#how is it beating as you like it? troilus and cressida? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

junker-town · 3 years

Text

Media Club: “You ruinous butt!”

Photo by Peter Jordan - PA Images/PA Images via Getty Images

Troilus and Cressida features one the most venomous side characters in all of literature

Troilus and Cressida is one of Shakespeare’s weirder efforts. A tragedy set during the late stages of the Trojan War, it ostensibly focuses on the disastrous affair between the two named characters, but spends much of its time with the main Greek and Trojan characters from the Iliad. And this is for the best, because in the Greek camp. we get Thersites, who is perhaps probably definitely the most interesting minor character in drama.

Thersites doesn’t do much in the Iliad itself, although Homer lavishes attention on the fact that he is vulgar, ugly, rude and disruptive. Since he is disrupting a bunch of people being absolute shitheads — the Trojan War was not exactly the most sensible event in mythology — this means he actually comes off as pretty reasonable in his contempt, for which Odysseus smashes him over the head with a staff, which was nice of him.

Anyway, that’s Thersites’s role in Homer’s telling of the Trojan War, but if you’re Shakespeare doing a retelling, it’d be silly to let a character of this potential go to waste. So he elevates him from a one-scene heap of insults to recurring heap of insults, turning the whole play into Thersites’s insult sandbox.

We meet our hero in Act 2, Scene one. He is talking to Ajax the Great, who is attempting to get him to go find out what King Agamemnon has proclaimed. This goes ... badly:

Thersites: The plague of Greece upon thee, thou mongel beef-witted lord!

Eventually Achilles and Patroclus show up trying to defuse the situation — Ajax, not being of the witty line, resorts to beating Thersites in an attempt to shut him up — and Thersites includes the pair in his insults, suggesting that when Hector cracks open their skulls he’ll be disappointed to find them “a fusty nut with no kernel.” Then the threats resume.

Ajax: I shall cut out your tongue. Thersites: ‘Tis no matter; I shall speak as much with as thou afterwards.

I think the setting is what makes this particularly funny. Anyone with an education which includes Greek mythology is conditioned to see the heroes of the lyric age — even the notably beef-witted Ajax — as Very Serious Demigods. Odysseus in particular is venerated as the arch-trickster, the cunning hero of one of the most well-known works in literature. But Odysseus, like the rest of his pals, is a huge, horrible asshole. These characters should not be taken seriously, and Thersites does an incredible job puncturing their aura of importance, both in the play and in the general modern consensus.

Here he is giving the Greek war leaders exactly the rhetorical treatment they deserve, and also setting up Patroclus for a perfectly timed burn:

Thersites: Agamemnon is a fool; Achilles is a fool; Thersites is a fool, and as aforesaid, Patrolcus is a fool. Achilles: Derive this; come. Thersites: Agamemnon is a fool to offer to command Achilles; Achilles is a fool to be commanded of Agamemnon; Thersites is a fool to serve such a fool; and this Patroclus is a fool positive. Patroclus: Why am I a fool? Thersites: Make that demand of thy Creator.

Eventually even the kindly Patroclus loses his cool at the abuse (an aside: the abuse leading up to these quotes is focused on Patroclus’s relationship with Achilles, and while it’s not homophobic in a Trojan War context, it’s certainly homophobic in pretty much any other one. Sigh.), and delivers one of the most memorable lines in all of Shakespeare:

Patroclus: Why, thou damnable box of envy, thou; what mean’st to curse thus? Thersites: Do I curse thee? Patroclus: Why, no, you ruinous butt; you whoreson indistinguisable cur, no.

Thersites gets the last word. Several, in fact:

Thersites: No? Why art thou then exasperate, thou idle immaterial skein of sleave-silk, thou green sarconet flap for a sore eye, thou tassel of a prodigal’s purse, thou?

Sure, buddy.

What I most enjoy about Thersites’s role in Troilus and Cressida is how accessible it makes Shakespeare to a modern viewer. I mentioned above that we’re trained to read about Greek mythology in a certain way, but education also teaches us that Shakespeare isn’t really for us. He is a fusty old nut most of us never bother cracking open.

But here is Shakespeare at his dynamic best, giving an even older toy of the canon a critical look and declaring it wanting. Instead of using polemic or dramatic speech, we get Thersites deconstructing the Trojan War like an angry forum poster ripping into ridiculous play-calling. The tirades are recognizable in a way that even his best monologues aren’t.

Troilus and Cressida isn’t Shakespeare’s best play. It’s not particularly close (although it’s definitely not his worst, either). But if I wanted to show someone that Shakespeare isn’t all Hamlet flamboyantly whining and archaisms ... well, I’d consider starting here. Or with Romeo and Juliet. But that one already gets talked about, a bit.

0 notes

flynnspeaks · 7 years

Text

Flynn Marathons Doctor Who, Part VII

(for anyone needing caught up–I’m doing a watch of Doctor Who from the very beginning of the show, bingewatching it by episode instead of by serial (which I find to be closer to the original spirit of the episodes, albeit still nothing like it at all), and then doing a writeup roughly every three serials or so)

Continuing Season 3:

The Myth Makers: Oooh. This one’s tough. Because, okay, the first three episodes are absolutely brilliant--easily one of the best scripts the Hartnell era ever got, with so many wonderful lines and moments (I love Paris trying to get out of fighting Steven, and everyone in the story being really damn sick of the war by this point). The First Doctor having to come up with a way to beat Troy and desperately trying to not resort to the wooden horse is charming, as is Vicki playing as Cressida. I used to call this my favorite Hartnell story, on the memory of these three episodes alone.

But then you get to the fourth episode and...I’m just not sure how I feel about it now. The brutal nature of the ending makes sense when you’re segueing into “The Dalek’s Master Plan”, but it doesn’t make it any easier to watch, especially when the story pulls that trick of making the Trojans immensely more likeable than the Greeks. It also doesn’t seem like it’s building to any real point--of all the tragedies to make so grim and brutal, why the Trojan War? At least “The Massacre”’s grimness develops naturally out of the story. Here, the sucker-punch just feels like it was imposed on the story, especially given the changes Tosh & Wiles added.

Which, speaking of, let’s talk about how crap Vicki’s departure is. I mean, I love the conceit of her being cast as Cressida opposite Troilus and it’s a really fitting use of her character, but all of the cleverness in Cotten’s idea is wasted when she actually ends up leaving with Troilus. And Tosh & Wiles don’t even deign to give her a proper goodbye against Hartnell, which is absolutely criminal given how good the two actors are together and how well they got along behind the scenes.

Furthermore, I think this is the episode that really cements the off-handed companion departures that would become the norm for the series in the 70s and 80s. Before this, “Dalek Invasion” and “The Chase” were clearly building to be the final story for the characters (”Chase” less so, admittedly, but the final episode does so well it works anyhow), and with this we get the first episode where the departure is tacked on at the end, irrespective of anything prior in the story. Vicki’s departure is crap, through and through, and Maureen O’Brien deserved better than being suddenly fired because John Wiles found her ‘uppity’.

The Dalek’s Master Plan: Tough to rate as a whole, given the length and disparate tones throughout. I’m inclined to agree with Phil Sandifer and treat it as three separate stories (at the very least, it’s two linked six-parters).

So to start off, the first four episodes are absolutely gripping, and easily the best work Nation’s done for the program so far (and, depending on how much of “Genesis” you think is Holmes’, probably his best outright). Chen is an intriguing villain, Vyon a fascinating ally, the Daleks are frighteningly compelling, and all the twists and turns throughout make for a stunningly engaging story. It’s dark as hell, which normally I’m not a fan of, but here somehow it works. Perhaps because the Daleks are so intrinsically ridiculous the grim tone ends up creating a unique frisson that feels very Doctor Who. And then we get to Katarina’s death, which...well, I think I’ll talk about that a little later.

So then we get into the next chunk of episodes (”Counter Plot” through “Escape Switch”), and I have to say choosing Spooner to write these alongside Nation was a very apt choice. Even disregarding the necessity of the two lighter holiday episodes, Spooner’s penchant for comedy is I think a much needed breather after the grimness of the first four episodes, and especially before the brutality of the final two.

For the most part, these episodes are tight, zippy, and often very entertaining. I love the return of the Monk, and the slightly revised take on his relationship with the Doctor (It’s much more Master-like this time around, especially with all his deals with the Daleks and double-crossing and the like). I would like to say the same for the holiday episodes, but they’re honestly not particularly great. The stunt of using intertitles during the silent movie scene is brilliant, but the rest of “Feast of Stephen” is Nation recycling the worst bits from “The Chase”. But hey, it’s Christmas, so it’s hard to make too much of a fuss. Just gotta say that Spooner’s comic talent is a heck of a lot more polished than Nation’s.

Then we get to the finale, and....whew. So like I said, I think the brutal nature of the story works, in that a galaxy-wide fight against the Daleks is about the only time Doctor Who can get away with being so grim. But it’s not any easier to watch, and you start to wonder by the end what the point of it all is. Like, yeah, it’s dark and sobering and powerful, but much like the ersatz drama in something like “Earthshock” it sorta feels a little pointless.

I think ultimately the issue is down to how Wiles & Tosh handle the companions. It’s a point I don’t see made very often about the Wiles era, but they were spectacularly bad about writing companions--indeed, almost every problem their era faces stems out of firing Maureen O’Brien and then pointedly failing to provide a decent replacement. Katarina is the first example of this, killed off because they realized she would be untenable. And sure, the death scene is hugely powerful and I think it does improve the story, but surely they could’ve realized a Trojan woman wasn’t going to work as a companion? Or at the very least modified her characterization so she could be a little more self-reliant? You get the feeling Wiles & Tosh assumed any random female would do as a regular, completely failing to understand what made a character like Vicki so damned special.

Then you get Sara Kingdom, who is a marvelous character that, for seemingly no reason whatsoever, dies in probably the most brutal fashion possible at the end of the story. Again, it’s harrowing and powerful, sure, but why do it? Jean Marsh is a terrific actress and Kingdom a terrific character, and any script editor with half a brain should’ve realized she would be a great companion. Instead she’s shunted off and killed, leaving them with another serial to find a companion, which (spoilers), they end up botching entirely. Throughout their entire tenure only Steven ends up working, and even then really only in “The Massacre” because they make him the de facto lead. Everywhere else he becomes a forgettable accessory to the Doctor.

I can’t help but think back to “The Rescue” and how much time was spent introducing Vicki and getting the audience to accept her as a new regular, and really thinking about how to introduce a new character to the premise of the show. Wiles & Tosh seem utterly incapable of treating their characters the same--you can’t possible imagine them creating a moment like when Vicki first enters the TARDIS. They never seem to understand the show, and given Wiles’ obvious distaste for the program you’re left wondering why he accepted the position in the first place. And it hurts the program going forward--it’s not until 1971 that we get a companion nearly as well-realized as Vicki, Barbara or Ian, and arguably not until 1987 that fully-realized characters become the norm again. And while I don’t necessarily think programmatic characters are a bad thing, you really feel it as a loss in Doctor Who. And it’s entirely down to Wiles & Tosh.

So yeah. I like this story--honestly I do. I think it works wonders and I’m consistently surprised at how engaging I find it (as I mentioned I’m bingeing these by episodes and generally only watch 2 or 3 at a time. With this one, I ended up bingeing the whole 12 episodes in two sittings). But in the context of Doctor Who as an ongoing serial, you can’t help but feel like it would’ve been perfect had they not shot themselves in the foot with writing the companions.

Onto the remaining serials in the Wiles era. Spoilers: it’s not a fun time.

#doctor who #classic who #first doctor #William Hartnell #flynn marathons doctor who

4 notes · View notes