#justice for horatio

[horatiompreg]

if I was horatio id be so mad if hamlet told me not to kill myself imagine how many university assignments he’s missing after helping hamlets ass 😭😭🙏

[sapphoismymuse]

i know he has to stay with hamlet because “good night, sweet prince,” but i like to think the ophelia from the 2018 movie grabbed horatio before she left and they escaped off into the countryside and he got to become a doctor and she decorated his practice with flowers and the two besties survived the cycle of vengeance together <3

[evilhorse]

Let my people go.

(Nexus: Alien Justice #3)

[carnivalls]

actually there's no need to make this assignment any more complicated than it already is. horatio vs patroclus 'the lovers' epilogue' short story from 2021 revamped now ok?

[scorpiusmalfoylovesoscarwilde]

I get to write an essay on Hamlet's characterisation for my first marked assignment teehee *giggling kicking my feet*

[erstwhile-punk-guerito]

[macaron-n-cheese]

I headcanon Horatio as autistic

Does anyone else see it? Bro literally misunderstands every single joke or figure of speech he hears. There are a number of other little traits too but I digress.

Captain Idiot, reporting for duty.

[isan0rt]

I feel like I haven't really seen the fe3h fandom talk too much about how clearly Azure Moon is an adaptation of Hamlet. Like not even subtly Hamlet (like, see, he's the lion king, get it, haha, because... It's Hamlet).

Dimitri is obvious; he's the prince whose uncle has become king, due to a conspiracy he's trying to uncover, spurred on by his murdered father's restless ghost. Pursuing this vengeance drives him mad, and he becomes increasingly erratic as vengeance continues to escape him.

Dedue is Horatio; Hamlet's best friend (but one he met more recently than his other friends), always at his side and loyal no matter how far Hamlet falls, but formal with him right up until Hamlet dies for his revenge. Crimson Flower Dedue practically delivers the "Goodnight, sweet prince" line in the game if you defeat him before he can transform himself.

The rest spends a lot of effort making subversions; Rufus is Claudius, and this is played straight in Three Hopes, where Dimitri gets justice before he loses his mind and so he never reaches the depths of despair he does in Azure Moon. But in Three Houses this gets subverted; Rufus is still actually the Claudius, but Dimitri has miscast Edelgard in the role. This also allows Patricia to serve as Gertrude, forcing Dimitri to grapple with whether his (step)mother was complicit in his father's murder and whether she has more loyalty to the murderer than to him. Rufus then shifts into the Polonius role, as it's after his death (allegedly at the hand of Dimitri himself) that everything starts going to shit.

Felix, meanwhile, I think is Laertes (with Glenn and Rodrigue serving as Ophelia and Polonius for him (side side note I personally think Glenn was one of Dimitri's first crushes but that's neither here nor there)). The death of one curdles Laertes's positive childhood friendship feelings towards Hamlet (and Felix towards Dimitri) and then the death of the second fully solidifies Laertes's feeling that Hamlet must be stopped.

In Azure Moon, this gets subverted, in that Dimitri reverses course here, where Hamlet doubles down. As a result, Laertes turns his sword against Hamlet, while Felix returns to a shaky companionship with Dimitri. But crucially, if Felix does get recruited to other routes and turns his sword against Dimitri, he basically cannot have a happy ending - the same way Laertes dies for turning against Hamlet.

I don't have a snappy conclusion or anything (are Ingrid and Sylvain Rosencrantz and Guildenstern? Unclear) but I think it's fascinating.

[macaron-n-cheese]

Showing the world my favorite 19th-century tone-deaf, justice-seeking, very good at math, loyal, quiet introverted mysterious autistic empath, awkward at parties, humble in character and origin, daring celebrated military hero, absolutely broke when there’s not an active war or being showered in war gifts, little meow meows Horatio Hornblower and Ulysses S Grant.

[marygih]

Do you have any headcanons about Horatio? (or hollowgasts/wights in general) Because (for Horatio) he is such an interesting character in my opinion and he just dissappears and never gets mentioned after he told about that one loop at the nearly end of the last book.

Hello, sorry for the delay, I'll answer this ask on the same day I post an art of Horatio. That way I can kill two hollowgasts with just one crossbow shot.

Yes, I have some headcanons about Horatio, he is an amazing character.

He recovered H's body and gave him a proper burial.

He is currently vegan, and was raised by H by eating peculiar plants that H himself grew, this was H's way of giving him peculiar souls without allowing him to kill anyone.

During the 40 years he lived with H, Horatio was raised to eat omnivorous foods, and completely free of human flesh.

After the events of the books, he and Jacob continued working as Hollow hunters, to finally rid the world of the danger of hollows and bring the last wights to justice.

Horatio and Jacob believe that it is possible to be "born" good wights like Horatio. Just by keeping them away from wrong indoctrination like Caul's.

Horatio is partnered with the ymbrynes council and is currently on behalf of the council in the US.

Horatio in his spare time researches about his previous life, who he was before joining the claywings.

Everything that belonged to the Hollow hunters is now kept by him and Jacob.

He currently lives in a loop in Florida.

To avoid being killed by peculiars who don't know he's a good Wight, he wears sunglasses and special contact lenses like Golam's.

I've talked about this before, but I'd like to reiterate the point: I don't consider wights to be evil by nature, they are manipulated to be that way. We only know a lot of evil Wights because Caul was the one who educated and indoctrinated them since their "birth" H has proven that a Wight is a product of its breeding. Not all those people who were part of the claywings were evil, many just believed in a world far from loops, they just wanted to be free, I don't blame a bird caged in time for decades for longing to fly free. Only Caul's personal circle of friends knew about this quest for Abaton and Caul's desire to subjugate the normal human race, the other people in the movement just wanted to be free.

Caul made the Wights evil, the Wights had no real choice, they are victims of a system created to make them killers and useful servants to Caul. I'm not covering up the wights' bad actions, they really are criminals, I'm just saying that they could have had other fates. And as for the Hollows... They are practically animals in extreme suffering. They don't kill for pleasure, they kill out of necessity, out of hunger. The Wights used this hunger and suffering to turn the hollows into weapons. When a hollow hunter kills one of these creatures it is practically an act of mercy, they have been in extreme suffering for over a century. Becoming a Wight means spending the rest of your life in a loop of punishment for crimes committed while you were a starving hollow. I highly doubt that the ymbrynes and peculiars want to re-educate the Wights and rehabilitate them to live in society. Well, but that's just my OPINION.

[meshiitsukaii]

And also the fact that her brother was still kind of an ass to her. Like Laertes wasn't great but Hamlet was worse.

I stand by the fact that Ophelias death and madness was COMPLETELY unavoidable, if someone had just cared genuinely about her as like. A person. And comforted or advocated for her. Or hell was just nice to her?? Everyone either ignored her or actively abused her. Like the fuck did she do.

Hamlet borderline abuses Ophelia to the point of suicide and has the absolute AUDACITY to say he loved her more than her OWN GODDAMN BROTHER

[bbcphile]

1 and 17 for the recent fanfiction writers ask meme?

Thanks for the asks, @phoenixflames12!

What was the first fandom and/or pairing you wrote fic for?

Sherlock (specifically John/Sherlock). I was surprisingly late to fic writing. (You'd think it would have been Horatio Hornblower, since the series came out so long ago, but no. I watched it when it aired but didn't know fanfic was a thing. Whoops!)

17. What fic are you the most proud of?

Probably my newest--"What's Sealed Away"--because I was trying to juggle so many things: trying to do justice to the sheer mind fuckery that is amnesia (influenced by my own experiences on the subject) while filling in narrative gaps the show's amnesia arc (possibly unintentionally) created while attempting some complicated character work. It was a lot, but I'm still proud of it!

Harboured and Encompassed and Nunc Atque Semper are close behind, though: I'm still proud of all the adaptation work I did in H&E and also of writing and posting the thing so comparatively quickly (my Mysterious Lotus Casebook WIP will be at least close to that long and it's taking me SO much longer to write!). Also, I will always love Archie Kennedy, and my modernAU!Archie has a very very special place in my heart. And Nunc Atque Semper was so hard to write; I have such complicated feelings about Horatio in the final two movies and the way he treats Maria, and getting a chance to put some of it on paper in a way that holds him accountable for his incredibly shitty behavior while also being understanding of the horrible position he's in and all the grief he's holding was really important to me.

Thanks again!!

[moonlarked]

alright big hamlet interpretation time

(thanks to @thehamletdiaries and others on the discord server for helping expand my ideas on this one!)

hamlet’s father is at least part of the reason he killed polonius.

And I don’t mean that in a metaphorical way (though that reading certainly is there). I mean it in a “the ghost influenced hamlet into killing polonius” sort of way.

Hamlet Sr. wants revenge through any means possible. This isn’t about him enacting justice or righting a wrong. It’s about him being angry at his brother and willing to do anything to get back at him. Including ordering his son to ruin his life to earn his father’s approval. He was a warlord in life and he’s using the same “the ends justify the means” to get what he wants.

Think of pre-canon hamlet always in the shadow of the father that missed his birth because he was at war. Think of him constantly wanting his father’s approval but being too introspective, too sensitive, too feminine for him. Hamlet was never good enough for his father, and despite all his mother did, she couldn’t help him during his father’s life or after his death.

So now, hamlet has a chance to win the approval of the father who he was never good enough for. Of course he takes it. Of course, now that his father needs his help, he’s going to do whatever it takes.

But his father never asked him for his help because he cared about him. He asked him for his help because his son was his only chance. He sees his son as a tool.

So, when hamlet has been scheming and faking madness and making sure his father wasn’t a demon by proving claudius’s guilt, his father has grown impatient. He thinks his son is simply too weak to kill his uncle. So, he helps him speed it up.

Imagine, for a second, as hamlet hears polonius call out - he hears his father’s voice urging him on. Reassuring him that he’s doing the right thing. Maybe even guiding his hand through the curtain. And hamlet, so overwhelmed with confusion and anger, strikes without thinking. (Afterward, when the ghost actually appears and says that he has come to whet his son’s almost blunted purpose, part of what he’s referring to is this.)

But why would the ghost do this? Well, as I said before, he was a warlord. His language is blood and death and revenge and honor. Polonius was an important man. The king couldn’t simply brush his death aside. And he had children. Children who would look to avenge him.

So this speeds up the timeline and it makes hamlet more aware of what he has to do. When he says that his thoughts must be bloody to complete his task, he is drawing a conclusion based on what he saw with fortinbras’s army, yes, but he still has the echo of what he just did in his mind and it’s taking him further away from who he used to be - further away from the kind, sensitive, witty soul that horatio and ophelia loved. So when he kills ros and guil, it’s due to his father’s influence - and of course horatio is angry at him because this isn’t the hamlet he knows.

And by hamlet killing polonius, he has ironically brought the rage of someone who lost a father into himself - hm, wonder why king hamlet would’ve made that happen? Hamlet knows why laertes is angry. He knows that laertes wants to kill him. And he understands why. So of course he takes the duel. Its what an honorable man would do. Its not what a weak, feminine man would do. (It’s what his father would’ve done.)

And hamlet ends up killing claudius because of this duel. So in the end, the ghost gets what he wanted at the expense of his son. Who, as we have established, he never really cared about in the first place.

[thiefbird]

Prompts!

Hey guys, I've decided to start taking writing prompts (read: please dear god send me writing prompts i love you all)!

Here are a list of prompt sets:

Unreal Unearth prompts

Smutty One-Liner prompts

Tarot Whump prompts

Angry Confession prompts

Sex Tropes prompts

Jealousy Dialogue starters

Breakup/Dramatic Dialogue prompts

Kiss prompts

Enemies To Lovers prompts

Boat Guy Shibari prompts

Or just send me lyrics to songs you like!

Things I'd love to write:

Temeraire

Jane Roland & Will Laurence or Jane/Laurence

Emily Roland & Will Laurence

John Granby/ Will Laurence

Tenzing Tharkay/Will Laurence

John Granby/Tenzing Tharkay (or Granby/Tharkay/Laurence)

Hornblower

Sir Edward Pellew/Horatio Hornblower

Hotspur Husbands

Renown Trio (platonic and/or romantic and/or sexual)

Horatio Hornblower & Maria maybe? I love complicated marriages

Aubreyad

Jack Aubrey/Stephen Maturin (or Jack & Stephen)

Jack Aubrey/Sophie Williams

Stephen Maturin/Diana Villiers

Sophie Williams & Stephen Maturin

Diana Villiers & Jack Aubrey (or possibly Diana/Jack)

Diana/Stephen/Jack maybe?

DIANA VILLIERS/CLARISSA OAKES

General Aubrey-Maturin clan domesticity

Also someone suggested this in a thread I was reading and I am Intrigued: Horatio Hornblower/Stephen Maturin

And my other nonexistent rarepair, Jane Roland/Diana Villiers

Dragon Age

Anders/anyone (but especially Fenris, Justice, Karl, Nathaniel, or Hawke or the HoF, whether one of mine or one of yours)

m!Solavellan

Bull/Lavellan, Bull/Cadash, or Bull/Adaar

Alistair/HoF

Alistair/Zevran

Morrigan/HoF

Morrigan/Leliana

Send me your weird rarepairs! I will at least give them a shot

Mass Effect

Shepard/Garrus

Shepard/Thane

Shepard/Garrus/Thane

Shepard/Liara

Ryder/Jaal

Ryder/Vetra

Jaal/Evfra

Doctor Who extended universe

Nine/Rose

Nine/Jack/Rose

Jack/Ianto

Jack/Ianto/Gwen

Ten/Rose or Tentoo/Rose

Also Hannigram and Symbrock!

[motohagios]

marion, to some random 14 year old classmate who read the Sparknotes on a Thursday night before class: Actually you don't understand the text and I find your analysis of Hamlet to be quite one dimensional. think about it. you say hamlet is indecisive because he's "sad over his dad dying" when really one can argue his indecision is almost a prophetic representation of proto-existentialist crisis, motivated by the burden of the meaninglessness of life, with his father's death symbolizing a rupture in the fracture of the metaphysical system he'd grown so accustomed to....

lind, trying to make him look stupid and himself look smarter: Actually Marion you're the one with a very simple grasp on Hamlet's character. proto-existentialism? don't make me laugh. such a reductive and anachronistic take on a complex character. perhaps this text is too difficult for you to grasp outside of your pre-existing biases. hamlet's struggle with indecisiveness is clearly representative of the Christian concerns of divine justice and moral obligation. the post-Enlightenment search for individual meaning has no room here. these existential questions would be foreign to a man of Shakespeare's time where deeply theological worldviews still held a sense of universal order and divine authority

claude, trying to get marion to love him back: actually lind just because shakespeare wrote hamlet in a christian context doesn't mean you cannot perceive him within other frameworks. existentialism can be applied to hamlet in various ways. it's about the lack of meaning in an indifferent, chaotic world... hamlet can still struggle. hamlet grapples with the nature of human existence as well. so you're the one being reductive here. marion is actually correct and applying a nuanced take here.

jacques, just checking the clock and waiting for it to be lunch already: Actually i think the nietzschean perspective does work dude. hamlet is like lowkey the battle between the apollonian and the dionysian. and that whole thing is like a parallel to the whole societal order collapsing and stuff in denmark. lind is obviously just disagreeing for the point of disagreeing with marion. he sucks. also horatio is definitely gay. Professor can i go out early it's chicken nugget day at the cafeteria and i need to beat the lunch lines pleaseeeeeeeeeeee

ledania: im going to kill myself

[withasideofshakespeare]

Lennox’s Ambiguous Loyalties

I CAN’T GET THIS OUT OF MY HEAD so here’s a post about it! (Special thanks to the Hamlet Discord Server folks for sticking with me on this one!)

WHAT THE HELL IS LENNOX’S DEAL IN MACBETH?!

I remember vividly that the first time I read this play, one of our study questions was “what do Ross and Lennox respectively represent as characters?” and that it was the only question I couldn’t quite answer.

Ross seems fairly easy to understand. He’s sort of a Horatio-figure, a “narrator” in a play that isn’t his (to a lesser extent than Horatio, of course. No one beats Horatio in that regard.) He witnesses most of the play’s major events and comments on them (and it makes him fascinating as well as really sad). His loyalties seem to lie clearly on the side of goodness and justice. He’s relatively quick to turn on Macbeth once he realizes that he is guilty and seems to spearhead the rebel cause.

Lennox is an enigma in comparison! It’s entirely unclear where his loyalties lie and what his motives are. Most people (including my English teacher who wrote that study question) seem to view him as a foil to Ross—someone who stays loyal to Macbeth rather than rebelling, but I think it’s much more complex than that.

The only way I can think to explain this is to go through his appearances in order and try to glean what exactly his deal is and where his loyalties lie throughout the play.

1. Act 1 Scene 2

Lennox appears to announce Ross’ arrival. He notes the Ross looks in haste (which he probably does. When is he not in haste to deliver news to someone?)

This is his only line in the scene and it doesn’t tell us much about him. All we get from this is that he seems interested in whatever it is Ross has to say.

(2. Act 1 Scene 4)

Lennox doesn’t even speak in this scene, but his presence means that he overhears Malcolm’s haunting description of the execution of Cawdor (BUT GIVEN HIS LATER ACTIONS, IT MUST NOT STICK WITH HIM? He becomes a traitor in MULTIPLE DIRECTIONS!)

(3. Act 1 Scene 6)

Again, he says nothing but is among the party arriving at Inverness with Duncan.

4. Act 2 Scene 3

This is the first of Lennox’s significant appearances. He’s with Macduff when they’re harassed by the Porter but says nothing to him. His first line in this scene is in greeting to Macbeth. He proceeds to give a very Ross-like little speech regarding the strange occurrences of the night. I don’t read this as him being actively suspicious of Macbeth—I think it’s too early for suspicions. At this point, Macduff hasn’t even returned to report the murder. It seems Lennox is reporting on the facts of the night, maybe slightly shaken by what he saw (and presumably sleep-deprived like everybody in this scene). He tells us that he is young (“my young remembrance”), seems horrified when Macduff reports on the murder of Duncan, and is quick to accuse the guardsmen who Macbeth framed. He notes that they “stared and were distracted,” but seems to assume that their behavior was a result of their guilty consciences and not an altered state that would’ve left them unable to commit the crime.

What I take from this is that at this point, Lennox is fairly neutral. He’s quicker to blame the guards than most of the other Thanes (especially Macduff, of course), but I wouldn’t chalk that up to an active loyalty to Macbeth just yet. The fact that he doesn’t speak when Macbeth says he killed the guards in a fury is interesting, but I assume that’s because Macduff is easily doing ALL of the talking at that point (and perhaps because Lennox doesn’t want to publicly quarrel with the person whose house he’s staying in at the moment?)

(5. Act 3 Scene 1)

Lennox is present along with the other Thanes as Macbeth speaks to Banquo and begins his anti-Malcolm & Donalbain propaganda campaign (“bloody cousins”). Lennox seems to notice this language in particular because he will echo it later.

6. Act 3 Scene 4

Lennox attends the disaster banquet and is utterly confused by Macbeth’s behavior along with everyone else. He seems unsettled but unlike Ross, he seems to figure out when it’s time to stop asking questions and simply wishes Macbeth better health in the future.

I’ve always viewed this scene as a turning point for Ross in which he realizes that Macbeth is either personally behind the murder of Duncan or played some hand in it and follows his conscience by shifting his loyalties. Lennox seems to go a different direction. I’m not sure how, having attended the banquet, he could possibly be unaware of Macbeth’s suspiciousness or why he’d choose to overlook it in the long run. More on this later.

7. Act 3 Scene 6

THIS IS THE SCENE THAT DRIVES ME NUTS. I do not understand what is going on here or why (or if these lines are even supposed to be Lennox’s! For our purposes, I’m going to assume they are.)

Lennox enters mid-way through a conversation with an unnamed lord. He seems to be choosing his words carefully, saying far more between his lines than on them. He uses Macbeth’s language of propaganda to an exaggerated extent, accusing Fleance of murdering Banquo and Malcolm and Donalbain of killing Duncan.

Initially, he plausibly believes what he’s saying and has given in to the propaganda but it quickly becomes apparent that this is not the case. He gives a quick and ambiguous line about Fleance, Malc, and Don that seems to imply he’s glad Macbeth doesn’t have them in his grasps:

And I do think

That had he Duncan's sons under his key

(As, an 't please heaven, he shall not) they should find

What 'twere to kill a father. So should Fleance.

But peace.

Perhaps this means “he doesn’t have them because that’s not God’s plan,” but I read it as something more like “and, pray God, he never will have them.” If this is the case, everything he’s said previously is a sarcastic exaggeration and not an actual reflection of his beliefs.

He goes on to question the lord about Macduff’s whereabouts specifically, seemingly out of concern for a friend(?). It is implied that Macbeth already knows this information (WHICH IS WEIRD! But I won’t get ahead of myself!)

Lennox leaves us with his hopes that Macduff will be smart and stay far from Scotland for his own safety and wishes that an angel deliver to Malcolm Macduff’s report before he even arrives to haste them to free Scotland from Macbeth’s grasp.

As of this scene, Lennox seems to be acting just like Ross (if not even more extremely against Macbeth). He calls Macbeth “a hand accursed” and remarks that Scotland is suffering. It seems like he’s on the rebels’ side! But THEN THE NEXT SCENE HAPPENS AND TURNS THIS ON ITS HEAD???

8. Act 4 Scene 1

After Macbeth meets with the witches again, Lennox appears, apparently not heeding his own advice to Macduff about staying far from the Scottish court. He’s confused by Macbeth’s inquiries about the witches (who he either didn’t see or pretends not to have seen? Normally, I’d lean towards the former but given his history, WHO THE HELL KNOWS?!)

And THEN! He straight-up tells Macbeth that Macduff has fled to England which SEEMS TO SURPRISE HIM despite the fact that we learned in the last scene that learning of Macduff’s flight put him into a rage! And to further confuse matters, Lennox lies about the circumstances of his discovery of this information saying “'Tis two or three, my lord, that bring you word / Macduff is fled to England.” Assuming he’s talking about the previous scene (and what else would he be talking about unless there is a scene missing?), this is blatantly untrue! One guy came by and Lennox had a weirdly manipulative discussion with him in order to get Macduff’s location out of him. There were not “two or three” people and the one guy who did come certainly didn’t seem to be there to tell Macbeth (who he personally called a tyrant) about the whereabouts of his enemies.

Either this is a major editorial error or Lennox is playing some very weird game of shifty loyalties. The former interpretation may well be true given this play’s oddities (it’s strangely short and has some obvious non-Shakespeare additions like the Hecate/witch song scene which was added (probably) by Middleton), but that’s not very fun, so let’s go with the latter.

I think the best way to call everything we’ve learned in these scenes canon AND not directly contradictory is to say that what Macbeth was initially angry about was Malcolm’s flight to England, not Macduff’s. There is really no way to reconcile the idea that Macbeth has sent for Macduff to return from England with the idea that he is just finding out about his flight in the next scene. The only way I can make sense of this is that these scenes have been reversed or otherwise edited (perhaps 3.6’s Lennox is meant to be Ross, perhaps there is text missing that changes the meaning… WHO KNOWS.) but if we’re going to call it canon, I guess the best thing we can do to make this series of events make any sense without completely changing every line spoken is to say that Macbeth knows that Malcolm has fled to England and is upset and that he knows that Macduff did not attend the banquet and therefore sent to him to return, to which Macduff sent back the 1060 equivalent of “fuck off” and ran off to England.

(PLEASE tell me if I’m missing something here. This is driving me UP THE WALL and it seems nobody else has questioned it??)

Anyway, with this messy attempt to make the given canon make any sense, the implication is then that Lennox manipulated Unnamed Lord into giving him the information he wanted about Macduff’s whereabouts by pretending to be on the side of the rebels. He then double-crosses them by informing Macbeth and doesn’t argue in the slightest when Macbeth declares (in what is shockingly not an aside, at least in my text) that he’s going to murder Macduff’s entire family. Maybe he’s afraid to speak up, maybe this is where he changes his mind about Macbeth… but if that’s the case, why would hearing Macbeth’s propaganda—which he seems to know is wrong per the last scene—not be enough for him? Why can he recognize that Macbeth is a tyrant but only while trying to squeeze information out of someone? What does he want? I think the only reasonable explanation (beyond “this text is corrupt”) is that Lennox wants power and sides with whoever seems to be winning at the moment—and at this point, that’s Macbeth.

9. Act 5 Scene 2

To make everything a little extra confusing, the next time Lennox appears, he has suddenly joined the rebel army and seems to have a position of rank among them (he has a “file / Of all the gentry” in Malcolm’s army SOMEHOW—something that no one else seems to have).

WHY? WHAT IS HAPPENING? I AM LOSING MY MIND!

The only way I can think to explain this is that EITHER hearing Macbeth declare his plans to murder a woman and her children or realizing that Malcolm has become the most likely victor in the battle caused him to switch sides. That, or he was pretending to be on Macbeth’s side and therefore double-crossing Macbeth by pretending to double-cross the rebels (but if that was the case, why give him accurate intelligence?!)

With how incredibly wishy-washy Lennox’s loyalties (and, honestly, morals) have been up to this point, I think I interpret his joining of the rebel cause as a risk/gains assessment in which he decided he’s more likely to come out on top if he sides with Malcolm. Maybe my view is overly cynical, but I think Lennox is a character who is motivated by ambition just like Macbeth and will side with whoever seems to have power in the moment. He knows how to use rhetoric to his advantage and absolutely does so, regardless of morality.

10. (Later scenes in Act 5)

Depending on the editor, sometimes Lennox silently appears with the other Thanes in various scenes in act 5, but Folger does not include him, so I won’t cover this. It isn’t very important other than to confirm he survives the battle, which seems reasonably safe to assume either way.

…

Conclusions:

Overall, I’m not sure I answered any of my questions. I’m curious to see what others think about the 3.6/4.1 inconsistencies—is it an editorial error? Have I completely missed something obvious that makes it consistent somehow?

If I had to say what I think Lennox’s deal is at this point, I’d say he’s an ambitious young Thane who takes the side of the powerful for his own advancement but is shaken by Macbeth’s brutality which may turn him prematurely to the side of the rebels before their victory is quite secured.

If we are meant to take this scene ordering and allocation of lines as canon, I don’t think Lennox is faking his loyalty to Macbeth—why would he give up seemingly valuable information and put Macduff’s entire household in danger if that were the case? I think he is loyal, probably for his own sake (he seems to know that Macbeth is dangerous and disregards it), but doesn’t realize just how far Macbeth is willing to go for power. I imagine his role in the murders of Macduff’s family upsets him deeply and perhaps causes him to turn his back on Macbeth and join the rebels by act 5. He’s young, naive, and ambitious, clever with his use of rhetoric (see: 3.6 manipulation tactics), but inexperienced, leading him to underestimate Macbeth and try to justify his own loyalty by pretending he doesn’t suspect that Macbeth played a hand in Duncan and Banquo’s murders.

Aaaaand I wrote a whole fanfiction about this if you’d like a narrative version rather than this analytic one! Here’s a link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54264247