ghrlarg

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Oof. So much busy. :( I'll make a proper post tomorrow, but now, a meme!

Write a pairing I like in the comments and I'll answer with

Comments

[dontcrosscross]

Really? I thought yours were much better. Maybe it's just because I did two separate posts. XD;

I originally read that as "Cassius is the grass who manipulates Brutus", and I am not sure what that means... >_>; We actually didn't talk about their relationship in class at all, everything after the funeral speeches we just watched the film, because we spent so much time on those. But I was one of those kids who would stay after class to chat with the teacher, and she totally shipped them too. ;)

Well, I used to have incredibly low prescription slash goggles, so that all went over my head - probably because my teacher paused the thing like every 5 seconds asking "What's happening now? What's happening now?" But when we got to the "home" bits, I started giggling like crazy, and people gave me funny looks. Very strangely selective.

Well, I wouldn't say "dishonest" - maybe manipulative, yes. But I think Cassius knows how to channel his own emotions and opinions productively. I think he actually believed that Caesar would become a tyrant, and he also thought Brutus noble, and he knew how to use those things to appeal to Brutus' emotions.

Yeah. Makes it sound like they haven't been chatting around the water cooler as much.

*handflap* I don't mind. XD

[verecunda]

Haha. I love it when teachers see stuff like that, or are willing to admit that it exists. When we did Hamlet, my teacher spent nearly a period telling us about the whole Oedipus complex thing. Luckily, I already knew about it, but he managed to traumatise the rest of the class. XD

It was that bloody seduction line which gave me slash goggles in the first place, I'm sure of it! 8D

Ah, peeling apart Cassius' motives. Always fun. :) Personally, I've always seen him as being motivated by a hatred of Caesar the man as much as a hatred of Caesar the tyrant. So, yeah, his manipulation of Brutus is clever because so much of it seems to stem from feelings he really does hold. And his hatred of tyranny does seem to be genuine on some level ("Cassius from bondage will deliver Cassius" etc.). But his ploy with the letters is just bare-faced deception. Desperate times calling for desperate measures, perhaps, but still false, which is where I got "dishonest" from.

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BAHAHA. XD I actually think the Oedipus complex Hamlet thing is total shit - that whole complex, really, is just Freud trying to justify his own fucked-up psychology by saying EVERYONE HAS THIS COMPLEX. The only people who actually treat the Oedipus complex like it's legit are lit critics, psychologists decided it wasn't real a while ago. :P tl;dr if you say there's nothing between Hamlet and Horatio but that Hamlet has mommy issues, I think you're stupid.

Was it really? XD Here's mine:

For a moment nothing more was said. And then they suddenly smiled at each other.

Ah, LotF. <3

Ach, damn, that's right, those letters. And historically, Cassius loathed tyrants (I love that story of him beating up Sulla's son), so it wasn't entirely "Caesar's a jerk, I hate him, he should die". I also kind of get the feeling that Cassius has trouble unentangling politics from emotion - so if he slighted Cassius personally, Cassius would see that not as the aforementioned, but as "Caesar's a jerk, he'd be a terrible leader, he should die". Re: desperate times - Caesar was going to leave Rome on March 19th, for some... something or other, probably a conquest. So I don't know what Shakespeare thought his motives were, but historically, it was "we need to kill him NOW, we need to plan this NOW, we need to get Brutus on our side NOW".

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I'm kinda on the fence about the whole Oedipal thing, to be honest. I can see where they're coming from with it, but I don't think it's the be-all and end-all of what's going on in Hamlet's head. My dad, on the other side, swears blind by it, but he's a psychoanalyst, and a Freudian, so there you go. XD

Eh, there's no reason why Hamlet can't be in love with Horatio and have a lingering psychosexual fixation on his mum at the same time. It's Hamlet, after all. Anything goes. XD

Oh, LotF. I never really liked the book that much, but I still managed to appreciate the ho yay. I'm pretty sure the seduction line was my first slash goggles moment. I'd read/heard things before that made me go "hur hur sounds gay", but never with any real conviction. ;)

Oh, I agree. Cassius' political and personal stances are all intertwined together. Generally, I see Cassius as being motivated by a genuine hatred of tyranny, definitely, but overwhelmingly by his political-personal antagonism, which is made up of, oh, so many things. Like, for instance, the whole thing about Caesar's lack of physical strength, he takes from contempt to "Well, I don't want to bow to a weaker vessel than myself." Also, his resentment of the closeness between Brutus and Caesar, he carries that into the political sphere as well, with the implication that Caesar's favour is turning Brutus off the straight and narrow Republican path ("If I were Brutus now and he were Cassius, he should not humour me."). And we all know that Cassius has a hard time keeping the lid on his emotions, so it seems likely he'd have a hard time separating his heart from his head.

...Basically, in a very roundabout way, I think I'm saying that I agree with you!

OMG I love that anecdote, too! I was actually thinking of writing a ficlet based around the incident. A sort of origin tale, if you will: the emergence of Caius Cassius, the tyrant-hater. Also, Brutus and Cassius both had the same teacher, so I could have beating up Faustus Sulla and also awkward schoolboy crushes at the same time. :D

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Well, if you don't see the Hamlet/Horatio, but are completely convinced he's got a complex, that's when I think you're missing it. :P Both is fine.

Does he really? XD Strange. Has he met people who actually have the complex?

Oh god, after reading that line, I had to go through the whole book looking for more Ralph/Simon. :P RALPH SMILES AT SIMON; SIMON WALKS INTO A TREE. I rest my case.

Haha, well, thank you! :) Out of curiosity, how does the "if I were Brutus" quote connect to politics? I understand the rest of what you're saying, I've just gotten a little hung up on that one bit.

You know, I like to think then when all us JC fans are Real For Reals scholars, we will compile all our tl;dr discussions and publish them in some kind of legit format. Wouldn't it be great? I think discussions are a lot more interesting than essays. :D

I don't know why, but now I want Brutus/Cassius-at-Wittenberg AU fic. fuuuuuuuu

[verecunda]

Well, yeah. If you don't see Hamlet/Horatio, you ain't reading it. :P

I don't really ask, and he doesn't really say. Patient confidentiality and all that.

OH GOD I REMEMBER THAT BIT. XD

Well, I've always read that line as meaning "If I were in Brutus' place, I wouldn't let Caesar take me in." A concern that Brutus' friendship with Caesar might reconcile him with Caesar's politics if they don't do something soon.

It's like when Brutus worries that the people are making Caesar king, Cassius' "Ay, do you fear it?" line could be taken as him realising that Brutus' friendship with Caesar hasn't actually reconciled him to Caesar's politics, so it's maybe something that has been concerning him before the play begins.

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Stupid slip of the finger made me click "Post" too soon. >:| I have no idea how that happened...

Our discussions are so much more fun! Less big words, for a start! :D

Brutus and Cassius at Wittenberg? That sounds... remarkably cracky...

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Naw it's ok - sometimes I post whole journal entries by accident too soon. That's just embarrassing. XD;

Not only that, but the conversations and the progression of ideas are so much more organic, not like - well. Not like an essay. :P

You know you want it.

PS. DO YOU LIKE MY ICON :D

[verecunda]

True, true. Mind you, I don't think I've ever actually written an essay plan that I ever ended up following. My essays are pretty much a very organised form of stream-of-consciousness. XD

You saw right through me.

I LOVE IT. IT'S KINDA TRIPPY. OR THAT MIGHT JUST BE THE MEDICINE TALKING. @__@

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Ach. If I ever wrote an essay on my own time, it would be something like that -- but they've drilled this formula into our heads at school. Openers, introductions, conclusions, segues, OEIs - it's awful. I wish they'd just teach us how to write.

*sigh* Don't get me started. XD;

That reminds me - I've actually been meaning to write an essay on my own time for a while. I'm always lamenting how there are no good essays about X or Y. :P

Probably the medicine, yeah. XD Would you like me to make you one?

[verecunda]

I remember something very similar when I was at school. Topic sentence, quote, explanation. Wash, rinse, repeat. We must have been turning in the most generic bloody essays of all time. We never really got taught how to write, either. Their focus seemed to be more on teaching us the techniques for writing essays in exams.

What sort of topics were you thinking of?

No, it's okay. You've already done so much for me already, and I've got no icon space left.

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Probably something along the lines of why Brutus and Cassius are not, in fact, following the Renaissance ideal of male friendship, but that they are really gay for each other. Like your manifesto, but more scholarly. I'm not sure how I'd do it, bit I think it would involve comparing them with another pair in a similar situation, but who are just friends.

Inspired by a recent essay I read comparing Antonio from Twelfth Night to Helena from Midsummer, the point of which being to prove that Antonio is really gay. :D

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Ooh, that sounds interesting. Very interesting indeed. How did it do that by using Helena?

[verecunda]

...Okay, that sentence didn't make a lick of sense. What I meant to say was: how does comparing Helena to Antonio prove that he's gay?

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She argued that they're in the same situation (putting themselves at risk to be with the person they're in love with), and compared their speech. The first example that comes to my mind would be how they both are willing to submit themselves to their beloved's will (Helena says she'll be Demetrius' spaniel; Antonio: "If you will not murder me for my love let me be your servant").

And your original sentence made sense to me... ;P

[dontcrosscross]

Hm - I always took the "he" in "He should not humour me" to mean Brutus (the footnote in my copy agrees), meaning that if their positions were reversed and Brutus were trying to convince Cassius of something, Cassius wouldn't let Brutus influence him - which is just Cassius being silly, because Brutus influences him later in basically everything.

But that's an interesting reading of the line that I'd never heard before. And! Yes! That too! Man, I don't know, but for some reason I love uncertain!Cassius - poor bb, he does try to know what he's doing, but most of the time he fails. :(