I’m going to be a Swiftie on main for like 60 seconds.
If I have to watch one more man try and mansplain “The Fate of Ophelia” to me while simultaneously getting the meaning and intended reference in the song wrong I’m going to go postal. The song is about how her relationship with Travis saved her life not about how she or her life resembles Ophelia’s. But even still she can and does draw parallels between herself and Ophelia, and they WORK!
Ophelia was used, abused and lied to by the men in her life, causing her to go mad and eventually drown herself. Taylor has been used, abused (we can garner from her previous works she’s at minimum been emotionally and potentially mentally abused by former boyfriends ie. Gyllenhal in All Too Well and Mayer in Dear John and Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve as well as Heely in Smallest Man Who Ever Lived) and lied to by the men in her life whether it be the men she’s had romances with or the men she’s had business relationships with. There are several instances in Midnights and TTPD where she implies she had thoughts of self harm and talks about how she felt she was going mad.
The parallels are there, she’s using the reference correctly, but most importantly the song isn’t talking about Ophelia’s life as a whole but instead how Taylor’s life was spiralling her toward a similar FATE as Ophelia. It’s a love letter to the man who saved her from going mad and drowning herself.