Day 2: Your Favorite Character
Jul. 23rd, 2010 10:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
As distinct from one's favorite "hero," "heroine," "villain," and "villainess," I guess, since those are the questions from Days 3 through 6. Which is OK, since my favorite character in all of Shakespeare is far too minor to fit into any of those categories.
Michael Williams is a bit-part character in Henry V, a common soldier who believes -- along with the rest of the English army on the eve of Agincourt -- that he's about to die. And he has some damned eloquent things to say about the king who led him into battle. (As it happens, he's also saying them to the king -- but he doesn't know this. And Williams being Williams, I suspect he wouldn't change a word if he did know.)
But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at such a place;' some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle; for how can they charitably dispose of any thing, when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it; whom to disobey were against all proportion of subjection.
...
Ay, he said so, to make us fight cheerfully: but when our throats are cut, he may be ransomed, and we ne'er the wiser.
...
That's a perilous shot out of an elder-gun, that a poor and private displeasure can do against a monarch! you may as well go about to turn the sun to ice with fanning in his face with a peacock's feather. You'll never trust his word after! come, 'tis a foolish saying.
I love this character for his relentless skepticism, his refusal to let go of the argument, and his astuteness about propaganda. (He's probably the one person in Henry V who fully grasps how calculated the king's public rhetoric is -- and this includes Henry himself, who, I think, genuinely wants to believe everything he says, and mostly does believe it, even when it's inconsistent with the observable facts.)
Day #1: Your favorite play
Day #2: Your favorite character
Day #3: Your favorite hero
Day #4: Your favorite heroine
Day #5: Your favorite villain
Day #6: Your favorite villainess
Day #7: Your favorite clown
Day #8: Your favorite comedy
Day #9: Your favorite tragedy
Day #10: Your favorite history
Day #11: Your least favorite play
Day #12: Your favorite scene
Day #13: Your favorite romantic scene
Day #14: Your favorite fight scene
Day #15: The first play you read
Day #16: Your first play you saw
Day #17: Your favorite speech
Day #18: Your favorite dialogue
Day #19: Your favorite movie version of a play
Day #20: Your favorite movie adaptation of a play
Day #21: An overrated play
Day #22: An underrated play
Day #23: A role you've never played but would love to play
Day #24: An actor or actress you would love to see in a particular role
Day #25: Sooner or later, everyone has to choose: Hal or Falstaff?
Day #26: Your favorite couple
Day #27: Your favorite couplet
Day #28: Your favorite joke
Day #29: Your favorite sonnet
Day #30: Your favorite single line
Michael Williams is a bit-part character in Henry V, a common soldier who believes -- along with the rest of the English army on the eve of Agincourt -- that he's about to die. And he has some damned eloquent things to say about the king who led him into battle. (As it happens, he's also saying them to the king -- but he doesn't know this. And Williams being Williams, I suspect he wouldn't change a word if he did know.)
But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at such a place;' some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle; for how can they charitably dispose of any thing, when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it; whom to disobey were against all proportion of subjection.
...
Ay, he said so, to make us fight cheerfully: but when our throats are cut, he may be ransomed, and we ne'er the wiser.
...
That's a perilous shot out of an elder-gun, that a poor and private displeasure can do against a monarch! you may as well go about to turn the sun to ice with fanning in his face with a peacock's feather. You'll never trust his word after! come, 'tis a foolish saying.
I love this character for his relentless skepticism, his refusal to let go of the argument, and his astuteness about propaganda. (He's probably the one person in Henry V who fully grasps how calculated the king's public rhetoric is -- and this includes Henry himself, who, I think, genuinely wants to believe everything he says, and mostly does believe it, even when it's inconsistent with the observable facts.)
Day #1: Your favorite play
Day #2: Your favorite character
Day #3: Your favorite hero
Day #4: Your favorite heroine
Day #5: Your favorite villain
Day #6: Your favorite villainess
Day #7: Your favorite clown
Day #8: Your favorite comedy
Day #9: Your favorite tragedy
Day #10: Your favorite history
Day #11: Your least favorite play
Day #12: Your favorite scene
Day #13: Your favorite romantic scene
Day #14: Your favorite fight scene
Day #15: The first play you read
Day #16: Your first play you saw
Day #17: Your favorite speech
Day #18: Your favorite dialogue
Day #19: Your favorite movie version of a play
Day #20: Your favorite movie adaptation of a play
Day #21: An overrated play
Day #22: An underrated play
Day #23: A role you've never played but would love to play
Day #24: An actor or actress you would love to see in a particular role
Day #25: Sooner or later, everyone has to choose: Hal or Falstaff?
Day #26: Your favorite couple
Day #27: Your favorite couplet
Day #28: Your favorite joke
Day #29: Your favorite sonnet
Day #30: Your favorite single line
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Date: 2010-07-24 03:39 am (UTC)So. You know. Well done, Michael Williams. I finally finished that play for him.
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Date: 2010-07-24 04:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-24 03:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-24 04:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-24 01:36 pm (UTC)