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the u.s.s. horrible unending nightmare 💥 (once again from the incredible @hehearse)

i'm conducting an experiment. everyone who's from an english speaking country state your country, regional area and what you call the following images. i need to see something

My boy!!! King Arthur Pendragon my favorite guy is in TAZ!!!!! HELL yeah!

something something werehorse mind palace

Spread this for a larger sample size, please.

"Abby's Abby. We love each other, but... I don't know if we... like each other" if you need me ill be thinking about cecil and abby's relationship

Also! the way cecil and abby differ in how he explains his treatment of steve at the beginning: cecil saw steve as replacing him as abby’s go-to person but abby saw his behaviour as an attack on herself??

anyways the palmer siblings are everything

thinking now also about when cecil got into his job in radio in cassettes he says his mother started covering up mirrors and not talking to him. she was covering the mirrors as a jewish tradition of mourning. and then in go to the mirror where cecil says that when he fell from a tree and broke his leg, his mother said “ why are you crying when you don’t exist “. cecil was a ghost to his mother too— from the very beginning she forsaw his death and viewed cecil through only his end; he was a ghost to her.

Yeah, this makes much more sense in the context of the rest of the afterword in which Updike is more expanding on his particular take when writing the book (which centres primarily on Gertrude and to a lesser extent Claudius) than it does as just a straight reading of Hamlet. The much of the point of Hamlet is, indeed, that you cannot put aside the murder being covered up (if indeed it did happen-- obviously it did, but the fact that it's such a serious allegation is why Hamlet takes so long trying to figure out for sure early on). "Putting aside the murder being covered up" is a MASSIVE things to put aside when looking at this play that hinges on *checks notes* a murder being covered up.

I agree with your tags, Claudius doesn't really seem like an inherently capable king, you could play him as such, and he's not inherently incapable... but overall the impression he gives is middling, especially given his drinking, as you pointed out. As for the other characters, I largely agree with Updike, though the beauty of the play is that there is a variety to how you can play the characters-- I've seen Laertes-es who are generic, and I've seen ones who capture the dynamic depths he can have.

However, I do think as a whole, this mostly works as a reading. Hamlet does drag most of these people into death! That's the tragedy of revenge. There's collateral damage, it goes too far. Claudius' actions require retribution, what he's done is morally and religiously wrong, and in the context in which Hamlet exists, he is obligated to do something about that. But Ophelia? Laertes? Polonius? Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (not pictured here)? His own mother?? This is not me being like "oh let's dunk on Hamlet, he only needed to kill one guy and he got a whole bunch of people killed and also himself" (though those jokes are funny). This is me saying that the statement "Hamlet drags them all into death" highlights the tragedy of revenge, cyclical violence that kills more people than it needs to. (Though, if I'm blaming Hamlet for his revenge, then in fairness, Laertes drags himself into death through taking his own revenge). Hamlet is a Jacobean revenge tragedy, and is building off the tradition of Greek tragedies. Hamlet had no choice but to take revenge, but also, in taking revenge, he dragged these people into death. The whole situation was fucked from the start. As soon as Hamlet meets the ghost, there was no other way this could go, and somehow it's still all his fault.

John Updike, "Afterword", Gertrude and Claudius (2000)

Okay. Okay, yeah, I'm fine. Mmhm. I'm fine. This is fine. "Hamlet pulls them all into death. Coolcoolcoolcoolcoolcool. Cool. I am,,,,,

Fine.

John Updike, "Afterword", Gertrude and Claudius (2000)

Okay. Okay, yeah, I'm fine. Mmhm. I'm fine. This is fine. "Hamlet pulls them all into death. Coolcoolcoolcoolcoolcool. Cool. I am,,,,,

Fine.

DJ THUMBS! Crank that slam music!!

you want to be romantically attracted to someone? the thing that killed romeo and juliet?

i close the door and enter a time. the microwave accepts this without comment, and begins to warm my food with no more fanfare than the slight hum of it's inner workings. after it's done, it stops, without saying anything, trusting that i know how long it has been without needing to be told, knowing that i am there and will not leave unattended food to languish or rot in its insides. i retrieve my food immediately. there is no need for words. we have an Understanding

i like to think that if i build up a good enough relationship with the microwave we will one day reach the point where it no longer beeps at me when my food is done