horatio CEO here to serve my people ❤️❤️
by removing horatio from any adaptation, you not only brutalise hamlet’s character, but you brutalise the foundations of the whole play!
In any play the characters are built to serve certain roles, but I think this is very significant in Hamlet, given the meta theatrical layers and the themes of identity in the play. The characters are forced to play roles that contradict themselves, ie. Hamlet, a gentle soul, is forced to take on the role as revenger, Claudius clumsily takes on the role as the king and antagonist. Etcetera.
This is where Horatio comes in. His role is to be the main character’s best friend and a witness to events, but these roles do not run contradictory to his character. Horatio is shown to be loyal, grounded and honest. He is simply just himself all throughout, and this contrasts just about every other character. The significance of this contrast is to show that Denmark has grown rotten from lies and deceit, and by the end this is purged through the deaths of our beloved main characters. Horatio is representative of a hope that morality and straight up honesty will prevail over everything. Him living to the end represents a new status quo for Denmark.
Also by removing Horatio you remove a genuinely unique character from the mix. While (sadly) scarce, his skeptical and dry commentary provides a nice break from the otherworldly theatrics of the other characters. The scene with Osric comes to mind here, as well as the very first scene with the ghost
Another thing. The renaissance is a very significant backdrop for the play, so I think it’d be a waste to remove a character so centred around being a scholar. I think Horatio is sort of the ideal scholar here. When obtaining information, he is curious but logical, only deriving conclusions from empirical evidence (a1 s1) But when the time calls for it he can be sensitive and thoughtful for a loved one. Humanism yadayada. There are a lot of other characters that Hamlet yearns to be like, but I think Horatio is the most significant. Especially since Horatio is so detached from the politics in Elsinore. You can understand a lot about Hamlet’s desires through Horatio, as well as Hamlet’s other companions. Which is why it’s dumb to remove him
I’ve posted about this before but Horatio is also the reason why Hamlet remains sane. He’s obviously depressed but I think most of his sanity is intact by the end. If Hamlet didn’t have someone in his corner who listened to him, he would have nothing to ground himself with and would lose it. I think. It would also just feel too cruel to leave Hamlet without an ally, and I think it would have the effect of making him too sympathetic. This could be a reach but I think having Hamlet be too sad could make it difficult to view some of his actions more critically. From a writer’s perspective.
I understand viewing Horatio as an extension of Hamlet, they are sorta written like that. But I think Horatio very much holds up as his own character and his part in the play is integral!! Thank you for the tag I love to yap nonsensically about Horatio 🫶
There is definitely a lot more but I have probably posted about it before or I am lazy.
