I've been writing a fanfic for a while but I started rereading moby dick recently and upon rereading my fic u can tell exactly when I did
yeah ok bro
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it really is kind of interesting how attached people are to the idea of the improvised line and the genuine reaction in film. nearly every single famous moment or line has some sort of claim floating around that it wasn't in the script and was either made up on the spot by an actor or was sprung as a surprise on the actors to get their 'real' reaction. you know, sometimes people do come up with good lines in advance and write them down, and sometimes people can pretend to be have a convincing emotional response on screen
Reblogged bluebudgie
Reblogged that-faerie-in-the-corner
honestly I do see menelaus as an imperfect husband but I don't think he's abusive or hates helen, I think his problem is that he loves helen so much that he worships her.
the first time they meet, menelaus just lost his father and was exiled from his kingdom with his siblings, he just lost everything and now has to live with a stranger, but then he sees helen. beautiful, smiling, kind helen. yet to know grief or pain helen. too perfectly to ever possibly be a mortal, a mortal like him, helen. and menelaus is immediately drawn to her, he starts viewing helen as a goddess he is lucky to even be in the presence of, he loves her because she is everything he's not to him. she is perfection.
but helen isn't a perfect and helen isn't a goddess, helen is a person with her own flaws and pain, but menelaus ignores that because it ruins his perception of her. it ruins the fantastical illusion he crafted of their relationship as a mortal man and his goddess.
I think at some point helen used to view menelaus through her own fantasy as well, but her fantasy was childish and she grew out of it when she got older, menelaus' fantasy warped his perception of helen to the point he could never grow out of it, at least not until the war.
helen still loves him back, of course she does, he's her best friend and her husband and the father of her child. yet still after marrying him, something she used to always dream of doing, his love feels too strong, it doesn't feel like he listens to her, it doesn't feel like he genuinely loves her, it doesn't feel like how she imagined marrying menelaus would be like. he's not trying to be a bad husband, he's always showering her in praise, always buying her gifts, always around her, but it's to the point it feels like it's too much.
so much that helen starts to question their love, she still loves him, but their love isn't as she pictured it being, she wanted to be menelaus' wife, she never wanted to be his goddess. menelaus doesn't question their love, he thinks their love is eternal, he doesn't start to question it until helen leaves, because only then can he finally learn to let go of his view of helen as something divine, only then can he finally learn that she's a human too, imperfect just like him.
after all, worship is a form of dehumanization.
#great post op this has pretty much always been my characterization for them. now have a novel of tags.#i also like to take into account that menelaus came from pretty much the worst family ever. like this cannot be stressed enough. THE worst.#and so he would have had no viable role models whatsoever for what a good marriage should look like#to me it makes sense then that he would overdo it trying to be the opposite of the awfulness he'd seen growing up#but also. at the same time. this man has not been therapy and still likely inherited behaviors from his monstrous father#i personally headcanon aga got it the worst in terms of being too controlling at times like atreus surely was#with aga he justifies that behavior tho as 'i'm doing this protect you' see: how he treats menelaus in the iliad#and i could imagine there were shades of that in aga/cly's marriage too#but i think menelaus got a bit of that trait as well it's just a lot subtler#and it was one of the qualities that helen found more unbearable as time went on. being controlled. like. she's a demigoddess#i imagine that her desire to always have her freedom was important to her. if you think of demigods as having Bigger than Normal feelings#(see also: achilles)#and i think menelaus was even drawn to and liked that about her before they were married#i think he would have really liked how different she was from anyone he would have known growing up in The Most Cursed House Ever#but once they were married he would have wanted her to behave in a more 'traditional' way#he wanted them to be a 'traditional' Good couple the way his parents weren't. he wanted to break his family's cycle just like aga#and like op is saying I could see that including like well my wife is Perfect so she will fulfill the Perfect Wife role and love it#which isn't a fair expectation to put on any woman but. i'll say again. i think especially not one who actually Is part divine#someone who would want to be much MORE than just that (but also yes to not be put on a pedestal at all in the first place)#he was well-intentioned but it still ended up being an unhealthy behavior#and i think that would have broken helen's heart because she KNOWS he's a good guy but. she also can't stand to live like that#i love the point you made op also that helen would also have projected a bit of a fantasy on menelaus at the start#yes totally. the fact she ends up choosing him to marry despite him being one of her less 'impressive' suitors#to me that reads her like. purposefully defying tradition a bit. her expecting they're not going to be like 'other couples'#she's marrying (imo) her bestie. not for wealth or political reasons or anything else. so of course their marriage itself will be Different#she'll still get some of the freedom she enjoys she won't just be reduced to Wife and Mother#and she thinks menelaus will support that. only to be disappointed when he does have some of those 'traditional' expectations after all#this is also why i love the ending they (ideally) get where they eventually figure out how to meet in the middle#i hc menelaus didn't actually tell her about all the shit he went through as a kid until after the iliad/they get home#and she's like. oh. well that explains a lot.
Reblogged captainkaltar
meeting odysseus was probably the best day of nausicaa’s life tbh like she grows up hearing songs of war hero celebrity odysseus sung in her court and then meets him irl helpless and sopping wet and he tells her she looks like a goddess. it’s straight out of a self insert teenage girl fanfiction like u know she would have loved blogging on tumblr about this this
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introducing my four year old niece to the concept of "moral dilemmas" by telling her that i'm a monster that eats children and that i know it's wrong but i'm so so so hungry and everything else tastes yucky. i've tried all the human food in the world and it all tastes so yucky i can't even eat it. i can only eat children and i'm so hungry
her resolution was that if i meet a kid that has the same name as their sibling, then i can eat one of them. their parents won't be sad, because they have another kid with the same name right there. speaks to an uninformed but fascinating worldview
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it’s simple: when I like an adaptation, everyone complaining about changes to the text is a whiny baby who needs to get over themselves and accept that sometimes you have to change the story to enrich the experience/work within the medium. when I don’t like an adaptation, it’s because nobody else understands the core themes of the original work and would be better off just creating a story independent of what they’re trying to adapt.
Reblogged counterwiddershins
Maybe the most damming thing about Nolans odyssey is i haven’t seen a single gifset from it
Reblogged hitsuzenhusbands
What I mean when I do not control the hyperfixation.
