually present in a way that haunts futurity. Interestingly Edelman describes the death drive as a “negativity that haunts the social order” and which is “projected onto those who occupy the position of the queer.” Haunting has very queer thematic possibilities. 

5. Think of the ghost story told in the market in episode seven. The homophobia on display clearly ties queerness to death in a way that speaks to straight norms and anxieties. 

6. Dan is told by the monk that what is happening has to do with overlapping time frames: past, present, and future

7. Dan often loses his sense of what is real or a dream, but he also has moments where he loses his sense of time and temporality. Notice how when the art statue fell and he saw his classmates dead we jump back to before he even spoke with Nai. It’s not just losing time but jumping back and forth. 

8. Sexy times with a shadow monster are certainly non-(re)productive 

9. We learn that Trin has been trying to change things, disrupt the social norms, but he is shut down and told the school needs to hold onto tradition. While we often think of tradition as referring to the past, it is very much about continuing and reproducing this into the future. School director: "But think of the future Children who won’t get to experience the epic highs and lows of high school hazing”

10. There seems to be a tension at play between Brother Anurak who is trying to get Dan to just stop believing in the shadow (not sure if that's his actual motive but still) and Dan who is slowly starting to embrace the shadow (literally and figuratively). Perhaps this could be read as embracing the death drive and queerness. 

Hamlet, Self-Recognition, and Resistant Reading

Another theme that has often been explored by folks interested in Hamlet is that of self-recognition. The play focuses so very much on Hamlet struggling with his sense of self. And this speaks well to contemporary western ideas of the individual. One scholar, Marjorie Garbor, has noted that “the experience of Hamlet is almost always that of recognition.” While another, John Gouws remarks that Hamlet and Shakespeare’s sonnets both “seem capable of functioning like Rorschach inkblots, by making us reveal (increasingly) more about ourselves the more we try saying something about them.”

It’s interesting to me then that Hamlet and Rorschach tests are both used in Shadow, but they don’t seem to say all that much about Dan. The blot is simply a tool to test if Dan is still seeing the shadow. It isn’t used to psychoanalyze him further. And when Cha-aim asks Dan to compare himself to Hamlet he hilariously just says both their dads are dead. Of course we know that Hamlet’s dad and Dan’s aren’t exactly analogous either. Dan rejects this sort of self-identification. Or perhaps, the play rejects him? At the very least we know that he can’t perform the type of filial love that Hamlet has for his own father.

But perhaps this rejection has queer implications as well. There’s a really lovely article from the perspective of a queer South African director, Thys Heydenrych. He talks about reading and staging Hamlet through a queer and decolonial lens. In his piece he quotes Hanna Kubowitz who discusses queer readers' relationship with texts. She notes that “[b]eing heterosexual has several benefits…One can enter into most cultural narratives…on the basis of simple and satisfying identification.” This of course made me think of the moment when Cha-aim asks Dan to identify with Hamlet.

Whether we read this as an active refusal on Dan’s part or as the play being inhospitable to Dan’s identification, Cha-aim is asking Dan to express and perform identity here. Perhaps this could be read as her asking Dan to narratively self-identify with straight culture and values. It makes sense in the context of her having feelings for him and ties well into the scene where she tries to pick his costume. While Dan isn’t yet identifying as queer, he seems to be dis-identifying from straightness just as he dis-identifies from his father’s version of manhood. 

Still, motifs of self-recognition or the struggle to understand oneself seem to abound. The use of mirrors in episodes 6 and 7 speak to this theme well with the blurring of self and other, while also tying into both horror motifs and the Greek mythology being referenced (Orpheus and Eurydice, narcissus perhaps). Is the shadow a part of him?   

What I’ll be curious to see is how the show chooses to engage with this theme. Will Hamlet continue to serve as a narrative that is inhospitable to identification or will it be queered. There’s a tradition of scholarship that thinks about resistant reading. This is when a reader engages with a text that wasn’t designed with them in mind, but finds potential despite this. Certainly Shakespeare’s work and Hamlet in particular have been interpreted as queer at times, and Hamlet is definitely open to these readings.

When it comes to Shadow, however, I’m interested in what one scholar, Lois Tyson, has asked about resistant reading: “How might the works of heterosexual writers be reread to reveal an unspoken or unconscious lesbian, gay, or queer presence?” This idea of a hidden queer presence speaks well to the idea of haunting. I’m really interested to see how the use of Hamlet as a narrative might speak to the idea of queerness as hidden presence and whether this continues to play out in the second half.  

A few other connections that I want to wait to think on more:

-Madness seems to be a shared theme but I want to see how Shadow handles this as a whole before commenting, but you can check out my post on queer and crip time in The Eighth Sense if you're interested in that element at all

-Power and oppression. Heydenrych’s article mentions a 2010 production that focuses on Denmark’s repressive political system and themes of surveillance, control, and abuse of power. These seem like themes working their way into Shadow but I’d want to be more familiar with the topic in Hamlet

-Suicide. There are versions of Hamlet that heighten this theme further with Gertrude and Ophelia in particular being framed as making attempts. 

-Play within a play and the blurring of fiction and reality

-Decolonial and religious elements

Sources:

Heydenrych, Thys. “‘To tell our Storie’: Reflections on a Queer Adaptation of Hamlet in Twenty-first Century South Africa” Shakespeare in Southern Africa vol 30, 2017. pp. 43-55

Edelman, Lee. “Against Survival: Queerness in a Time That’s Out of Joint” Shakespeare Quarterly, 62.2, 2011. pp. 148-169.

Edelman, Lee. No Future: Queer Theory and The Death Drive. Duke University Press, 2004.

Note: Most other sources were mentioned in the Heydenrych piece

[utilitycaster]

The wildest part about the reaction to Ashton’s comment is that Laudna herself didn’t even seem to take it personally? Her reaction to it seemed more like “ok that’s not true and I’m going to push back on it, but you’re clearly having a self destructive dark night of the soul and I want to make sure you’re okay”. Like give our girl a little more credit here.

Hey anon,

Hope you don't mind but you are getting a heavily edited and more measured part of the threatened rant because like. Yeah. That's the thing isn't it? Laudna is the one who sought out Ashton while they were drinking. And when he slips into self-pity, she tells him to snap out of it, but she's not mad. I happen to agree with this meta that Ashton isn't saying "I know loneliness and you don't"; they're saying "I know the very specific loneliness of not knowing where I came from". (I also think there's a possibility that they're saying "I know the loneliness that comes from knowing the people who weren't there when you came back to life could have been and chose not to"; it's not that Laudna didn't wake up alone the first time, it's that she was alone because everyone else was dead whereas the Nobodies could have chosen to stick by them and did not.) And then, the next day, he apologizes (something Imogen does not do), and she tells him not to be too hard on himself.

Laudna clearly looks on this conversation positively. She even brings it up when she talks with Imogen in that manner - she doesn't say "wow can you believe what that asshole said?" but rather focuses on Ashton's compliment to her. I mean, it's nothing new, for people to carefully ignore any context that might more sympathetically frame a character they hate, or to defend how perfect and traumatized their Mary Sue-ass interpretation of a female character is in such a way that it denies the actual agency and emotions of that character as portrayed on screen, but it's just as stupid every time, as is the constant insistence that the best way to have a ship is to isolate two characters such that they only have each other, that they're the only ones who can ever truly understand each other.

You know, I've seen people draw parallels between Laudna telling Imogen the choice is up to her regarding how they proceed tomorrow, and Imogen telling Laudna that the choice was up to her during her resurrection. And here's the thing: Imogen's appeal to Laudna during the resurrection failed. The goal of bringing Laudna back succeeded, but Imogen's specific attempt was a minor hindrance, not a help.

I can't help but wonder if Laudna leaving things to Imogen might end up the same; that they keep going on, together, but these hairline fractures keep building up and never healing, and perhaps one day there will be too many.

Shippers keep saying this is so beautiful because it's about giving each other choices when they've never had any, but that's patently untrue. Laudna had no choice in Delilah, but really, given how normal people even in small towns like Heartmoor Hamlet have been towards her, or the fact that she's not significantly weirder than Weva Vudol, or the fact that every shopkeeper in Exandria is, canonically, fucking bananas, there's a lot she could have done in those 30 years. I mean, she somehow made it to Gelvaan which is not exactly something you fall into from Tal'Dorei without making some kind of decision. Imogen had no choice in her powers but otherwise she's had no shortage of choices. In fact, that's quite literally what Laudna is saying: Imogen always had the option of going to live in a cottage and raise horses. Imogen has always had choices, and doesn't need to kill the gods to free herself.

For that matter, could you not draw a similar parallel between Laudna's transformation at the hands of Delilah without her choosing, and Ashton, who was part of a ritual as a young child below any reasonable age of consent that permanently changed them physically? Or FCG, who was quite literally programmed to be who they are? If you take off the shipper goggles and actually remember that there are five other characters, suddenly these parallels become far more widespread.

But also: here's the thing about leaving all the choices up to the other person. It protects you from the possibility that they might say no to you. It reframes things: had Laudna not been successfully resurrected, she's not saying no to Imogen; she's making her own choice, even though the result is the same. If Imogen goes with Otohan now, well, then Laudna can tell herself that it was Imogen's choice to side with the woman who murdered her, but at least she has the thin comfort that Imogen didn't exactly say "no" to a direct appeal; that it's merely an implied rather than explicit betrayal.

It's just...I know this campaign is a little weird in that this massive world-ending event is happening comparatively early; but also, Imogen and Laudna have known each other for two years. And obviously Imogen isn't Vex, she isn't Vax, she isn't Fjord, she isn't Beau or Yasha, but like, you know what all of those people did when they were facing a dangerous situation and thought death was imminent? They, through word or action, looked at the person they loved and didn't just say "I love you", they said "I'm in love with you", "can I kiss you," or opened the door naked. They said "I might die tomorrow and I cannot go forward without telling you that this is something more than just friendship to me," knowing that it was possible that, on the last night of their life, the person they loved might turn them down. Hell, Keyleth did initially turn Vax down, and he still did it.

Imogen and Laudna? They spent the night the same way they might have at the very beginning of the campaign - before the campaign, even. Laudna said she loved Imogen in what, episode 6? They've been sharing rooms and beds for two years. Nothing has changed in their relationship. And it is my suspicion that nothing will, until one of them actually asks something of the other. And again - that's all it will take for me to go from "this is boring and empty" to "ok, this is a ship" - for them to be able to take a risk.

I could quite honestly go on but like...this reply, which I got shortly after Laudna's death (when I said there was value in a story in which she remains dead) has haunted me since.

It really explains everything, doesn't it? It's why people were mad when I said it was valid for Imogen to be upset at Laudna about the gnarlrock; it's why they were mad that I said that there was no canonical basis for the people of Gelvaan or Relvin mistreating Imogen (in fact, it outright contradicts what we've seen in canon); it's why they hate Ashton right now. It's why if Imogen is interested in the gnarlrock as a way to find relief from her powers and gets mad at Laudna for breaking it, she sucks, but if Imogen considers starting the apocalypse to find relief from her powers it's totally fine. It's why they'll harass people for saying "you know, it could be an interesting story if Laudna dies permanently," and then turn around and offer more sympathy to Otohan - the character who would have been responsible for that permanent death - than they do to Orym, the character who has lost two family members and nearly his own life to her. Because Otohan might have murdered Laudna, but damn, at least she seems to ship it.

They don't see Imogen and Laudna as separate characters who can grow and change - they don't even refer to Laudna as her own fucking name, just as part of a portmanteau - and they are terrified whenever the two have even the slightest conflict (not unlike Imogen and Laudna themselves) because it means that the characters interact with people other than each other. Laudna dying permanently isn't a character death to them - it's "throwing [the ship] away." Laudna having other conversations and relationships is a threat to the ship, even if Laudna enjoys it - in fact, especially if Laudna enjoys it. Other people coming into Imogen's dreams with the express purpose of helping her is a threat. Because if either of the characters ever realize that this codependency isn't serving them, and that they have other people who will stand by them and won't leave them to their loneliness...well. The constant reassurances that they have each other might no longer be enough if they have other people.

That's why the shippers are mad at Ashton. Yes, because it's a possible competing ship; but also because they pointed out that Laudna had six people by her when she woke up, not just one, and that opens the door to Laudna realizing she has other people who will stand by her, and who aren't openly and repeatedly entertaining an alliance with her murderer. They do not actually give a shit about how Laudna feels.

[eattherichplease]

The Addams Nunnery Theory

So, I'm no expert on Shakespeare or even the English language, which is unfortunate, because I'm going to make a half-hearted –but very brave!– attempt of deciphering the parallels and references to Hamlet in Wednesday (2022) that, I believe, are intentional, and can give us hints of what's to come in season 2.

(A warning: I'm smarter in Spanish. This reads like broken English because it is)

Anyway here's the facts: there are scattered references to Hamlet, or at the very least Ophelia, on the show. I have other things to do with my life so let's focus on episode 1 for now. The references are not subtle.

First of all, principal Weems sends Wednesday to Ophelia Hall, where both she and Morticia used to live.

Ophelia from Hamlet? Kinda!

Does Ophelia kills herself? Maybe! Most likely! Let's say yes. Most experts say yes, it makes narrative sense, and Wednesday seems pretty sure about it.

But is Ophelia driven mad by her family? Well it's been a while since I read Hamlet... but I won't say that's the main reason. Ophelia goes mad because she's in love with Hamlet, who a) doesn't love her back (maybe?), b) treats her like shit (as a bit?), c) rejects her brutally, d) kills her father (a dick move tbh).

So Larissa Weems sends Wednesday to "Unrequited Love that Drives You Crazy" Hall, where she and Morticia used to live together... Subtle, Larissa. Real smooth, girl.

Anyway let's keep going.

Enid gives Wednesday the tour, which includes the fountain in the quad with the carved image of Ophelia drowning inside! like this:

Right there sitting with Ophelia we have our main girl Bianca Barclay, who is introduced to the viewer alongside the Ophelia statue/carving thing, and:

Is this then our Ophelia, hopelessly in love with the tortured prince of Denmark, destined to (ironically) drown? (ironic because she is a siren you know). Well, that would make Xavier our Hamlet. He's a rich heir and tortured by visions... So maybe? That's an option! But I think that's the superficial reading. Bianca doesn't go mad, after all, doesn't commit suicide. She moves on. Xavier doesn't go mad either, he doesn't kill anyone, not even himself. I believe they are just a red herring, a misdirection. Or maybe an early prototype, an aperitif, a model of what's to come. It's a one-act play that happens before the real play starts, to warm the audience. Fascinating, right?

After showing us the drama, the focus goes back –and remains– on Wednesday and Enid. And here's when Wednesday and Enid start showing their famous dynamic of vitriol & sugar, sarcasm & heart. Wednesday plays the insufferable Hamlet, endlessly monologuing inside her head, playing with the macabre for funsies and making comments about anything and everyone from her high horse without any regard for the feelings of the people around her:

While Enid usually takes a deep breath and counts to ten inside her head:

As she herself will say later, she's trying hard to be Wednesday's friend.... and Wednesday is not going to make it easy for her.

So the stage is set. Turn for the dramatis personae. Who is who in this drama? As you have possibly guessed, I posit that Wednesday is Hamlet. She is a rich heir, she is the most intellectual of all characters, she believes she's surrounded by idiots, she pretends to be "normal" or "mad" as she sees fit (and sometimes she seems to be truly unhinged), she has a dark sense of humor (alas, Yorrik), she thinks herself victim of a great conspiracy, she tries to unravel a murder mystery, she hates her mother, etc, etc, etc. She is also the "meta" character. She is writing a murder mystery inside a murder mystery.

And like Hamlet, Wednesday is visited by the ghost of her father (in this case her ancestor Goody), that tells her he's been murdered (colonized, genocided, burned alive). That's the start of the plot.

So Wednesday is Hamlet.

Who is Ophelia? Who is going to slowly go crazy of unrequited love for Wednesday? We have three candidates:

Tyler the psycho boy. He's not really in love with Wednesday (not really, his words) and he's not suicidal (quite the opposite)... True, his father do forbids him from courting Wednesday, which mirrors the scene where Polonius does the same with Ophelia (although for different reasons). But Tyler is not a victim, he's a real monster, a criminal. He doesn't even show remorse. And even if he's mad, he doesn't go mad because of Wednesday rejection... He was a bully and a crazy axe-murderer way before that. He's no Ophelia. Also, his father is not killed by Wednesday (he's police, which means he can't be killed by our beloved protagonist, because this is an American show! yikes!)

Xavier. A nice Ophelia indeed! He is obsessed with Wednesday to the point of being pathetic. He draws creepy, realistic paintings of her in his personal studio to admire. And he's brutally rejected by her. He's even thrown in jail by "Hamlet"! In the play, Hamlet threatens Ophelia with sending her to "the nunnery", or contemptuously sends her to "the nunnery" (as a joke??), to make clear he doesn't want anything with her. Wednesday seems to be doing the same here, sanding Xavier to horny jail (literally). So do we have a winner? Maybe! Xavier doesn't go mad with sadness after being rejected... well not yet at least. Also Wednesday hasn't killed his father... yet. She will probably in season 2... Vincent Thorpe is most probably the stalker.

But wait, we still have one contender in the match for the role of Ophelia! Our girl Enid!! My girl! I love her dearly. Is she in love with Wednesday? I'll say yes, but it's open to interpretation. It's Wednesday in love with her? Same answer. Things are complex in this world of compulsory heterosexuality where showing shappics loving each other in a screen can make Esther Sinclair (Netflix) send you to conversion camp (show cancelled). So everything depends of season 2! Is she in love with Hamlet!Wednesday? Will she be driven mad by Wednesday's attitude and constant rejection of her advances? I kinda doubt it. Wednesday seems to be warming up (the hug, you know). But maybe Enid wants more, Wednesday says no, etc? Enid could be Ophelia. Don't want her to be though. That would be a home of phobia.

Anyway the Nunnery Theory.

In the play, Hamlet says to Ophelia:

"I say, we will have no more marriages (...) To a nunnery, go."

Which basically means: "Girl, I don't want nothing with you, I don't even want marriages in the kingdom: that's how much I don't want to marry you. Go to a convent and get yourself interned. Also fuck you".

So Ophelia goes mad. Also Hamlet kills her father. And she commits suicide.

And so, three possibilities for season 2:

Wednesday rejects Tyler (done). He goes mad (he already was). Wednesday kills officer Galpin (why?). Tyler commits suicide (because he suddenly develops a conscience, because showrunners are lazy) or goes to jail forever ("nunnery").

Wednesday rejects Xavier (done). He goes mad (kinda?). Wednesday kills Vincent Thorpe (probably for unrelated reasons). Xavier commits suicide (because he is a drama king) or goes crazy and is interned in a mental asylum ("nunnery").

Wednesday rejects Enid (because he is a mess with emotions). Enid goes mad (lots of anger inside that girl, we love her for that). Wednesday kills Esther Sinclair (deserved, I'll give her a standing ovation to be honest). Enid commits suicide (I'll put a b**** in the Netflix headquarters) or is interned in werewolf jail (the home of phobia).

All of this IF and only IF Xavier is still a character in the show (maybe he'll be recasted), since Percy Hynes White seems to have been fired for being a creep and kind of a criminal (presumptive). So maybe he's not even there. Or maybe he commits suicide in episode 1 and that's the murder mystery of the season. (That's what I'll do but I don't work for Netflix).

Also Bianca could be Ophelia and she's still in love with Xavier and drowns which is the dumbest thing ever. Not even an option.

So who will be sent to the nunnery???? I sure don't know.

I'm tired bye!!! If you read all of this I love you!!!

[benicebefunny]

Faulty Parallels and Parables

There's some fannish consensus that "Big Week" is meant as a lesson for the show's audience. Richmond's overblown and inappropriate response to Nathan tearing down the sign is a parallel of real-life fans reacting so violently to S2 Nathan. (ETA: Here are examples of the kind of violent fan reactions I'm talking about.) I can definitely see that. Particularly in the very meta scene where actor-writer-producers Brett Goldstein and Brendan Hunt acknowledge their role in creating this reaction and beg their boss for the punishment that will relieve them of their white guilt.

However intended, "Big Week" doesn't work as a lesson. The attempted parallel between fans and the players doesn't do what it's meant to. Because once again the writing resists acknowledging racism as a structuring logic of society and the show.

Racism is at the core of both sides of the parallel (the fans' and the players' reactions), but it's not openly addressed in the writing.

"Big Week" fails as a condemnation of fan reactions to Nathan, because it

Does not address the actual motivation for fannish vitriol: racism.

Perpetuates the myth that fans were angry at something Nathan had done rather than who Nathan is.

Misattributes fan hate to Black men.

Panders to the people it should be educating.

To be clear: at a fundamental level, the fan backlash (ETA: referring again to shit like this) wasn't about Nathan ripping a sign. People were angry, suspicious, and hateful toward Nathan long before the finale aired. He'd already been determined guilty based on theories and suppositions of what he might do. Concerningly, people were reveling in his forecasted crimes; they wanted him to be bad.

Dramatic Irony is for White People

Brendan Hunt has spoken about leaving breadcrumbs about Nathan's schism with Ted. And Nick Mohammed notably explained Nathan's S2 journey on Twitter, laying out the moments that led to and hinted at his final destination. However, on Tumblr, the issue wasn't that fans weren't picking up on foreshadowing. The problem--the racism--lies in how fans reacted emotionally to the foreshadowing.

Contrast fan's eagerness for Nathan to do spectacularly wrong with how I re-watched Titanic as a child. From the start of the film, I knew the ship was doomed to sink. After watching the film once, I knew that Jack died. Yet, every time I watched, I still hoped that ship wouldn't sink and no one would die.

Watching through your fingers, hoping that a character will avoid their fate is a familiar mode of viewership for tragedies heavy on the dramatic irony. Either through outside knowledge or foreshadowing, we know something the characters don't know. No matter how much we yell at the screen (or in Jamie's case, the actors on stage), how many times we cry, "Don't go in there!" the characters cannot hear us.

The characters are doomed by the narrative, but we remain on their side. We hope and pray and beg for them to avoid the path only we can see.

This is not how Tumblr generally responded to Nathan's S2 arc. Perhaps contrary to the writers' assumptions, Nathan didn't inspire the same reaction as the tragic white heroes from English class. Despite the writers' attempts to create a race-blind narrative (which @blackstaring has explained is impossible), audiences treated Nathan less like Hamlet and more like, well, a South Asian man living in a security state.

We Do Not Watch in a Vacuum

The fannish rhetoric around Nathan's villainy matched the rhetoric used by the US and UK to justify the War on Terror, surveillance, and persecution of Muslims and anyone who "looked Muslim." In the early 2000s, entire communities and whole countries were reframed as potential terrorists.

As a result, if the US and UK governments can frame you as having the potential to cause them harm, they can treat you as though you already have. They can spy on you, lock you up, take away your rights, entrap you. Having the potential to do harm has been collapsed with doing actual harm. Another tool for persecuting racialized communities.

Through the Patriot Act, the US government obtained unprecedented access to private records and warrantless searches. If the government decided someone was a terrorist, it could pull their library records and deduce guilt from what books they borrowed. In the detective fiction of yore, gathering evidence was a way to determine guilt. In the security state, presuming guilt became the pretext for gathering evidence. And that evidence could be massaged to fit the existing conclusion of guilt.

And it's not just the government. People in the US and UK are encouraged--and, in some cases, required by law--to inform on other people. "If you see something, say something." State-sanctioned suspicion fosters Islamophobia, racism, and xenophobia. Civilians are empowered to act as law enforcement.

And that's how many fans treated Nathan in S2. People were digging through Nathan's past actions, combing through S1 like the NSA reading your browser history. People identified "red flags" to justify hating Nathan for something he hadn't yet done. Moments previously considered benign, endearing, or hilarious became warning signs.

This is a very long way of saying: Racism is why fans are so angry at Nathan. Racism is why he was assumed guilty before the end of S2. Racism is why an alarming number of fans saw a brown character and thought, "I better investigate."

It's not the fucking sign. It's racism.

And the script for "Big Week" was all about the fucking sign. Racism didn't get a word in edgewise. But it was there. It was so fucking there.

Ignoring All the Racist Shit the White Characters Do

There were so many opportunities where characters could have talked about race, but didn't.

Trent, like fans in S2, felt empowered to investigate Nathan. He took it upon himself to retrieve security footage based on a hunch. He thought a brown man did something bad--and he accessed existing surveillance to confirm his suspicions. Trent chalks this up to his past in journalism. Which checks out, because journalists were frighteningly complicit in the War on Terror and the rise of the security state.

That aspect of journalism Trent likes. The ethical commitment to not reveal one's sources? He's not so keen on that. At least, not when Nathan is the source. Not when Trent has the opportunity to deflect blame from himself. Not when he can report a brown man to a white authority figure. (If you see something, say something. Right, Trent?) In that case, Trent's just "someone who respects [Ted]."

Trent smirking at Nathan falling in the security footage underscored that Trent does not respect Nathan. He doesn't care if Nathan hurts himself in pursuit of an ideal Ted placed out of his reach. Trent thinks it's kinda funny.

I am waiting and waiting and waiting for someone to ask Trent, "Would you have revealed Nathan as a source if he were white? Out of all the anonymous sources you've had in your career, why was Nathan the one you chose to betray? What was so different about him? No, no, I don't want to hear about Ted and how good he is. This is about Nathan. You harmed them both, but this is about Nathan. Why Nathan? Why did you abandon your ethics the moment they applied to him? What is it about Nathan that makes him so unworthy of your protection? And now with the video. Why were you so happy to see him fall? There are vanishingly few managers of color in the Premier League. Why were you so happy to see him fall?"

I am waiting for Ted to ask Beard, "How'd you decide that Nathan was the one who leaked my story? I mean, you didn't have any evidence, right? And there are other people who know about my panic attacks. Why did you immediately assume it was Nathan? ... Beard, if he's been acting off, getting worse and worse, and you could see all that--why didn't you help him? If it was so obvious he was hurting, why didn't you do anything for him? You didn't have to fix everything but... It feels like, I don't know, his pain didn't matter until it hurt me. Why does my pain--my pasty, freckly white pain--matter more than Nathan's?"

I am waiting for Roy, Ted, Jamie, Rebecca, Keeley--any of the white heroes--to reckon with their canonical racist actions.

But that didn't happen in "Big Week." I am not optimistic it will ever happen. Because to acknowledge racism in this respect would tear at the threads of this racist ass fucking tapestry.

Which brings us to the sign.

Ted Leads a White Supremacist Cult on Company Time

The in-universe reverence for the sign is built on racism. The team treats the sign like a holy relic bestowed upon them by their White Savior Ted. Without the White Savior trope, the sign has no value. It's just a piece of paper with paint on it. But because Ted is this Messiah-like figure, it is imbued with supernatural value.

As @kutputli touches on in a reaction post to this episode, Ted intentionally crafts a "Christlike" persona. Ted casts himself as a martyr. Ted deciding which loads to share and which to bear alone is both an expression and a source of power. Ted's conspicuous acts of self-sacrifice are not altruistic. They are means to an end and identity: the White Savior. That cross Ted keeps nailing himself to is a seat of colonial power.

Ted has created a cult-like atmosphere at the club. He uses catchphrases, meaningless aphorisms, ceremonies, and the fucking sign to bind people together and BELIEVE. He made the team burn their most prized possession in a ritual sacrifice he invented. He lies about the natural world to support his message (goldfish memories are much longer than that!). He renamed one of his disciples. That's cult leader behavior.

Ted's cult trades on the White Savior ideology. This is a belief that white people are so superior that we can--and are destined to--save all people of color from themselves. What's more, white people don't need training or knowledge or experience or fluency in the lingua franca to do all this saving. No, no, no, we possess a special white people magic that lets us just do it.

This is why rich white people have pet charities. This is why white youths think they can save the world by volunteering over spring break. This is why Ted has the confidence to coach football. He's white; many of the players aren't: ergo, Ted has magical powers.

If Ted wasn't going around like, "I am the Lasso way," no one would care about the fucking sign.

Ted is the root of the anger and violence at the sign's destruction. The buck started with him. Ted's responsibility for creating a holy relic is not acknowledged in the episode.

Ted remains the innocent, but magical, martyr. Meanwhile, Moe, Isaac Richard, and Thierry get red cards. They are officially recognized for their inappropriate violence. (ETA: I am now learning that Richard, not Isaac got red carded. My apologies. And congrats to the writers room for not singling out three Black players for punishment. Your "I'm slightly more competent than one viewer assumed I was" award is in the mail.)

This is another spot where the fan-player parallel unravels.

Addressing the Audience

Black men are not responsible for the fannish vitriol aimed at Nathan. People subjugated by white supremacy (which is what Ted's White Savior cult does) are not the ringleaders of Nate Hate. This is very much a white led movement.

Such white fans have demonstrated a staunch refusal to empathize with, relate to, or recognize their shared humanity with Nathan. These are not the people who are gonna look at Moe, Isaac, and Thierry, and think, "Oh god, that's me." If the writers were trying to convince fans they were wrong, they could hardly have picked less effective audience surrogates.

(ETA: Richard as audience surrogate hasn't proven effective either. Fan reaction to Richard's violence has been particularly laudatory. It's telling that he is getting the "short Frenchman is an adorably insane feral kitten" treatment. If viewers are seeing themselves in Richard, it is not an image of accountability.)

And that raises the question: why use audience surrogates at all? Why not address the audience directly? The season premiere could have opened on Brett, Brendan, and Jason standing in front of a curtain, out of character. They could do a disclaimer like 90s teen shows did when they had a Very Special Episode. But instead of warning about drugs or alcohol, they could just say how wrong and racist the reaction to Nathan has been. They could take accountability for their role in writing Nathan so carelessly. They could make clear that the fan reaction was unacceptable. They could say that Nate Haters should just stop watching the show or at least shut the fuck up.

But they didn't. Because that wouldn't make good business sense, right? It might drive viewers away. Nate Haters are a core demo, after all.

So, instead, "Big Week" offers an indirect, incomplete, and inaccurate parable. Audiences can choose to interpret it however they wish. No one has to learn anything if they don't want to.

The episode doesn't just fail to rebuke viewers engaged in a racist fan movement. It fucking panders to them.

[cto10121]

R&J Clown Takes Special Edition—Hamlet/Horatio Parallels and The Migratory Slash Fandom

In which I focus on one particular clown take and see if it at least gives me a couple of chuckles/insightful meta. Today’s R&J Clown Takes comes a relatively rare but definitely not unheard-of crossover I’ve seen pop up every so often—supposed Hamlet/Horatio and R&J parallels, particularly their death scenes.

But all right, OP, I’ll bite. Let’s investigate whether these parallels are warranted.

So in R&J, Romeo goes on a fulsome speech before he drinks the potion. His last words before drinking the potion are these:

Romeo. Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide,

Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on

The dashing rocks thy seasick weary barque

Here’s to my love. [Drinks the poison]

O true apothecary,

Thy drugs are quick! Thus with a kiss I die.

He kisses Juliet, then dies. Juliet wakes up after Romeo ends himself, the Friar pleads with her to go with her, Juliet rejects him, he leaves, and says this:

Juliet. What’s here? A cup closed in my true love’s hand?

Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end.

She then immediately tries to drink it. But it’s all gone.

Juliet. O churl!—drunk all, and left no friendly drop

To help me after? I will kiss thy lips.

Haply some poison yet doth hang on them

To make me die with a restorative. [kisses Romeo]

Thy lips are warm!

Like Romeo, Juliet also kisses him. She then hears noise and decides to kill herself with Romeo’s dagger.

In the ~supposedly equivalent scene in Hamlet, Hamlet is dying from Laertes’ cut, and urgently tells Horatio explicitly to tell his story to the world.

Hamlet. Horatio, I am dead,

Thou liv’st. Report me and my cause aright

To the unsatisfied.

Horatio. Never believe it.

I am more an antique Roman than a Dane.

Here’s yet some liquor left.

Horatio rejects Hamlet’s request (or rather command), comparing himself to an ancient Roman than a modern Dane—as in, a subordinate soldier to his commander. He then aims to drink the potion.

Hamlet. As thou’rt a man,

Give me the cup. Let go. By heaven, I’ll ha’t!

Hamlet not only rejects Horatio’s attempted suicide but also tries to stop him verbally and (implied) physically, by throwing the cup away from him. He then repeats his injunction:

Hamlet. O God, Horatio, what a wounded name,

Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me!

If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,

Absent thee from felicity a while

And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain

To tell my story.

Hamlet’s “If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart” is clearly rhetorical, but it’s interesting that he still felt the need to ask him to mourn him and act as witness, as if he weren’t sure Horatio’s affection for him.

Apart from “there’s yet some poison/liquor” idea, I think it’s clear from these two death scenes that there is no true parallel. Romeo compares himself to a ship, a pilot, and explicitly calls Juliet his love. He dies on Juliet’s kiss. Juliet, waking up, tries to kill herself on his kiss before opting for the dagger. All throughout, the emphasis is on their love.

Meanwhile, Horatio compares himself to a Roman soldier, whose honor would compel him to commit suicide for his superior. Hamlet rejects the suicide but implicitly buttresses this general/lieutenant metaphor, giving him the command to “report” his story—like an actual general to his lieutenant. There is also a clear parallel/reference to Julius Caesar, written about a year before Hamlet, particularly Brutus’ commander’s honor suicide.

In any case, there are no kisses and unlike Juliet, Horatio does accept Hamlet’s command that he not kill himself (and, explicitly re:Hamlet, to “man up!”). For his part Hamlet is almost wholly concerned with his reputation, although he does acknowledge Horatio’s feelings and how difficult it would be for him to talk about his late friend.

If Shakespeare had wanted a true R&J parallel, one would assume he would have had Horatio drink the poison after Hamlet’s death. Or better yet, decide to use his dagger/sword and attempt to wound himself along with Hamlet, as Juliet did. But of course, that would have been OOC for Horatio, and go against the very quality Hamlet had praised him for—not being passion’s slave. Even his attempted suicide was logical—as in, it follows the logic of honor killing.

[fakerobotrealblog]

"Hamlet" by William Shakespeare is one of the most iconic and frequently adapted plays in the literary canon. Its exploration of themes such as revenge, madness, and existentialism has inspired numerous adaptations across various mediums. Here's an in-depth analysis of "Hamlet" and some notable adaptations:

### "Hamlet" by William Shakespeare:

1. **Existentialism and Moral Ambiguity:**

- "Hamlet" is renowned for its exploration of existential themes. The protagonist, Prince Hamlet, grapples with moral ambiguity, contemplating life, death, and the consequences of revenge. The famous soliloquy "To be or not to be" encapsulates these existential reflections.

2. **Madness and Deception:**

- Hamlet's feigned madness and the broader theme of deception add layers to the narrative. The play explores the thin line between reality and illusion, raising questions about the authenticity of appearances.

3. **Complex Characters:**

- Characters like Claudius, Gertrude, Ophelia, and Polonius contribute to the complexity of the play. Each character has intricate motives and relationships, adding depth to the exploration of human nature.

4. **Dramatic Irony:**

- Shakespeare employs dramatic irony throughout the play, where the audience possesses knowledge that some characters lack. This creates tension and engages the audience in the unfolding tragedy.

5. **Ghost Motif:**

- The appearance of King Hamlet's ghost introduces the supernatural element and sets the revenge plot in motion. The ghost serves as a catalyst for Hamlet's internal conflict and moral dilemma.

### Notable Adaptations:

1. **"The Lion King" (1994):**

- This animated film draws clear parallels with "Hamlet," portraying Simba's journey mirroring Hamlet's quest for justice and self-discovery. The uncle Scar corresponds to Claudius, adding a familial and Shakespearean dimension to the Disney classic.

2. **"Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" (1990):**

- Tom Stoppard's play and subsequent film take a unique perspective, focusing on two minor characters from "Hamlet." It explores existential themes and the concept of fate, providing a meta-theatrical commentary on the original play.

3. **"Hamlet" (1996) - Directed by Kenneth Branagh:**

- Branagh's film adaptation offers a faithful rendition of the play, emphasizing its theatrical roots. The unabridged version allows for a comprehensive exploration of the characters and themes, staying true to the original text.

4. **"Hamlet" (2000) - Directed by Michael Almereyda:**

- Set in modern-day New York, this adaptation features Ethan Hawke as Hamlet. The contemporary setting introduces new layers to the play's exploration of power, corruption, and surveillance.

5. **"Hamlet" (1948) - Directed by Laurence Olivier:**

- Olivier's film, a more traditional adaptation, won several Academy Awards. It is praised for its visual aesthetics and Olivier's nuanced portrayal of Hamlet.

6. **"Hamlet" (2015) - Directed by Kenneth Branagh:**

- Branagh returned to "Hamlet" in 2015, this time focusing on the character's internal struggles. The film explores Hamlet's psychological state and emphasizes the emotional depth of the play.

### Common Themes Across Adaptations:

1. **Reinterpretation of Characters:**

- Different adaptations may reinterpret characters, offering new perspectives on their motivations and actions.

2. **Modernization and Contextual Shifts:**

- Many adaptations place "Hamlet" in different time periods or cultural contexts, highlighting its universality and adaptability.

3. **Focus on Specific Themes:**

- Some adaptations emphasize particular themes such as political intrigue, mental health, or familial relationships, providing a fresh lens on the original material.

In conclusion, "Hamlet" continues to captivate audiences through its timeless exploration of human nature and existential dilemmas. Its adaptability to various mediums and reinterpretation across diverse contexts underscore its enduring relevance in the realm of literature and performance.

[kmze]

Thanks for the book recommendation.I love Greek Mythology.And great meta by the way.Jane Eyre is one of my favourites.I think I had read the meta back in the day.You know when s7 first started and val's character was introduced, I thought they were paralleling her with Bertha Mason since she was locked up in the prison world and Bertha in the attic.But then..well never mind.And there are some Hamlet-Ophelia/Stefan-Caroline parallels in s7 as well although not sure how intentional they were.Another thing was Defan's choice of women (Dopplegangers) having similarities with their mother.Oedipus Complex?

Anyway, I noticed this show did some cool book references over the seasons.In s1, it was Wuthering Heights,in s3 it was Moby Dick.I think Stefan had mentioned Fitzergerald's Great Gatsby being one his favourites in s1.

You're welcome Anon! If you like Greek mythology I highly recommend her books I also read The Song of Achilles which was one of the most beautifully written books I ever read, it made me cry so much. Yeah that meta was great, the account deactivated but I remember the user and she had some really great insight and posts during S6-8. God this just reminds me again of the wastedness of S7 because Dries was driven by spite rather than creativity because the way Stefan/Lily/Damon was set up in S6 looked so interesting and then it was completely neglected in S7. In 7x07 Damon even says "what is this Hamlet community theater" when Julian linked himself to Lily and then fights a duel with Enzo.

I think Dries did all that on purpose because if Lily was utilized to her ability she would have been similar to Katherine and how she was manipulating both brothers. Since Katherine was Dries' fave and she couldn't play with her anymore she held a grudge against Lily and I felt tried to make Val the new Katherine which didn't work at all. Lily was manipulative like Katherine and she knew how to play each brother differently but like Katherine she loved Stefan more. I wonder if Julie wanted to make Lily=Katherine and Sarah Salvatore=Elena in tone for that season but maybe when they changed everything for Candice's pregnancy and Sarah got dropped. Because like you said Lily and Sarah both looked like the doppelgangers with their long dark hair and doe eyes, especially Sarah when I rewatched S6 I was like wow she looks exactly like S1!Elena. Then Dries' made Val the center of the bros vs. heretics and she wasn't as strong of a character to do that with (plus she didn't care about Damon). Then the miscarriage revenge plot overtook everything that could have been done with Lily until they killed her an episode early, no I'm not bitter or anything.

Yeah they used to do that a lot with books, I think the Wuthering Heights mention was completely intentional since it's gothic romanticism and that's the tone of the show especially in S1. Plus the Catherine/Cathy vs. Katherine/Elena vibes, I'd say Damon is more Heathcliff than Stefan though. I think Moby Dick was brought up because of Stefan and everything he did to get revenge on Klaus and despite his obsession he never kills Klaus. Then there's the fact that he lets Elena drown which is kinda similar to Ahab getting dragged to the bottom of the ocean by Moby Dick. The Gatsby one is really interesting too because I don't think that was intentional foreshadowing (it was just establishing Stefan was a bookworm) but the 1920s flashbacks with Klefan and Stebekah had total Great Gatsby vibes. I would even say that Stefan was Gatsby because Klaus was intrigued (in love) with Stefan and how he taught him his favorite tricks. Rebekah would be Daisy and Klaus as Nick, I mean look at how obsessed those two were in trying to bring Ripper Stefan back in the day, it was like the obsession Daisy and Nick had over Gatsby.

[fandomsilhouette]

they’ve got a bad reputation (they’ll get a standing ovation)

The spotlight clicks on, floods the stage until the shadows are sent scampering away, every flaw and every fear in sharp contrast for the audience to feast upon; but what horrors lurk where the darkness prowls, trapped at the edges of the script like handcuffs around the actor? May life mirror art at the best of times, the worst of times. 

Happy @felinettenovember, y’all! We’re back to terrible o’clock writing times with @musicfren, who is collaborating with me on this fic-turned-mechanism-through-which-to-preach-on-the-spot-Hamlet-analysis. He’ll be posting the second part on his account tomorrow, during which the bulk of my meta nonsense is going to come through. Are you following him yet? @emzurl spoiled this whole story with their art and @dumpsdoods simply spoils me with theirs. 

Part 1 below. Part 2 upcoming.

“Alright, take ten, my dudes! We’ll go from Act III, Scene 1 after you get some snacks and chill.” 

Marinette lets out an amused laugh as she thumbs through her copy of the script, ignoring the throng of hungry students pushing past her, desperate for this grueling 5 hour rehearsal to end. Brevity may be the soul of wit, but certainly not of this play. Nino makes a good director, she thinkst: loud, relentlessly positive, able to carry the sagging energy of an entire unwilling highschool production on his shoulders.

But alas, poor Nino is fighting a losing battle. Everyone knows that the point of this play is the obligatory report they will all have to write for their literature class at the end of the week. Almost no one here can act, and Marinette’s arms are beginning to grow tired from carrying up the entire play. With scarcely a week left it looks like most people are planning to coast the rest of the way to a clean C+. The part of Hamlet still has not been cast.

Akuma attacks have pushed back the discussions they were meant to have on the play, and Bustier couldn’t cancel the major assignment for the unit; instead, she had told them to analyze the play through the role of their choice after embodying it for the few weeks it took to rehearse and perform the production. Their in-class discussions have been condensed into a take-home paper on top of the already obligatory theatre performance and pretty much everyone knows that Bustier would be lenient on them just for that. And Nino knows they know, and Marinette is starting to suspect that he is itching to “chill” like he keeps telling them to. 

Marinette chews on the corner of her pencil, running a finger over the veritable bloodbath of neat pink notes she’s crammed into the margins of every page. She’s on in the next scene, and she wants to make sure she’s got all the nuances of the character, her character, exactly as she plans to bring her to life. Looking over the script, Marinette starts to regret not typing the notes to begin with: her entire essay is definitely already fully composed. Maybe Max will consider building her an application that can scan the document and transpose it to a word processor as editable text… 

“Give me your hand, if we be friends, and Robin shall restore amends.” 

Marinette looks up to see Felix quoting Shakespeare, trying very hard to look inconspicuous in his black stage-hand clothes, wheeling a stand of fake swords almost as tall as he was. She watches with some amusement as he struggles to set it upright, and makes absolutely no move to help him. 

“I wasn’t expecting to see you on stage any time this week,” she says, sticking her tongue out and being far cuter than it had any right to be. Felix, sweating, scrambles for a riposte. 

“I hadn’t expected you out of the home ec room at all. Shouldn’t you be half-drowned in fabric or something?” 

She sends him a quizzical look. He wonders if the akuma attacks have scrambled her memory. “Because...you’ve got costumes to work on? As the play’s costume designer?” 

“Oh, I’m not doing costumes this year, actually.” Marinette laughs awkwardly. “I’m not even sure what I would write about if I were.” 

Felix stares at her. The sword he was carrying slid out of his grasp with a dull clang.

“...what are you writing about as a stagehand?” 

Felix decides to pretend the last few moments were a fever dream and focus on answering this one very reasonable question. “I’m looking at the blocking and the prop placement and the lighting and how it impacts the effect of the character portrayal on the audience and what information manages to get conveyed to the audience.” 

Marinette offers a suitably impressed ooh at this. “How far have you gotten with it?” 

“Darling, we don’t even have a Hamlet. The titular character. I’ve done nothing.” Felix offers the most deadpan look he can muster and startles at her giggle. “What, how far have you gotten?!”

Marinette flashes her script at him, more notes than dialogue at this point. 

“You are possibly the only person in the class thinking anything even remotely deep about this play. What is all that for?!” 

“Hopefully for a handwritten notes to editable text conversion app.” 

Felix only narrowly avoids gaping. What?! “...is that what’s scrawled on every corner of that script you’re clutching?” He grins crookedly at her, and her traitorous heart skips a beat. 

“...oh! no, um, those are my notes. For… my essay? I’ve written out the character analyses into where the text supports my arguments and… um… yeah.” She flushes with the realization that 1) that was completely out of context for him because 2) he cannot, in fact, read her mind. 

“...Marinette, for what do you possibly need notes?” 

“...to play my character?” 

“Oh, wow, are you playing a guy? Impressive, tiny girl.” He rakes his gaze down her body and Marinette is flushed for a whole new reason now. She pushes to her feet and doesn’t bother to care about the swords she knocks over. 

“I’m not, actually.” 

“Why?! Who is there to play among the female characters? Marinette, I took you as someone who plays characters of worth.”

She looks up at him, eyes wide with dangerous innocence “Are female characters not valuable?” 

“I-- no, that’s not what I meant and you know it! Shakespeare is historical, and male-centric, and writes women who do little more than parrot the views of the men around them if they get any dialogue at all. There’s no substance there! Who are you possibly going to play, Gertrude? Ophelia?!?” Felix’s tone makes it very clear what he thinks of the only two options she has available to her. 

Marinette sweeps past him coolly, her hair whipping against his cheek. “I am playing Ophelia, actually.”

Stumbling, Felix turns and gives her a wry grin. “Oh darn, I’m sorry for your loss.” He makes a valiant effort at replicating her stuck out tongue, not that Marinette is looking. It’s for the best: it’s not nearly as cute on him. 

“Excuse you?” Marinette halts in her tracks, shadowed amongst the heavy curtains of stageside. Her voice echoes hauntingly around the empty theatre. 

“...c’mon. Ophelia does less than Gertrude. She even has fewer lines!”

With great restraint, Marinette manages to do nothing more than turn to face Felix, trembling with repressed rage. “Does less? Ophelia is the only person in this play who does anything at all that isn’t driven by a madman’s plot! Ophelia is the only person in this play who can pull Hamlet out of insanity, even if for little more than a moment.” 

Frustrated, Felix tosses the nearest item at her and growls when she catches it neatly. It’s a victory when she stalks off across the stage to the opposite wing, gathering her notes and settling herself neatly in a prim fury. She’s wrong, she’s wrong, she’s wrong. He whirls around and starts rearranging everything she knocked over, grumbling under his breath. 

“Ophelia is the only character in that play who makes zero choices of her own. Even her death was a result of her tripping into a lake.”

There’s a crashing sound, and Felix spins back around to see Marinette bolt upright, tempestuous in her temper. Felix may have gotten a bit too loud with that last statement.

“How can you say that? That’s the most significant choice she makes in the whole play!”

Felix can feel the irritation rising, hot and ugly in his chest. Why is she being so stubborn? Marinette makes a gesture at him, quick and angry from the other side of the room. Felix squints and tilts his head, struggling to what she was doing from across the stage. Then all at once it hits him.

“Do… do you bite your thumb at me?!” He splutters in indignant incoherency, his grip tightening on whatever he’s holding until the plastic grooves bite into his skin. 

“I do bite my thumb at thee, sir.” 

Felix steps onto stage, glaring. Marinette matches him step for step, glare for angry glare. Nino gasps, cowers, and then grabs his camera.

The class, milling around aimlessly as their ten minutes ticked to an end, comes to a collective halt. Nino sheppards them out of the way of the camera’s shot. They flock without protest to the edges of the theatre, terrified to watch this trainwreck unfold, terrified they’ll miss even a second of it. The die has been cast. Who now the price of his dear blood doth owe?

Nino can only hope that the set backgrounds manage to come out of this intact.