#ask hamliet

[hamliet]

Hi! Did you read the alleged Buffy Reboot script? What are your opinions?

Unfortunately, yes. There's so, so much that's wrong with it I don't even know where to start.

I'll just say, as a disclaimer, I didn't want the reboot. Buffy is a fairy tale, and to quote a friend, fairy tales end with happily ever after. Expanding upon that doesn't work. But the actual script demonstrates just how badly they were attempting to do this.

Firstly, the opening scene of the original Buffy is iconic because it starts off subverting the trope of the girl getting murdered by revealing she's actually the murderer (Darla killing a creepy guy). Starting off a reboot with Stacy literally getting dragged away and brutally murdered is not subverting Buffy; it's misunderstanding the point of the story. It's cliche.

But maybe it's subverting Buffy! No, it isn't. Subversion has to have a point to it. The pilot should make it clear there's a point to this, but it just seemed to be shock value. A slayer can die! Except, we already knew that, it's literally something Buffy the show tells us from the start and goes on to prove when Buffy dies twice in her series and constantly wrestles with her own mortality. The tides turn in Buffy's finale when Buffy sees the slayer she's mentored (Amanda) die. That's not new.

Secondly, the characters are extremely flat. Nova is just Temu!Willow, a Buffy who is "not like the other girls," except the whole point of Buffy is that she IS just like the other girls. She just also happens to be the Chosen One. Gracie is Cordelia with a weird evangelical tilt. Hugo is Xander with the same boringness.

Thirdly, the writing. The dialogue is horrible, as is the plotting. The dialogue is full of references that are desperate attempts to sound GenZ while sounding very much like a Millennial or GenXer wrote it. The references to Hamilton are outdated. The feminism quotes are abysmal. The "you're in your Dark Academia phase" stuff is pointless because you've been showing us Nova's character for several scenes now; everyone figured that out already. Why does the guidance counselor have to tell us this? Just to emphasize that Nova is cool and not like the other girls? (Yes.)

It is clearly not written like it has a story to tell. It was written for an audience, with the audience it's trying to appeal to first and foremost in mind. It wasn't written to tell the story of characters or a premise. Audiences can actually tell when this happens. It feels fake, not tongue-in-cheek. It's "look at me please think I'm cool please please please."

Who is the show for? Not the characters or because of a story with themes. It's for an audience to make money.

The problem with this type of writing--for an audience--is that it treats the audience like a project. The story is a medium used to reach them, like a project to get them to like the product. It's gimmicky. That doesn't tend to resonate well.

Fourthly, the fact that they call out an Angel reference in the actual script in a scene that is supposed to remind of us of Bangel's first meeting but make him a predator this time is weird. I actually only like Bangel when it's framed critically, but to do that is to annoy the audience you're trying to lure in with nostalgia because it comes across with the same shallowness of Grishaverse. You have to understand the appeal in order to deconstruct it in a meaningful way.

Yeah, it's only one episode. But it just reads as a way to be like "NOT YOUR MOTHER'S BUFFY." Which makes me again ask, who is the audience here, and is the show trying to tell us anything of value, or is it trying to just right any wrongs of the original show?

Finally, the story misread the room (world context) in a baffling way.

Like, how are you going to tell me that it's a good idea to take the cringey white guilt plotline of Pangs that aged very badly and base the premise of your pilot on that idea? While having mainly white characters? Again, is this show about Nova, or is it about righting the missteps that didn't age well in Buffy?

At least Pangs is a funny episode. This takes itself way too seriously.

The idea that the Chumash tribe actually don't want their land back because it's cursed is so... bad. Yes, it's true that young, immature leftists sometimes do more harm than good. We get it. But ffs, to base your entire social message of the episode as "well ackshually the Native Americans don't want it back anyways and you stupid white libs keep ignoring their wishes" completely makes the white people the center of the story here, and does that by appropriating something white people actually use even today to justify taking Native land but puts it in the Chumash peoples' mouths.

It's racist. I'm sorry, but that's a racist plotline.

It also makes teenagers the butt of the joke, which is baffling because they're supposedly trying to appeal to teenagers with all the GenZ/Alpha slang. It's not about education or challenging perspectives with empathy, asking them to grow--it's about tsk-tsking silly liberal teenagers. The cringe mockery of wokeism, the inclusion of evangelicalism--it's all very much a headscratcher. How did you misread the day and age we are in so bloody badly? Yes, Buffy has social commentary too, but it's not hamfisted and it's like they're trying to appeal to angry GenZers without understanding what actually makes them angry.

Anyways the exec who cancelled it is an unsung hero. Even if he wasn't a fan of the original series, apparently whoever wrote and made this wasn't either, or at least never understood the appeal.

[hamliet]

Do you still think Eloise should end up with Philip? I didn’t read the books but many are saying she is a different character in there and that the two wouldn’t work together. On the other hand, I don’t know how subjective this is because many ship Eloise with Theo and would love for her to marry him instead.

Yeah haha, I think this argument is very weak for a few reasons.

Firstly, Philip is also a different character than in the book honestly—in the book, he is Marina’s husband and father of the kids, but in the show, he steps up for his brother and only marries Marina in name. So that argument is very short sighted and nonsensical.

Honestly, if they had Saphne end up together despite That, Philip shouldn’t even be a concern even if he was identical to his book counterpart, and he’s not! I’m intrigued to see what they do to him in the show, because it’s a Beauty and the Beast retelling, but I think it’s less of an active beast and more of a passive one where he’s been so abused and traumatized in his life that he checks out mentally and emotionally from everything. That aspect I think they can and should keep, and hopefully will. (It also would be nice to see a male MC who isn’t a rake; in fact since he and Marina are married only in name so far, I’m wondering if he may be entirely inexperienced, which would be a good change for the show.)

I also don’t get the Theo craze. He was cute but almost all Bridgertons have had a prior love interest before their love story takes center stage. Anthony with Siena, Benedict with..: many people, Colin with Marina, Francesca with John. These loves are varying levels of true, but they aren’t the endgame in the story told. Theo was that for Eloise. He was cute and I liked their story, but it was like only a few minutes of screen time and hasn’t been mentioned since. Even then, the main fallout wasn’t Eloise missing Theo but her break with Penelope. It was never a main thing and I don’t understand the craze or people believing it has even a slight chance of being endgame.

Also this is all a moot point, since the showrunner stated she is ending up with Philip just this past week.

[hamliet]

Hey Hamlet, what do you think about the TADC show in general, now that it's over and has ended?

I will say it has a ton of really good thematic ideas and complex layers. However, it leaves most of those themes undercooked at best and is messy in structure.

Ultimately, you can really tell that this is the writer's first major work they've created. She clearly has a ton of talent and I think she'll make great, thematically consistent works in the future.

Imo, TADC is just not very well done. The last three episodes were a narrative mess. But few peoples' first works are their masterpieces, so understand this is not me disliking the writers or thinking they are bad writers or bad people. I don't think that. I think the opposite.

But narratively, TADC is inconsistent in too many ways, and does not clearly have a thematic message it wants to convey. It was very clearly not planned out from start to finish from the beginning.

I'm not going to get into super in depth here and probably won't answer follow ups, so just be warned.

Structure

Structurally, the story repeatedly sets up things it doesn't pay off. The story starts off setting up Ragatha, Pomni, and Jax as a narrative trio, but there is no actual foiling or exploration.

Ragatha, for example, is mentioned as being potentially manipulative because she's so nice, but then the story never does anything with this.

Pomni is barely a character at all, with no arc and no real development. What changes in her? What is her flaw that keeps her from reaching her goal?

The narrative became commandeered by Jax, who was imo the most promising character and whom I really liked (and is the breakout character for a reason). Now, this can be a solid narrative structure: slowly coalesce a story around the pivotal character.

However, TADC fails at this because Jax... doesn't do anything to affect the main plot, or even the other characters, besides being mean. Stories are typically ultimately far more interesting when characters comment on the traits each other has (when they foil each other), when they affect each other, rather than when they exist in the same world but have very little to no effect on one another.

Jax

That meanness doesn't have major consequences for anyone but Jax, either. Except Ribbit, but they were introduced so late that it felt like the narrative telling us rather than showing us something of import.

I'm seeing so much discourse about how Jax is bad representation because she isn't a very good person. That is not the case. Jax isn’t bad representation because she does bad things. Jax is a poorly written character because she has very little thematic consistency, regardless of her identity.

The narrative frames Jax's actions as horrifically wrong, but at worse, Jax is mean. Jax is unkind, a bully, potentially cruel at times. But... Jax never does anything worse than being mean. And it's completely valid to explore bullying and meanness and the toll it takes on someone. The problem is that Jax's mean traits are framed in-universe as being like, war crimes. The characters in the show gasp and react as if Jax is a genocidal irredeemable murderer every time she's mean, and that defies believability for me. It's disproportionate to reality.

Mental Health Subtext

The subtext of Jax's gender identity has gotten a lot of commentary, and like I said, I don't actually see an issue with that. My issue is the subtext around suicide, and this is probably the part that I'm most frustrated with.

Yes, I know the voice actor insisted that abstraction isn't actually death. Sorry, but this is the only time I'm going to directly criticize a person involved in the show's production. That was an intellectually dishonest statement even if well-intentioned.

If abstraction was not intended to be death, then like... show someone recovering from abstraction. But that doesn't happen. If abstraction can be institutionalization, as the actor suggested, you can still interact with someone who is institutionalized, even if it's not quite the same as it could be Before. Abstraction just doesn't work as a metaphor for institutionalization. If that was the intent, then they undercooked this idea and failed to develop it at all.

You can't come in after the narrative is over when the narrative gives you zero indication of this and be like "oh, but don't worry, this thing never suggested in the story can be the case!" and present that as anything more than a headcanon. I'm sorry, but that's demonstrably not true, and if it was the intention, the impact didn't convey that at all.

And because these topics--mental health, particularly su*c*de, and institutionalization if that wasn't just something made up at the end--are so complex and heavy, I do think they should have exercised more care in their portrayal than they did.

See, TADC didn't even come close to adhering to the guidelines developed by actual experts for covering su*c*de in media (fiction and nonfiction like reporting). If you're going to make this a major part of your story, you have a responsibility to do this. You do, and no amount of well-intentioned care (which I do believe the creators had) makes up for irresponsibility. Now, they did hit some of the recommendations, but not all of them, but I don't think this is a partial credit situation.

For example, we have Ribbit's abstraction. Ribbit is suggested to have ended their life because of Jax. Yet this is a well-established and publicized guidelines:

Convey that [it] is complex and often caused by a range of factors, rather than by a single event.

In a narrative, I understand why it is difficult to portray the complexity of mental health and causes of death by it. I still think TADC leaned closer to this well-used yet dangerous trope of oversimplifying it to a single cause. And, they do this a bit with Jax, as well.

Jax's mental health is framed as a moral failing, as if her meanness and mental health are hopeless intertwined, and I don't think they did a good enough job differentiating who Jax is outside of their mental illness. The narrative just isn't clear enough that mental health, depression, and su*cidiality is not a moral failing. It is someone struggling. It is hard. Yes, bad moral choices can exacerbate these symptoms, but they are not the full cause, and someone with great moral choices can be just as vulnerable to dying from depression the same way someone who eats well and exercises is not necessarily always going to beat cancer over than someone who doesn't.

[hamliet]

Mind if I ask you a Dostoevsky question? I was wondering why Alyosha never talks to Smerdyakov. Other characters look down on Pavel because he's a servant or they're put off by his ~bad vibes~ but Alyosha usually helps people even if they're unpleasant or lower class iirc, so it seems unusual that he just ignores him. The one significant interaction they have (that I can think of) is when Alyosha spies on him and Marya, which I always took to be Alyosha being interested about Pavel's personal life/surprised to see him talking (relatively) normally with a friend.

Also, if Alyosha had been able to help/get through to Smerdyakov, it might've averted the whole tragedy, but do you think he'd be able to? It's hard to dislike Alyosha, but Pavel's a pretty dedicated hater.

Also also, thanks for your analyses, here and in general! I'd been meaning to get into Dostoyevsky for a while, but your posts were the push I needed to start reading!

Ah I'm so happy to hear this! I'm glad you're liking him.

So basically, I think the fact that Alyosha didn't reach out to Pavel is the precise point of the story. It's his flaw that even Alyosha, a compassionate and Christlike figure, is still human and subject to the tendency in human nature to go along with society rather than stand against it. Of course, in many ways Alyosha does stand against it... but not in this, and as a result of him ignoring his blood brother, the children suffer.

None of the brothers treat Pavel as a brother. He is, but their father acknowledges him just enough to give him the patronymic and house him but not enough to give him his name. Instead Pavel got an insult as a surname and serves his father who raped his mother, and the servant who raises him beat him.

Mitya, Ivan, and Alyosha have two different mothers among them too, so Dostoyevsky is emphasizing that this is not a blood thing. The brothers weren't really raised together either, so it's not a shared experience thing. So then, why aren't they accepting of Pavel?

The only real answer is that they adhered to social norms of the day regarding Pavel, and the result is that he treats them like they've treated him.

Mitya doesn’t really acknowledge Pavel at all, treating him exactly like their father treats him. He acts like Pavel doesn't count, so Pavel frames Mitya as if his life doesn't count.

Ivan comes to closet of all the brothers to acknowledging Pavel, but he really just uses Pavel as a receptacle for his ideals without any consideration of Pavel as a person much less a brother—so Pavel uses those ideals to justify his murder. 

But, Ivan does ask the pointed question: what of the children? Of course, the irony is that Ivan can ask about the neglected and abused children in theoretical debates with Alyosha, but he neglects to actually put any theory into action. Like. Ivan. Your brother. He's an abused child. Right there. Listening to you.

Alyosha doesn't interact with Pavel much at all, but neither does he treat him like a brother.

His mentor, Father Zosima, even comments that suicides (how Pavel died) should be the most pitied:

But woe to those who have slain themselves on earth, woe to the suicides! I believe that there can be none more miserable than they. They tell us that it is a sin to pray for them and outwardly the Church, as it were, renounces them, but in my secret heart I believe that we may pray even for them. Love can never be an offence to Christ. For such as those I have prayed inwardly all my life, I confess it, fathers and teachers, and even now I pray for them every day.

Zosima's lament is not just that people take their own lives--it's specifically that the Church casts them out. It's tragedy creating tragedy. And because Alyosha didn’t reach out to Pavel while he lived, he loses almost his entire family because of it. His father's murdered. Mitya's in prison. Ivan's consumed by guilt and "brain fever."

So is it fair to say that Alyosha created his own tragedy? Well, that seems a bit harsh. Yet at the same time, it is a theme in the novel that we are all responsible for each other. So it's fair to say that the tragedies are a natural consequences, but that's not saying he deserves it. In fact it's tragic because he doesn't.

Yet, there's hope. The tragedy and Alyosha's realization of it is why, thematically, the ending of the entire novel takes place at a child's funeral.

Keep in mind, the child who died, Ilyusha, was not a perfect child--in fact, he was noted to be spiteful and attacked other kids and even Alyosha. He was a victim of bullying and a rough family situation, and had a terminal illness (tuberculosis)--all of which Pavel also endures (except his is epilepsy). So basically, we're supposed to see Ilyusha as an earlier version of Pavel (and again, Pavel actually encourages Ilyusha in the novel to be cruel to animals, which he does).

Yet at the very least? Ilusha was loved by his family. Pavel didn't even have that. Ilyusha is also noted to be capable of intense kindness. Could that have been Pavel, if someone had tried to reach him?

At Ilyusha's funeral, Alyosha says the following:

Let us make a compact here, at Ilyusha’s stone, that we will never forget Ilyusha and one another. And whatever happens to us later in life, if we don’t meet for twenty years afterwards, let us always remember how we buried the poor boy at whom we once threw stones, do you remember, by the bridge? and afterwards we all grew so fond of him. He was a fine boy, a kind‐hearted, brave boy, he felt for his father’s honor and resented the cruel insult to him and stood up for him. And so in the first place, we will remember him, boys, all our lives. And even if we are occupied with most important things, if we attain to honor or fall into great misfortune—still let us remember how good it was once here, when we were all together, united by a good and kind feeling which made us, for the time we were loving that poor boy, better perhaps than we are. 

So what of Pavel? What of the children? Reach out to them. Even the ones who appear spiteful and cruel. Especially the ones who are unloved, because love is, as Alyosha himself says in the same speech at Ilyusha's funeral, even if it's just a memory:

If a man carries many such memories with him into life, he is safe to the end of his days, and if one has only one good memory left in one’s heart, even that may sometime be the means of saving us.

Maybe Alyosha reaching out would have prevented the tragedy. Maybe it wouldn't have. But you have to try for there to be hope of salvation.

[hamliet]

S5 is Francesca.

Hannah Dodd is getting suspiciously huge amount of pr, she was promoting with Luke and Yerin for S4, she had huge screentime in Part 2 .... S5 is her. And this is what is upsetting because Eloise deserves to be next. Claudia has been here since S1, Eloise ought to be next. But Francesca is Jess Brownell's Self-Insert so it is her who gets preferential treatment. Whereas Eloise story has been on the back burner for the past two seasons. All Eloise gets is being humbled by people around her and apologise for how wrong she had been 😮‍💨 Brownell has a personal bone to pick with either Claudia or Eloise at this point.

By the way, I like Francesca but I hate how she has been shoved onto our faces.

Two things:

Firstly:

S5 is almost certainly Eloise, not Fran. Fran has other aspects of her arc to explore (grief), Eloise's arc is at a tipping point (same with Benedict in season 3) wherein there's nothing else to give her.

But the reason I think S5 is Eloise has nothing to do with that and everything to do with an actor from Brazil leaking that season 5 was Eloise, the fact that pre-production is already underway and the actors, Claudia Jessie and Chris Fulton, cancelled their other appearances (quite likely to get on set, and for Fulton it was specifically an appearance with other Bridgerton main actors--like Lady Danbury--who also would need to be on set), and... even before the season premiered, Luke Thompson (Benedict) let it slip in an interview that he'd talked to Claudia about stepping into the main role next and then corrected himself with a huge "oh sh*t, whenever that happens" moment that didn't really cover it up. So. If you want Eloise to be next, good news! It looks clearly to be Eloise to me, though I guess we'll see!

(I also don't think Brownell has a bone to pick with Eloise--I loved her confrontation with Hyacinth this season and thought her arc was well done. It's a growing up arc--learning to see outside of herself! I think she's in general the best written character in the show. Plus, Brownell has been talking about Eloise's story in recent interviews and called her season "very romantic," along with other tidbits about how they plan to adapt the story. It certainly sounds like she's excited about it to me!)

Secondly:

I don't mean to disparage you specifically, Anon, but I am very uncomfortable with the "Jess Brownell is using Francesca as a self-insert" argument.

Yes, S3 wasn't great. You can criticize Brownell's writing for that. But S4 is by far the best written season, as every plot point fed into each other and came together in a satisfying way--something no other season has done. So... she can write.

And just as a disclaimer: I also think it's valid for fans of the book to be distressed about the gender-swap, for the record, and to never get over that. Every other book gets an adaptation, but this is a new story, so I get that. It's a valid criticism to feel sad that your ship isn't getting adapted in the same vein as the others are. And it's not inherently homophobic to feel that way, or to express that. And Brownell has flaws in her writing.

But it's not fair to make it a personal attack, which is what the "self-insert" argument comes close to doing.

Look at this gross gay woman making every story about herself! It just feels strangely close to the "gay agenda" arguments. This argument makes me uncomfortbale. I also don't think it's supportable in the story or outside statements. To say that she related to the character--sure, but that's not something that I find personally unusual or alarming for any writer to say.

The other thing is that you almost never see this critique--self-insert--lobbied at male directors or show runners when... well, it certainly could be, lol. On the contrary, you see it lobbied at female directors/showrunners/authors all the time, ranging from Emerald Fennell, Lena Dunham, Vivzie, Mindy Kaling, Rachel Smythe, etc.

I'm not saying these women shouldn't be subject to valid critiques of their work. I let think Fennell's Wuthering Heights is a grotesque misunderstanding of the original novel. I also don't think that all these women are great people and I don't "like" LD. But you have to look at the criticisms lobbied at them and their shows and notice that there's a large and uncomfortable overlap in which criticisms get lobbied, and that gets amplified more when it involves a woman being queer. It's a pattern at this point.

It's always "self-insert."

To be harsh, I personally think that's a lazy critique. Make it about the work itself. Or about the things they've said and done outside of it. Or about specific aspects that feel self-inserty and if that affects the actual development of the work and storytelling. Cite evidence.

But people don't do this. A comment about relating to Francesca because of themes of guilt tying into feeling free to love isn't, to me, a self-inserty thing to say. It's an empathetic one. We'll have to see how Francesca's story plays out, as sure, this could be the case, but while after season 3 I was worried because the storytelling in season 3 was just not good, I'm not worried at the moment.

I just want a good story. Again, I was skeptical but open to the gender swap (skeptical because Season 3 on the whole was weak so)... and I like how they set up Michaela and Fran in season 4. They have good chemistry. There was no emotional affair. There were clearly some issues with Francesca not realizing she's a lesbian, but she still very, very, very clearly loves John--maybe she's not sexually attracted to him, but she loves him, she liked him, she is devastated at the loss. They addressed infertility and it'll clearly be something they'll keep in mind and wrestle with going forward. (Hannah Dodd should get an Emmy nom for episode 7, which I can't believe I'm saying, but her performance was that good.)

If they handle Franchaela's season well and it's a success, I hope they gender-swap Lucy to Luke next, because I do think M/M relationships are less common in mainstream media than F/F (it's relegated to "yaoi;" HR is an opportunity but people need to seize it) and we need to see more of that.

[hamliet]

Do you think it makes sense for people to see Chaggie as bland because they are already established?

I keep hearing about how they have no development or screentime, but personally I’m ok with what we are getting right now.

I think people thinking Chaggie are bland are just wrong. I mean, okay, everyone has their own preferences, and it is different to have an established couple be one of the main romances.

But, I love Chaggie. They have soooo many complications and things to work through, and I actually like that we get to see this aspect of a relationship in storytelling and that it's pulled off, in my opinion, in a compelling way. They also foil the other three romances in the show and ensure we see all aspects of relationships, from a relationship where their end will be them getting together (Husk and Angel), to a relationship that has fallen apart and will probably reconcile (Lucifer and Lilith), to one that is kind of all three in that they motivate each other to be better, aren't together yet, and are also separated but by grief this time rather than differences in opinion (Cherri and Pentious).

The idea that they get no development or screentime is just wrong because like... they are the heart of the show, and they just had a big beautiful romantic number that was barely metaphorical in terms of intimacy.

We already found love in Hell The rest is easy, baby

That's how the characters find redemption: love in the midst of hell and horror. Love motivated Pentious to overcome his human flaws. Love is motivating Cherri to stick around the hotel.

Love from Angel draws Husk back to the hotel when he wants to give up on it--despite never claiming he wants redemption, and in fact disavowing it, he does want Angel, which Cherri herself points out this episode when Husk is leaving.

What about Angel?

Despite Husk's claim that Angel can take care of himself, he then returns when Angel promises to see him there. And despite how Angel says that redemption's not possible, he's not giving up on the hotel either. I would bet love is going to save Angel from Vox's machinations.

Love was also at the heart of season 1's conflict and resolution, and specifically Chaggie's love. Rosie even points out that Vaggie is maybe seeking her own redemption, but you have to open up about yourself to really love someone and be loved. Chaggie's relationship is stronger after the truth about Vaggie's identity comes out and they work through it, and it will be stronger after they work through Charlie's current spiral.

[hamliet]

Thoughts on the new Wuthering Heights movie?

*stares into the void*

Okay, my disclaimer especially having just talked about how I'm anti-censorship.

First: I haven't seen the movie. I'm also not going to based on the clips, interviews, and reviews. I'll explain why below.

Second: I think audiences in general are always frothing at the mouth to tear apart a female director, including Emerald Fennell. (Just look at how people talk about her or the showrunner for Bridgerton--it's appalling.) Fennell has talent and people are cruel in how they discuss her--instead of just attacking the film (which seems to deserve to be attacked on many if not most levels), they make it personal. Stop it.

Still... that doesn't mean she didn't make major mistakes in this adaptation. She did, and to tie into the censorship post I just did, she seems to have fundamentally misunderstood the novel and that muddied the purpose of her film into something sexy and with the appearance of depth, but lacking actual meaning. Which would be fine, except it's insulting to the depth of the actual novel, and to the very real and very prescient and sensitive themes of class, racism, etc. It sounds like it's not so much an adaptation so much as an appropriation of a Wuthering Heights aesthetic--the names, the dark and dangerous love story (and yes, it is a love story, even though it ends badly)--without any appreciation for the work itself. Judging by the interviews and actual reviews, it seems like the film is based on a blatant misreading of the text, which yeah, is going to upset people.

Now, why I don't want to see it:

I'm mostly just going to address the casting issue, because that is so blatant.

Wuthering Heights could have been a fabulous adaptation in all the ways, and it still would fail at adapting the story if it cast Heathcliff as a white man.

That is like casting Othello as a white man. It's missing one of the main thematic and plot and character points, and it's a valid criticism that can't just be set aside.

"But, Hamliet, he's ethnically ambiguous!"

Well, yes, but also no.

To the extent that Emily Brontë never explicitly states his ethnicity, sure. But the point is that Heathcliff doesn't belong. Where exactly he belongs is less relevant than the fact that, to the upper 19th century English class, it's "not here." The other thing is that context really matters, and the context in which it was written in... doesn't actually leave Heathcliff's ethnicity a huge question mark. A reader in the 19th century wouldn't need it directly stated to understand, because the terms used and the ways in which characters respond to him are meant to give a pretty clear understanding that the characters see him as Romani or Sinti.

Nowadays, the references go over our heads--people read the terms used too literally, or not literally enough. The ways in which Heathcliff is described are clear in the use of 19th century terms (which don't 1=1 equal to use of our own terms even if the wording is the same) and would not be that ambiguous. People have done full theses and papers on this.

Again: Heathcliff is seen as Roma or Sinti.

Now, what Heathcliff genetically is vs what he's seen as is a little more open to interpretation. Of course, genetics didn't really exist as a study back then, and we're supposed to read ambiguity into some aspects of it.

Namely, is Heathcliff actually Cathy's half-brother, making him part white?

The novel deliberately leaves this unclear (far more unclear than the Sinti/Roma idea, actually, but still). Readers are supposed to wonder if they are, and to what degree that changes things about not just Cathy and Heathcliff's relationship, but pretty much every relationship Heathcliff has, and his place in the world/society. There weren't DNA tests back then obviously, so it's entirely possible the dad doesn't even know but wonders, but it is very much intended for the reader to consider it a possibility. Again, without the 19th century context it's easy to miss, but... people didn't usually just take in wards for no reason. Wuthering Heights as a story invites readers to think and to question. It is fundamentally opposed to simple yeses or nos. It wants you to think, to ponder, to consider the ambiguity itself and what that indicates about your own thoughts, prejudices, empathy, and understandings of human nature and society.

Miss that and you miss the point.

Side note: I also think this would be a fabulous opportunity for people to consider why the entertainment industries as a whole are extremely lacking in Romani/Sinti representation, and why a lot of people are comfortable just ignoring this instead of acknowledging it as a problem.

[hamliet]

I feel like between the four brothers dmitri is the one that is least compelling to me, what do you like about him?

I think he's the body character to Alyosha's heart and Ivan's mind, and they are often less compelling. But his purpose in the story is no less profound.

Dmitri roots Alyosha and Ivan in their humanity. Alyosha is spiritual and Ivan intellectual to a point of neglecting the here and now, the physical reality of living in a body and suffering and loving and having desires like eating and drinking and sexuality. Without acknowledging the humanity, the importance of what is right now, then ideals fail.

Ivan's theories about how children shouldn't suffer are all well and good--except, hey Ivan, here's a child who is your literal brother suffering in your own household and you ignore him, and also Kolya, and also you love Katya and you can't admit that because love doesn't follow logic.

Alyosha, you want to love God, but you can't even love your illegitimate brother because for all your holiness and wisdom, you can't fully grasp that you are a human being who is subject to the same foibles living in a *society* inputs in us all. I mean, that's literally why Father Zosima told you not to stay a monk.

But Dmitri goes by what he feels. He is fully human and he knows it, as contradictory and as weak as that makes him at times. He also doesn't acknowledge Smerdyakov, though, but he's not necessarily being hypocritical in doing so. He chases his desires because he knows he's a person. At the same time, he neglects a part of himself that Ivan and Alyosha do seem to get--that there is a higher purpose, too, to being human.

Through his love of Grushenka, which is very real even though it's flawed, and through all his access to pleasures gets stripped away in prison for a crime he did not commit yet his brothers and Grusha sticking by him, he discovers this higher purpose.

I can see the sun, but even if I cannot see the sun, I know that it exists. And to know that the sun is there - that is living.

That's what the higher purpose is in the end: love.