ethan!! 🌸🤍

In 'In Trousers', death is continuously mentioned to refer to Marvins decaying mental health (caused by hiding his sexuality). Previously to 'Three Seconds' in the show, the metaphor is used with suicidal tendencies, not flat out death, but here he specifically sings what do i think about three seconds before i die?, signifying the more permanent consequence.

Marvin ‘dies’ after marrying Trina, slowly losing any sense of self outside of being the perfect husband, father and man of the house. Marvin considers marriage 'death', consciously or not. And hey maybe thats why he acts the way he acts in March of the Falsettos, cause hes no longer anything without that role he pushed himself into...

then the same songs will have him attempt suicide or have neglectful parents, and someone will leave something deep with a, well, this is in the dark at the end.

Look, I haven't gone through every lyric in the trilogy cause Genius is an annoying site, but I don't think Marvin ever reaches narcissism.

he's unpleasant and causes a lot of harm but he's not a narcissist.

The Marvin trilogy is him growing and learning acceptance. I think each play ends with him accepting a different part of himself but I haven't gone through March of The Falsettos and Falsettoland apart from Falsettos, but Falsettos is set up like that.

In Trousers has him trying to like girls. Falsettos starts with him not being able to hide he's gay anymore, and he doesn't fit into the way he was told life was supposed to be, but he tries to get everyone else to cause that's how he was told to be happy. Then, at the end of Act 1, he's miserable and alone while everyone else is better without him.

he's immature cause that gets people to give him the attention he never got organically, he's egotistical as an act cause he's actually deeply insecure, but the people he trusts taught him everything he knows so he's convinced he has to be right, he's controlling because he's so convinced if everyone will live the way society deems normal they would actually be happy. but I don't think he's a narcissist.

I think he has the potential to become a narcissist as he is insecure and trying to fill something they've been slighted on but I don't think he ever reaches there.

Because Whizzer is talking about AIDS. He's been an openly gay man for much longer, he's been with other men, and he knows how repressed Marvin was. So, he's commenting on how tragic it is that now that Marvin allowed himself to enjoy this, they'll both end up dead.

But Marvin knew he'd lose his life for this. He had a tight knit family, perfectly patriarchal, and he put it all on the line in the name of Whizzer's affections. And they're both stubborn and they're both drowning in toxic masculinity and so neither of them actually admitted this simple truth: Whizzer was afraid of loving Marvin because he thought all he wanted was sex.

It takes Whizzer's death for them to finally fix their greatest misunderstanding. Finally Whizzer says "I'm sorry it's over, now that you could have the sex you wanted", and Marvin replies "It wasn't the sex, it was you. I'd end my life again if it meant I could live with you. I did it before already".

...what if the reason he was stuck in the woods is because he ran off there to be alone while everyone was singing Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead because he truly didn't know how to deal with all of this anymore?