#this feels like a safe start jfdgf

[wildwood-faun]

Okay I won't be able to write this as well as I'd like to before it's gone from my brain so I'm just gonna bang out some thoughts real quick like. spoiler alert i did not in fact do this real quick like. CONSIDER: Lieutenant John Irving's beautifully compressed version of the classical tragic arc as featured in his final episode.

First off, one of the few traits that my buddy Aristotle considers necessary to the tragic hero is that of being admirable. Traditionally, this means they're a person of some status - kings and queens are the prime example. Irving, being an officer, definitely fits the bill. I'd argue he does it doubly so as he by his actions proves himself as admirable to the modern audience as well (although I have a niggling feeling Aristotle covers this too but under another term). It would not be a great shock to me for a show set in this era to have the white, British characters all be deeply distrustful of the Inuit people they encounter - to the point of actively sabotaging their own hopes of survival by attacking preemtively to protect themselves. Not so Irving. Yes he tries to be deliberately non-threatening because it might be his best chance of securing rescue, but I think a genuine kindness and respect shines through in his short interaction with Koveyook. It's a bit of a hollow victory writing this, but he treats him like a person when I had resigned myself to expecting imperialist bullshit.

We need to like the tragic hero for the tragedy to work and I find it hard not to like Irving, particularly watching him move with awkward gentleness, trying to be very careful not to spook his would-be resuers while at the same time visibly aching with the need to communicate the direness of his situation. When we see him reaching out to the Inuit family, trusting them with all he's got, we are filled with hope despite knowing from the start that things will inevitably end badly - if not now then later. Without this hope, the story might be tragic, but it would be no tragedy.

Apart from the qualities of the tragic hero, the three biggest hitters as greek tragedy terms go are the peripeteia (reversal), anagnorisis (recognition) and hamartia (fatal flaw or error) and hell yeah we get those in a nice little bundle coming right up.

I'd argue that the error that becomes Irving's undoing is trust. What a perfect mini-reversal, as that also is the quality that endears him to me so particularly. Even without knowing what the audience knows, Irving has good reason not to trust Hickey (here's a cross-adaptation thought but: in the novel, Irving considers how not informing on Hickey and leaving him alive will probably mean having to always watch his back around him. He knows that I know etc. etc. resentment and so on) - and added to the vengeance angle is the significant danger of Hickey and/or Farr deciding that the Inuit are a threat and firing on them from a distance. At least that was my big worry the first time I saw the episode.

But trust is also necessary. Trusting Crozier's saying the Inuit will be helpful - that they will in fact want to have anything to do with a ragged stranger appearing out of nowhere and speaking a nonsense language instead of, say, thinking he's a threat and attacking him (unlikely to me but well in line with what the Terrors seem to believe of the Inuit). This kind of trust means laying yourself bare, placing youself entirely into the hands of someone else and just hoping they'll understand. It's vulnerable and beautiful and I love it.

We have the reversal and recognition happening in ONE FELL SWOOP when Irving looks up at the ridge to find that his companions have disappeared. It is clear on his face that he recognizes that something is very wrong and in the moment that Irving realises what has actually happened, it is already too late. The salvation that was so tantalisingly close has been snatched away, all hope has been lost.

at work but I'm staring into the middle distance and thinking about tragedy on the character arc level