Smol & Annoying

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Yes, it’s easy to characterize Hamlet as a guy who had one (1) job - kill Claudius to avenge his father - and ended up getting functionally the entire cast killed along the way. But that also literally applies to Claudius.

I will give you that Polinius is Hamlet’s bad, and Ophelia is a direct result of that. But everybody else? That’s Claudius trying to kill Hamlet.

- Rosencranz & Guildenstern were carrying letters ordering Hamlet’s death on the down-low (by Claudius). Those letters got reapplied to them

- Laertes was killed by his own poisoned foil. Poisoned by whom? By Claudius, to kill Hamlet with (Hamlet’s blow should have been non-lethal)

- Hamlet was killed by the exact same thing. So… it worked!

- Gertrude drank the poisoned chalice. Poisoned by whom? BY CLAUDIUS. To kill Hamlet with. (And unlike Laertes, where Hamlet does the actual stabbing and the whole plot can be traced back to Polonius’s death, the thing with Gertrude has nothing to do with Hamlet’s Tomfoolery)

- Claudius is killed, yes, by Hamlet - with his own poisoned rapier and chalice! Murdering Claudius wasn’t even on the agenda that day! Hamlet just came out to have a good time!

I am not saying Hamlet and his tomfoolery are blameless. But Claudius’s overkill attempts to off his heir leave a comparable swath to Hamlet’s underkill attempts to avenge his father

The first thing that happens in the play is Hamlet’s dad comes to him as a ghost and says “Clausius killed me. Your Uncle. Claudius. Right over there. Avenge me.” And instead of killing Claudius, Hamlet takes a roundabout route to fact check the ghost and gets everyone killed in the process.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were not working with Claudius. Claudius invited them to cheer Hamlet up, and see why he was acting so oddly, because they were his childhood friends. They didn’t know what was in the letter.

And yeah the poison foil/cup plot was Claudius’ idea but it hinges entirely on Hamlet murdering Polonius. Laertes would never have agreed to it otherwise.

Polonius: Stabbed by Hamlet. Ophelia: Driven to end her life from Hamlet killing her dad amongst other things Rosencrantz & Guildenstern: Hamlet re-wrote Claudius’ letter to order their deaths because he thought they were scheming with Claudius (they weren’t) Laertes: Dies by poison, in a plot he would never have agreed to partake in had Hamlet not murdered his dad. Gertrude: Dies by drinking the failsafe poison. That poisoned cup, and the duel itself, could not have existed if Hamlet didn’t stab Polonius. Claudius: Stabbed by Hamlet. Hamlet: Poisoned in the duel. The duel that would never have happened if he didn’t stab Polonius instead of Claudius.

The entire bottom row hinges on Laertes wanting revenge for his murdered father, all because Hamlet killed Polonius instead of Claudius (even though the ghost explicitly told him exactly who his murderer was). The choice to be skeptical, instead of direct, cost Hamlet eight lives, including his own.

Hamlet’s biggest tomfoolery of all is that, to get revenge for his murdered father, he murder’s Laertes’ father (an innocent bystander), sending Laertes into the same rage and grief Hamlet felt, and giving him reason to agree to a poisoned duel.

my opinion, all of these

deaths are Hamlet’s fault.

Source: Mind1less

So ok look. The point is not the flared leg by itself. These cannot be yoga pants. These are, and you have to understand this if you are too young to have worn them, BLUE JEANS. And this was the last years before all jeans were 70% spandex.

They were denim, and they weren't bell bottoms. They hung loose from the knee in a way that would make a wizard envious. We all walked around like we were wearing hakama. And they dragged on the ground. That was important. Ragged cuffs. If your jeans weren't so long that they had ratty cuffs, they were embarrassingly short.

And the thing about denim is that it's a twill weave and it's cotton. So not only does it hold a lot of water, it wicks. Walking around in these suckers on a wet day could get you wet to the knees even if you never stepped in a puddle.

Then you'd go inside and take off your shoes and try to avoid letting your freezing, wet, filthy pant legs touch your skin.