#played the four characters in

[greatmuldini]

The Iron Harp

We’re all in prison together, Johnny, one way or the other.

Act 1

Outwardly, Joseph O'Conor's play is a simple tale of love and loss in times of war: set in rural Ireland in early April of 1920, the action takes place on the property of an English industrialist whose mansion has been taken over by a contingent of IRA volunteers. Their leader is Michael O'Riordan, a gifted poet-musician in civilian life and conveniently the peace-time manager of the Englishman's estate. Michael has recently been wounded in action; now blind as a result he is no longer on active duty but still responsible for an English prisoner of war. Being a man of his word, Captain John Tregarthen has made no attempt to escape, earning Michael's trust and eventually his friendship. He also earns the friendship and love of Michael’s cousin Molly Kinsella, with whom he spends long days roaming the extensive grounds of his idyllic prison. Dreaming of a future life together, the lovers are oblivious to the feelings of their “best friend” – who ends up sacrificing his love for Molly in what he hopes will be a lasting gesture of selflessness only to find that Fate intervenes, with devastating consequences for them all.

Completing the quartet of characters is the dark and “indistinct” figure of IRA commander Sean Kelly, a dark and "indistinct" figure who emerges from the shadows to immediately assert his authority not only in military matters but - crucially, and disturbingly - in those of the heart as well. Specifically, it is the heart of Michael O’Riordan that Kelly claims to know better than O’Riordan himself. As a flesh-and-blood character Kelly is difficult to pin down: cold and calculating by his own admission, he expresses admiration for Michael's hot-blooded fighting spirit. Michael's own startled response to Kelly entering "like Nemesis himself" is ambiguous at best, and even his description of Kelly as a “good friend” comes on the back of a warning to Johnny that "he won't like you."

When Kelly tells Michael that he has never been wrong and does not know what it means to feel regret, the sense of foreboding is inescapable, yet Michael never seems to give in to the negativity emanating from his old wartime comrade who admonishes him to see his friends “as they really are” and not as “you want to see them.” Ironically, Michael refuses to see an enemy in John Tregarthen, but he is equally stubborn in applying the same criteria of honour, loyalty, and friendship to Sean Kelly, who seems troubled by this flaw in Michael’s character: "you love people too much."

Michael's emotional warmth stands in stark contrast to Kelly's impersonation of infallibility - which Michael seems to accept as a token of his friend's unassailable integrity. He continues to defer to Kelly's judgment when a messenger arrives with bad news from the front: three IRA fighters have been killed in skirmishes with British forces, and reprisals must be carried out. Twisting the metaphorical knife in the very real emotional wound, Kelly as the commanding officer nominates blind Michael to be the impartial instrument of God's justice. Forced to select three victims for execution, Michael all but collapses when one of the chosen names is that of Captain John Tregarthen.

Act 2

After he has persuaded Johnny to flee the country and reunite with Molly back in England, Michael is left alone to guard the now empty house. Blind and unable to defend himself, Michael is powerless against two marauding Black & Tans who break into the property and proceed to taunt and abuse the solitary occupant. It does not take them long to realize their victim is an IRA member rather than a civilian enjoying certain protections. Further violence is prevented only by the surprise return of Captain Tregarthen, armed and in uniform, who holds the attacker at gunpoint until Kelly and his entourage arrive to take the men away. Where any other human being would have expressed relief or gratitude at the discovery that the life of his friend has been saved, Kelly’s reaction is characteristically impassive, betraying, if anything, a degree of irritation at the unforeseen complication that has shown the condemned prisoner – the enemy – to be capable of compassion and self-sacrifice in saving the life of his friend. Human qualities that Kelly explicitly claims not to possess. As if to prove the point, he responds with the formal announcement of Tregarthen’s impending execution.

The order is to be carried out within three days, enough time for Kelly to travel to headquarters - and return with a firing squad. But first he must interrogate the captured Tans. While Kelly is thus occupied, Molly manages to convince the love of her life to take her with him. Johnny only agrees to the plan on the promise that Michael will convince Kelly to rescind the execution. If Johnny and Molly can make their way to Belfast on the early morning goods train, and from there to England, all will be well. Michael knows how to distract the guards, and Molly can bribe the train driver to let Johnny jump aboard. Three loud whistles will give the all-clear. With hopes of future happiness rekindled, Molly and Johnny each rush off to their respective tasks, and Michael is left alone with three empty glasses that he cannot see – a detail that does not escape Kelly’s notice as he re-joins Michael to formally accept his plea for clemency. Which he says he will duly submit to "the general," but in his estimation the chances of success are slim. "For God's sake, don't build up hope," he tells Michael before agonizing – to himself – over how to soften the blow for Michael: by bringing the execution forward and keeping it secret, he is certain he can spare Michael the pain and the guilt of having to witness the event.

Act 3

In the pre-dawn hours of the following day, Michael and Johnny are wide awake and waiting for the sentries to change and the train to whistle. Thinking the house empty and their enemies far away, they pass the time in a dreamlike state of high anxiety, reciting heroic poems and melancholy songs in whispering voices, so as not to miss the stroke of six to mark the end of their nightmare and the beginning of a new life – only to see Kelly standing in the door, with orders for Johnny to be executed at dawn, 24 hours earlier than they were told originally. Michael's world is falling apart, he pleads with Kelly, he begs him to show mercy, but an almost equally distressed Kelly reminds him that "I have never promised you hope." Johnny declines the comfort of a priest or minister and is led away to meet his fate offstage while, also offstage, Molly will be waiting in vain for the love of her life to board a train that will never arrive.

Left on stage for their final confrontation are Michael and his Nemesis, both knowing full well that nothing they can do or say will change what Kelly might term the preordained outcome of their efforts. To Michael's accusation of "trickery" (by which he means Kelly's surprise return before the agreed time), Kelly offers no subterfuge, no defence, and no evasion. Instead, he says, Michael’s agony is self-inflicted: it was, in fact, his own stubborn insistence on hoping against hope that has now led to anguish and pain. The only way for Michael to end all suffering, Kelly explains, is to give up hope. Unless he manages to see past the private pain of the moment and becomes a distant observer, Michael will forever be "tortured by hope."

Here Kelly is borrowing from the Conte Cruel tradition made famous by Edgar Allan Poe but named after a collection of short stories by the French symbolist writer Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam. A useful definition of the genre is that it concerns "any story whose conclusion exploits the cruel aspects of the irony of fate." Not only does Kelly borrow the concept, and the title from Villiers' tale, The Torture of Hope, he even recounts the plot to underline his point:a hapless victim of the Inquisition escapes his prison cell only to stumble into the arms of the Chief Inquisitor. The lesson for Michael is that, like the victim, he keeps on hoping for release only to suffer defeat over and over again. There are no similarities, however, between himself and the sadistic Inquisitor, Kelly says: his mission is to ease Michael'ssuffering, not to prolong it.

We are given no reason to doubt Kelly’s sincerity, but neither can we reconcile the apparent contradiction between his declared intention and putting Michael’s best friend before a firing squad. If Kelly wants to end all suffering, as he says, surely, a good start would be to save Captain Tregarthen’s life? It is the argument that Michael himself is trying to make, by reminding Kelly of his god-like powers. Michael’s understanding of those powers differs fundamentally from Kelly’s own. Michael’s life-affirming principle of hope and Kelly’s seductive all-consuming fatalism are the two opposing philosophies that take centre stage in the final scene – while John Tregarthen dies a largely symbolic death offstage.

Johnny’s death is symbolic in that it is not the tragedy at the heart of the play. Michael O’Riordon is the conventional male protagonist whose existential crisis we are witnessing; Michael is unable to prevent the execution of his best friend; and to make that very point, his best friend must die. Michael’s blindness contributes to this failure in the course of the play but read as a metaphor it turns Michael into “one of us.” His blindness leaves him vulnerable to attack and it echoes our own sense of powerlessness in the face of an overwhelmingly hostile universe. The reverse, however, is also true: being blind, and being a poet, puts Michael in the illustrious company of the Blind Bard, an archetype of Western literature since at least the (mythical) time of Homer: the blind singer/seer whose “inner vision” surpasses that of sighted humanity. His Irish equivalent – and explicit model for Michael - is the (dwarf) Harper of Finn, whose iron-stringed instrument has the power to move its audience to tears. Michael O’Riordon is both vulnerable and endowed with the superpower of emotional insight – fundamentally human qualities that Kelly admires in Michael, and which he admits he does not possess.

Kelly is an abstract concept in human form; even while he is evidently the cause of human suffering, in his denial he appears to be channelling the sadistic Inquisitor. The apparent contradiction is of our own making, though: Kelly is Cruel Fate personified. He represents that which we like to imagine as the source of all our woes - the betrayals, the injustices, the disappointments which inevitably end in what we define as tragedy and what to the rest of the universe, that hostile universe, is of no consequence whatsoever. If we substitute “hostile” with “indifferent,” then Kelly becomes the antithesis to Michael’s humanity – his indifference is as inhuman as the infinite, indifferent universe. Conversely, Michael is not concerned with an infinite universe; his frame of reference is on a human scale, and very finite. When Kelly challenges Michael to take his place and adopt his abstract, God-like perspective on life, death, and the universe, Michael does reject the responsibility – but also the indifference required for the position. If the promise of a pain-free existence did not convince Michael to abandon hope, Kelly's failure to shame him into admitting defeat is a testament, at the very least, to human perseverance: we will forever be prolonging the agony to delay the inevitable. (1/4)

[soni-dragon]

my take on that favorite pokemon characters thing that’s going around!

[thievinghippo]

There is so much to love about a Mourn Watch Rook romancing Emmrich. But one area where a non-Mourn Watch romancer has them beat?

The ritual for lichdom. The Lich Lord calls a non-Mourn Watch Rook 'Volkarin's beloved'

Volkarin's beloved

This is before they've officially said 'I love you' for the first time! And I don't know which I prefer. Either A) Emmrich told the Lich Lord that Rook was his beloved during his preparations or B) the Lich Lord knew instinctively that Rook was Emmrich's beloved

I like both options, because at the end of the day, the Lich Lords are simply speaking truth

[fangirls-just-want-to-have-fun]

Marty McFly truly is THE character of all time.

He's a short king. He's a time traveler. He's an expert skateboarder. He is one of the clumsiest people you've ever met. He's bisexual. He has exactly two friends. He has altered the course of history on more than one occasion. He is traumatized beyond belief. He is genuinely a kind person. He's been shot at by Libyan terrorists. He plays the guitar. His impulse control is nonexistent. He loves his girlfriend more than anyone or anything else in his life. He's a loser. He has so much rizz that it makes any actor who plays him 50% hotter. He's named after himself. His watch is broken. His best friend is a disgraced nuclear physicist who is at least four times his age. He exists in a perpetual state of confusion. He went back in time and fucked around just enough to fix and improve the lives of his entire family. His thoughts run at a mile a minute. He does not have a single thought behind those eyes. He saved himself from being erased from existence by playing the guitar. He accidentally pulled his own mom and dad. He is literally played by Michael J. Fox.

Ngl Robert Zemeckis really cooked with this one.

[shadowtraveled]

In your Mithrun analysis, when you say “maybe it's also particularly gentle that, in the end, there was someone who refused to even consider giving up on him.” who is the ‘someone’ in your mind? Milsiril? Kabru and the canaries? I loved your analysis, so I’m curious

OH kabru absolutely

milsiril spared him and, decades later, helped him with his physical rehabilitation, but it seems like she more or less gave up on his personhood. no more desires -> no more mithrun as we knew him -> no more mithrun. she spared him because he wasn’t completely devoid of motivation to live, and she used the single motivator he had left to eventually get him to keep himself alive, and she briefly even seemed to want to try and instill some of his old mask (even with the understanding that that’s what it was) back into him, but that fell through immediately and i think with it went her optimism that mithrun would ever… be a person again. “too late now, i guess.”

then the canaries are on good enough terms with him, but they’re practically instructed to treat him like a weapon or a tool they’re maintaining. i believe it’s cithis that tells kabru to take care of mithrun but clarifies that really what that is is just making sure he eats. ensuring his baseline needs for survival are met. and really, that’s all she was ever tasked with. when it’s all over and mithrun is cataleptic, the canaries stay physically near him, but they seem to have accepted that he’s gone—without the demon to chase, he has nothing to live for. cithis, though, seems to be closer to mithrun than any of the others, and i don’t think it’s a coincidence that she’s the one who calls lycion off and encourages kabru to try engaging with him when she hears the beginning of what he has to say.

this post caught a lot of my opinions regarding mithrun’s relationships (linking to my reblog of it because i dumped some thoughts in the tags) but tldr i do think milsiril and the canaries fall short of thinking of mithrun as a person, and that’s why their relationships with him fail him somewhat. i don’t think that’s their fault, because it seems like they were taught to think of losing your desires as a complete loss of self and humanity, but it does mean they see mithrun as someone who has already been lost. kabru is demonstrably different in that he’s able to help mithrun see a future beyond the demon, and he’s able to do it because he deals with mithrun like he’s human. because he is. and all of that stems from the specific aspect of kabru’s personality that is his obsession with people

[chalkrub]

it's mendel!

[puppyeared]

auggie!!

[plush-pigeon]

my favorites!!

i really considered making Volo my top favorite...

template source!

[beresaad]

DENRID | PERSICA | MARREC | CAHIR | TIERNAN | EMRYS

↳ Do not fear difficulty. Hard ground makes stronger roots.

[i-lavabean]

In the grand scheme of things 1000 followers might not seem like much but it’s more than I ever dreamed of when I started posting art! Thank you so much to everyone who liked my funky little drawings and stuck around to see more🥹💕

[youling-the-ghost]

Titch my beloved <3 (ft. Derek)

[souenkun]

I don't see this talked about often in the english side of the fandom, as this tidbit got lost in translation, but:

In the japanese versions for both texts and voice lines in the middle-aged opposites venet, kabu addresses larry with "—kun (くん)" in their second meeting in front of the restaurant. It's a japanese honorific to address someone who is a junior than you, in terms of either age or work experience/status. Inferring from this, kabu may either (1) be slightly older than larry in age (as I think they both have equal years of experience, just that larry happened be slightly superior to kabu in terms of their workplace status because he is also an elite four member), (2) be that friendly and warm as a person that he calls larry with "—kun (くん)" right away in the second part of their event's story, or (3) both.

Take what you will from this, friends! 🫡

[icarusticrat]

hello i am alive i have drawing to show okay bye

[awakenedsylvari]

a post in honour of finally completing my character page! now to buy some character slots and immediately make the page out of date

(my old character page from circa 2017 can be seen here. featuring characters who got makeovers and characters who don't exist.)

[oodlyenough]

i always felt like midway through 1-4 maya adopted edgeworth as her brother-in-law (affectionate) so it's nice to see by aa3 franziska has adopted phoenix as her brother-in-law (derogatory)