so im just thinking about the Orpheus and Eurydice metaphor in Dead Boy Detectives again...
so i really cant get over the symbolism in the show's comparison between Edwin and Charles and Orpheus and Eurydice. I'm sure someone else more succinct than me has already talked about it but man i just have to because as a classicist it has been consuming my brain since it happened... this is going to be a shitty ramble, but we vibe
so in the show, it is Edwin who first realises his feelings for Charles, and is the first to to truthful about them. Given that, in most translations of the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice, Orpheus' devotion to his wife is seen as the "stronger love" between the pair. highlighted in later adaptations such as Hadestown, as Eurydice makes the active choice to go to the underworld and leave her husband rather than their wedding being overshadowed by issues "worse than any omens". therefore, Edwin could initially be seen as the Orpheus parallel. particularly when you consider that Edwin 'guided Charles from the darkness' when he was dying of hypothermia with the lantern
however, unsurprisingly, given that is it Edwin who escaped from Hell, and is returned to it, Charles appears as the Orpheus parallel, with Edwin being his Eurydice. this is obviously then made super explicit in the show with it being Charles rescuing/ leading Edwin out of Hell. but even then it is not that simple
In Ovid's Metamorphoses, when pleading with Hades and Persephone, Orpheus states "my wife is the cause of my journey. A viper [...] robbed her of her best years. I longed to be able to accept it, and I do not say I have not tried: Love won." and obviously at the core of both of these relationships, is a deep deep love between them, regardless of how that manifests. Something i think is a massive parallel that i haven't seen anyone talk about yet is the willingness to remain in the Underworld/Hell for their respective partners.
going back to Metamorphoses, when Orpheus is requesting Eurydice's return to the mortal world, he gives Hades and Persephone an alternative solution of sorts. he says "if the fates refuse my wife this kindness [of returning to life], I am determined not to return {to the mortal realm]: you can delight in both our deaths." now is this not effectively the same thing Charles says to the Night Nurse when bargaining with her to open a door to Hell??? Charles says "then open up a door and I'll go get him, then we're stuck in Hell and you know where we are, or, I bring him back and we're all yours. It's a win-win." tell me that these aren't the same. you cant.
But i do think the most interesting parallel is when Charles and Edwin are running up the spiral staircase. i am not mentioning the times when escaping Hell, Edwin overtook Charles running, because let's be honest, we all know he is the faster sprinter of the two given the 70 years he spent practising. so I am disregarding that. but what I do find fascinating is this - and why I said it was more complicated earlier; in the metamorphoses Orpheus is obviously given the stipulation that he must not look at Eurydice when guiding her out of the underworld, or the agreement "would be null and void". and its here that we see another reversal. during the majority of the run up the staircase, Charles is behind Edwin, because like we have established, he's speedy. but in this key moment, Charles takes the lead in their escape, walking in front of Edwin whilst making it clear that they need to keep moving. just like in the tale, Charles, fulfilling Orpheus' role, "Afraid [they] was no longer there, and eager to see [them], the lover turned his eyes", turns to look back at Edwin, delivering the ridiculously romantic, 'sorry, no version of this where I didn't come get you is there?'. however, after this he refocuses on continuing up the staircase, which is where Edwin steps in:
as you can see in the gif, currently, Edwin is in, what I'm going to call the 'Eurydice position', following the lover out of the afterlife. and it is Edwin, as Eurydice, who basically chooses to condemn himself to the underworld/ hell, allowing the demon to catch up with them just to 'see [his] lover' and ensure Charles knows that '[he] had been loved'. t
im just going to put the section where Orpheus looks back at Eurydice in here because I think its all relevant:
"Afraid she was no longer there, and eager to see her, the lover turned his eyes. In an instant she dropped back, and he, unhappy man, stretching out his arms to hold her and be held, clutched at nothing but the receding air. Dying a second time, now, there was no complaint to her husband (what, then, could she complain of, except that she had been loved?). She spoke a last ‘farewell’ that, now, scarcely reached his ears, and turned again towards that same place"
by forcing Charles to turn around and face him, Edwin is fulfilling the roles of both Eurydice and Orpheus. in this instance, he is the one 'stretching out his arms' to hold Charles, but he is also the one that could be sent/ dragged back to the afterlife for this, but he just had to make sure Charles was aware of his feelings for him, to know that he was 'loved'. and I think Edwin was potentially prepared to return to the Doll House, or at least believed he would be able to find it more bearable knowing that he had been able to bear his soul to Charles, eve if that meant Charles couldn't come back again and try to rescue him for a second time, which Orpheus tried to do in the Metamorphoses, "Orpheus wished and prayed, in vain, to cross the Styx again, but the ferryman fended him off" and I feel like we all know Charles would have also kept trying if he lost Edwin again.
i guess, what im trying to say, in the most long-winded way, is that Charles and Edwin don't fill binary roles of one of them being Orpheus and the other being Eurydice, they are both of those things to one another throughout the show and I think that's really beautiful and I have to give massive credit to whoever did episode seven because I really feel like they did their homework. even after all the ramble I have written I still feel like I haven't fully made the point I was trying to make, but I definitely got some of the way there I think
