random discoveries in my files

[tempestsarekind]

Going through my files, as I try to look back on what sorts of things actually do interest me and what sorts of things I might be able to manage writing about, after all, and I found that I *did* actually write that defense of Horatio (a thing I keep wanting to do, especially after reading a batch of Hamlet criticism that reduced him to a mere

Comments

[lareinenoire]

I have always considered Horatio to be the only sane person in Denmark...

[tempestsarekind]

I am sure this is true! I love it when productions follow F and have Horatio tell Gertrude of Ophelia's madness, too: it's this wonderful moment of urging her to be kind and to speak with Ophelia.

[the_merope]

I love Horatio. I played him once in college, and the fact that I had to be him, and therefore had to understand, or trick myself into thinking I completely understood, him probably has a lot to do with it, but that's exactly how I played him- at the beginning Hamlet is to him what Aragorn is to Faramir in The Lord of the Rings: he worships him, believes in his superiority to nearly every living creature, and during Hamlet watches him fall from every possible pedestal. And yet at the end, Hamlet is as dear to him as he was at the start; objective cataloguing of actual merits has nothing to do with it, after all. It's hands down my favourite friendship in fiction, and Hamlet's complex character has very little to do with why!

[tempestsarekind]

And yet at the end, Hamlet is as dear to him as he was at the start; objective cataloguing of actual merits has nothing to do with it, after all.

Ooh, I think that's so true, and that's part of it as well. Horatio *sees* Hamlet in a way that the other characters don't, because Horatio always knows the madness is false (and I wonder how much of it also looks vindictive and unnecessary from Horatio's point of view, though Hamlet's "antic disposition" is one of my very favorite things about the play). But he's still there, and still devoted, without being blinded or dazzled by Hamlet.

[the_merope]

Exactly. Which makes the situation all the more intriguing- the fact that there is a character who somehow understands Hamlet; it presupposes that Hamlet can be understood. As a reader, that's maddening, because hell if I can!

[tempestsarekind]

Hee, yes. Somehow Horatio *gets* Hamlet, and it is mysterious how he manages it when no one else can. Watching Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead recently really brought this home to me, because without Horatio there, to keep Hamlet a bit human, I really did find myself watching him and going, "wow, Hamlet's a jerk." Not that he isn't sometimes in the play itself, but still.

(I am trying *so hard* not to turn this into musings about the Tenth Doctor: about the dazzle, and the fall, and what keeps or makes him human. Darn it, I've already written that post!)