i think possibly the chiefest point of horror in my first viewing of the terror, which still gets me every time, is Irving encountering the Netsilik family.
it’s a great, gutwrenching scene. Irving doesn’t intend any violence to them. he’s earnest, and they’re earnest in return—Koveyook feeds him, and you know it won’t save him, he’s asking too impossibly much of them when he mentions the rest of the crew, but it’s good in what it intends. on both sides, even.
and you know watching, from the outset, that somehow Irving is going to kill these people. somehow, in short order, this officer of the largest empire in world history is going to blow all their lives up. just by showing up, he’s condemned them to something; just by being aware of them, he’s taking from them. blast radius of imperialism.
and it’s so terrible, because they fed him and he gave them the only pretty and sentimental offering he had on him and ultimately, Irving won’t ever even know he got them killed, though they will have died thinking he meant to do it.
and even so: it doesn’t matter that he didn’t mean it. because they didn’t know him!! and they fed him! and they were murdered for it. take and take and take and take. fuck
