A study of Tybalt and Mercutio, from play to movies
Introduction:
Most movie adaptations only focus on the star-crossed lovers and often cut or misunderstand the roles of Tybalt and Mercutio. The goal is to shed another light on these two characters through a study of the text and an analysis of chosen scenes in the movies.
Part 1A
Part I – A royal jester, a mercurial clown: who is Mercutio?
A – The one who talks a lot: five centuries of analysis and interpretations
Mercutio’s weapon of choice is language. He loves to hear himself, he loves puns and jokes. He goes from prose to verse incessantly, showing his volatile and erratic temperament. He also strives on public admiration, and often makes a spectacle of himself to attract attention.
Part 1B
Part I – A royal jester, a mercurial clown: who is Mercutio?
B – The Queen Mab tirade: Mercutio’s bravura
One of the most famous tirades of Romeo and Juliet is said by Mercutio. He launches into the phantasmagorical recital of his dream after Romeo reveals that he had a dream. The Queen Mab speech is riddled with innuendo. But it is not just a long speech made of puns and funny, goofy, Mercutio-esque jokes.
Part 2A
Part 2 - Tybalt, honour and loyalty: the angry Prince of Cats
A – Villain?
Tybalt is skilled with a sword. Indeed, Tybalt’s first appearance in the play is sword in hand. He is the second main character to appear, after Benvolio, and his very first course of action is to insult and seek a fight. The same way Mercutio’s weapon is words, Tybalt’s is his skills with a sword.
Part 2B
Part 2 - Tybalt, honour and loyalty: the angry Prince of Cats
B - Or another victim?
There is something else already in these two lines, the first he speaks: his attention to ranks and social value, his obsession with the system of Verona. The realisation that Tybalt is perhaps not all that he seems to be sheds another light on his behaviour on the streets and towards the Montagues.
Part 3A
Part 3 - A strange rivalry: Tybalt vs Mercutio
A – Through each other’s eyes
Their personalities, beliefs and views of the world end up clashing and the resulting fight is the turning point of the play. Up until the Duel, the play was more axed towards comedy than tragedy, but the fire that Mercutio and Tybalt alight by meeting tips the play towards tragedy. But who are they to each other, really?
Part 3B
Part 3 - A strange rivalry: Tybalt vs Mercutio
B - Death comes for everyone
The Duel is the tipping point of the play. While the prologue says that the feud is ancient and has been reawakened with a new rage, the Prince’s warning speech in act 1 scene 1 implies that the fights had not yet been deadly – nobody has died because of the feud.
The END
Conclusion
References
Tybalt is often misrepresented as the villain of the play, when he is just as much a victim as the rest of Verona’s youth. As for Mercutio, he is most of the time only remembered for his puns and innuendos, even though there is much more to him than just a clown.
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Rather than distinctly male or female, the human brain is much more like the heart, kidneys and lungs – basically the same no matter the sex of the body it's in.
“This collapse is a telltale sign of a problem known as publication bias. Small, early studies which found a significant sex difference were likelier to get published than research finding no male-female brain difference.”
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Arthur had dismissed Merlin hours and hours ago, it being the middle of the bloody night and all, so the absolute last thing he could have anticipated upon opening his chamber door was to find the exact same man standing in the hallway. He looked a bit sheepish, and a lot tired.
“Oh. Well, hello, Arthur.”
“Why are you creeping?” Arthur asked. He hadn’t been able to fall asleep yet, instead just rolling around in his sheets like a hound in mud, and so had heard the footsteps approaching his door—and then eerily stopping in front of his door—with astounding clarity. As it was, he was holding a dagger in his hand, having expected something far more sinister to be awaiting him outside.
Not Merlin, who was about as threatening as a wet cat.
“I didn’t even knock,” Merlin said instead of answering.
“I know.”
They continued to stare at each other.
“Well, goodnight,” Merlin said, awkwardly, and turned to leave. Arthur caught his arm.
“Nuh uh. You don’t get to show up in the middle of the night acting all weird and then just—leave.”
Merlin relented immediately, which was surprising. He exhaled, almost folding in on himself as he followed Arthur back into his chambers, and flopped down at the table.
“Came to make sure you were alright, is all,” he mumbled, not looking at Arthur. He was too focused on fidgeting with the hem of his sleepshirt. Arthur realized he’d never really seen Merlin in sleepclothes; whenever they were traveling, he tended to just sleep in variations on his usual theme.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Arthur demanded, perhaps a bit too harshly.
“I don’t know.”
Silence again. Arthur hated this. It was weird.
“Are you alright?” Arthur asked pointedly, intending to do the talking for both of them. “Have you gotten any sleep?”
“I…”
Merlin finally tilted his head upwards to look at him, and the pure weariness in face caught Arthur off guard. The blue eyes he had come to know so well looked distant and uncertain, more akin to those of a soldier after a terrible battle than a royal manservant.
“I keep having this dream,” Merlin said softly, “where something terrible happens to you. Something I could’ve stopped, and yet I fail. Every time.”
Arthur blinked. He didn’t know what to say to that.
(The truth was he did know exactly what to say to that, but he was having trouble convincing himself to actually, you know, say it.)
“I believe that’s called a nightmare, Merlin,” Arthur said dryly, which was not the thing he wanted to say. Merlin scoffed and rolled his eyes.
“Thank you for your infinite wisdom, o great Prince Arthur.”
“I get them too, you arse,” Arthur shot back. “About you.”
Merlin’s expression softened, though there was still something unreadable about it. “I suppose we’re in good company, then,” he said after a moment.
“Indeed.” Arthur was not going to do the uncomfortable silence thing again, so he continued. “Well, I’m going to try to sleep now. You’re welcome to sit there and watch me like some bizarre bird of prey or something, if it will give you peace.”
Merlin gave a tired laugh, and, to Arthur’s surprise, settled further into the chair like he might actually do it. “It might bore me to sleep, sure.”
Arthur snorted. “I should certainly hope watching me sleep is boring, else I might believe you a pervert.”
He crawled back into bed, wrapping the blankets tightly around his shoulders. Even with a fire in the hearth, it was bloody freezing.
“Will you at least offer your guard dog a blanket, your Royal Pratness?”
“I am not moving,” Arthur replied, voice muffled by his pillow. It wasn’t like Merlin didn’t know where the spare blankets were anyhow. In fact— “While you’re over there, grab me an extra. Tonight is bizarrely cold.”
His bed dipped with far more weight than that of an extra blanket, and he rolled over in surprise. Merlin was sitting there, glowering at him, and threw the blanket in his face.
“Hey!” Arthur cried, now muffled by Merlin’s paltry attempt at suffocation. He fought the blanket off and poked his head out of the thick fur, returning Merlin’s look. “Rude.”
Merlin rolled his eyes again, giving a hint of a smile as he moved to stand up. Arthur snagged him by the sleeve, letting his intrusive thoughts win with absolutely no hesitation. He blamed it on the sleepiness.
“You’re already here,” he said, and Merlin’s eyes widened slightly in surprise. “Might as well. It’s nothing we haven’t done while traveling.”
“Those are distinctly separate and unpleasant cots that give me back pain. This is your bed.”
“Which, as you’ve pointed out, is big enough for a herd of small horses.”
Merlin barked out a surprised laugh. “I don’t think I’ve ever said that.”
“You definitely have. Anyways, goodnight,” Arthur announced, rolling back over and away from Merlin. His dignity had finally caught up to him, and he was beyond mortified.
A few moments later, Merlin shocked him by actually sliding under the heap of blankets next to him, giving a soft sigh of contentment that did something to Arthur’s insides. “Good lord. This is like sleeping on a fucking cloud.”
Arthur chuckled. Their backs touched.
“Now you understand why I’m so loath to wake up in the mornings.”
“No, that’s because you’re lazy and annoying and refuse to listen to anything I have to say.”
Arthur reached an arm over to swat Merlin’s shoulder, which just earned him a laugh in response.
“Okay, okay. Night, Arthur.”
Arthur tried to sleep then, he really did. But, like Merlin, he’d been awake in the first place because he kept dreaming about a gory end to Merlin’s life that he was unable to stop. He knew that people knew he cared for Merlin, and it had been used against him more than once. The thought that someone someday might actually succeed scared him to fucking death.
It was with that spike of fear and adrenaline that Arthur made the truly insane decision to roll over so he was facing Merlin again, watching his chest rise and fall in the firelight. Merlin hummed inquisitively.
“The guard dog thing only works if one of us is actually looking at the other,” Arthur murmured in response. Merlin huffed, and then, being the horrible little shit he was, inched backwards until Arthur had no choice but to put one arm around him and spoon him.
“Brat,” he muttered. Merlin huffed again.
“You invited me,” he retorted, voice thick with sleep.
Several moments passed, no longer in the awkward silence Arthur had hated but in something close to peace. He found his eyes could actually slip closed without a spike of panic, spurred onward by the warmth emanating from where Merlin was pressed against him.
“We can’t talk about this come morning,” Merlin whispered.
“No,” Arthur agreed, and was sad to do it. “But perhaps another night.”
“Yes. Another night.”
Arthur smiled, knowing no one would ever see it, and finally drifted off to sleep.
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A few things I’ve learned from watching merlin from Arthur’s pov, in no particular order:
1. Arthur is in love with merlin.
2. In Arthur’s eyes merlin really is the oddest, most clumsy little weirdo, and the only reason he keeps this apparently lazy and completely incompetent servant around is because he’s in love with merlin.
3. Arthur never ever thinks twice about situations. “The immortal army that could not be killed suddenly explodes? Lucky me, I guess, let’s move on”, or “I struck this golden dragon as big as a castle and it knocked me out. Merlin said I dealt it a mortal blow and it flew off and is now dead. Sounds reasonable!” or, “this man who lives on a bridge called me Courage and said I needed Strength and Magic to complete my quest, and then later Gwaine and Merlin showed up and saved my life. Wasn’t that a fun time?”
4. Merlin is Arthur’s only true friend.
5. Arthur thinks he’s the smoothest, most valiant, heroic and romantic knight in all the lands, but he’s actually the most heartbroken, lonely, pathetic prince with daddy issues Camelot has ever seen.
@merthurmicrofic {} prompt: Exile {} words: 135 (on the dot *chefs kiss* great number) {} I actually really like this. I don't do short and concise very often but I feel when I do I do it well yk (let me have this) {}
How had it come to this?
Deep down, he supposed he knew. And deep down, perhaps he may have considered this outcome.
Uther sank back in his seat, accepting the fate that would soon befall him.
"You shouldn't have exiled Arthur," Morgana mused, tipping the rest of his wine into a plant. He watched as it shriveled to a dry, blackened wisp. "He always loved you more."
Air refused to reach his lungs as he tried to justify his actions. Pointlessly explain himself despite the facts.
"But...I suppose not more than he loved Merlin," Morgana turned back to him with an amused glint in her eyes. Something lurched inside of Uther's chest and he couldn't tell if it was disgust or his failing heart.
"Don't worry. I will welcome them both back with open arms."
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Merlin's barely recovered from the shock of hearing a polite knock on his very remote little cottage, when he swings the door open to find Arthur Pendragon staring at him. "I've been exiled," Arthur says calmly. "May I come in?"
"What?" Merlin wheezes.
Arthur seems to take that as invitation enough, shouldering past Merlin to enter. Dimly, Merlin notices he's wearing his long traveling coat, his sword at his hip, and a pack slung over his shoulder. "You keep this place just as messy as you did my chambers," Arthur tuts, looking over the humble interior of Merlin's cottage. His nose wrinkles in distaste as he looks at the dirty bowls on the table sat next to tinctures of bitter and poisonous plants, and Merlin's few articles of clothing drying on all the chair-backs. "Honestly, Merlin, what would your mother think?"
He swings his pack around, throws it down on the table, and begins to remove his coat. "I," Merlin breathes. "You. What are you—"
"Please tell me you have some actual meat in this hovel," Arthur adds. "It's a very long ride from Camelot, and I didn't stop to hunt for fear that I wouldn't make it here before nightfall."
He removes his coat, folding it and putting it up on a nail that sticks out from a wall. He turns and looks at Merlin expectantly. "Well?"
"EXILE?!" Merlin shrieks. "What are you— you're not— how did you even—"
His magic is bubbling up inside of him, confused, hurt, and restless. If Merlin hadn't already checked that it is indeed Arthur standing in front of him, he'd have thought the man an imposter. "How did you find me?" he settles on, hands curling into fists in an effort to control his raging emotions.
"I didn't," Arthur says. He leans over, absentmindedly straightening a pile of scrolls Merlin left askew. "I always knew where you went."
"What?"
"Lancelot is a very good tracker," Arthur says, in the tone of voice that indicates it explains everything Merlin needs to know. "Although he got a little too close following that business with the Sluagh. I told him to make sure you were well, not press his face into the windows."
"The wards," Merlin says faintly. He felt them thrum a couple weeks prior, indicating that someone had approached his cottage, although Merlin was unable to discover who.
His magic gave him no such warning for Arthur's arrival, the bastard.
"You've known where I've been ever since you sent me away," Merlin says slowly, trying to make his mind understand. Arthur is still looking at him with the expression he has whenever he thinks Merlin is being particularly slow about something. "And you didn't… mind? Say something?" Scream at me to leave? Show up with a company of Camelot's knights to dole out the law?
Arthur looks cross. "Well, you could have chosen someplace further than a day's ride out from Camelot," he says, and Merlin winces. Arthur then suddenly looks apologetic, and Merlin doesn't know why. "But it's for the best that you didn't. It would have been too hard for me to reach you had I need of you."
"Need of me," Merlin echoes faintly.
Arthur's apologetic expression melts into one of guilt. "I— I made sure I wasn't followed," Arthur says, and it is as he is instinctively flexing his hand that Merlin notices the bruises on his knuckles. "But I should have been more careful. My father, well—" A pained expression crosses his face. "Out of the two options, I was betting that he wouldn't choose exile. The other, I could handle."
Oh. So that's what this is about. Arthur has done something to irritate Uther, and he has turned to Merlin to fix it. He is desperate enough to decide he has need of Merlin again to seek him out. Merlin supposes it shouldn't be surprising that Arthur knows where he is, since it doesn't matter where he lives, as long as it is away from Arthur. Or maybe Arthur just wants the security of knowing Merlin can't run if Arthur decides to renege on his mercy.
If Merlin were his own friend, he would advise himself to have more self-respect. As it stands, at least there is no one else in the cottage to witness how pathetic he is. "What do you need?" Merlin says quietly.
Arthur shoots him a look. "Well, a fire would be nice, for starters. And I wasn't kidding about needing a meal—"
"With Uther," Merlin says exasperatedly. "Surely you must have some idea of how to calm his anger. I could conjure a kelpie and make sure there are witnesses to you heroically slaying it—"
"I've got my father under control," Arthur says. "Sure, it does make things a bit harder having to conduct a base of operations from this…." He looks around, and decides on a word that won't spark Merlin's ire, "abode, but my knights and I have been using coded communication for months now. The council was losing faith in him even before he chose to exile the crown prince. I give it less than a month before he brings Camelot to the brink of crisis, and then I'm sure the guards will be more than happy to allow me to return."
Merlin blinks. Perhaps this really is an imposter that has entered his home wearing Arthur's skin, or maybe he has finally gone utterly mad. He would have thought it would take more than half a year of broken-hearted solitude to get to that point. "Arthur, what are you talking about—"
"Oh, right. I'm sorry, I considered sending Lancelot with a message, but I didn't want him to be caught with anything on him were he found. I couldn't—" His thumb brushes over his lip, and Merlin sees a scab there. "I couldn't risk anything pointing to your location. Hence why I told my father I wouldn't give up that information, even under torture."
"What?!"
"Don't ruffle your petticoat, I'm fine," Arthur says quickly, as if Merlin had not just felt his magic jumping under his skin with all the fury of a dragon guarding its treasure. "I was expecting him to take me up on the offer, and then I wouldn't have to bother you. But it seems my father decided it more appropriate to strip me of my rank and title until I told him where you've been hiding."
Merlin stares at Arthur dumbly. There's no doubt about it, he has gone mad.
At least one of them, anyway.
"Why wouldn't you just tell your father where I am?"
"Very funny. Should I have offered to lead the knights to capture you myself, then?"
Merlin keeps his face blank to conceal the pain. "I suppose."
Arthur gives him a queer look. "You're acting odd. Did your brain wither away from having a forest respite for a few months?"
"Forest respite," Merlin sputters, and he may be pathetic but he still has enough dignity to grow angry. "I don't know what you want, and I'll help you with whatever you need, but might I remind you that you were the one that exiled me!"
Arthur rolls his eyes, and Merlin's hands curl into fists. "You're being dramatic."
It's so casual, so thoughtlessly cruel, that Merlin's magic lashes out before he can stop it. It doesn't hurt Arthur—he never would, never could—but Arthur's mouth falls open as he is shoved into a chair and held in place with invisible hands. For a second, fear flashes across his face, but even that is not enough to quell the anger inside Merlin. Like the first crack of ice across a frozen lake, it only splinters under further pressure.
"I did everything for you," Merlin rasps. "I bled, I killed, I would do it again without hesitation, and I know I lied to you, I know I hurt you, but— but you can't just turn up again like nothing has happened, when you sent me away—"
"—Merlin—"
"It's not fair, it's not fair to take me up one day and cast me away the next, so after this," Merlin's voice trembles, but he juts his chin upwards, he is stronger than this, damn it, "if you no longer wish to see me, then respect your own wishes and leave me be—"
"Merlin!" Arthur is still straining against the weight of the magic holding him in place. But he doesn't look angry, more confused and irritated. And sweaty. "When did I exile you?"
"Oh, I don't know," Merlin snaps. "Maybe this will refresh your recollection: 'Leave here now and don't come back.'"
He knows his voice is a harsh imitation of Arthur's exact words, as they have been ringing in his head since the moment he first heard them. They had barely sunk in, leaving their impression in the grove of his mind—a permanent scar that would never fade—when Arthur barked, "Now," his expression utterly furious. And Merlin had listened.
He breathes out harshly, trying to get a rein on his anger. And Arthur looks—
—well. He doesn't have a word to describe how Arthur looks, exactly.
"Merlin. You did magic in front of my father and his entire court." Arthur is speaking very clearly and slowly. "It was all I could do to buy you enough time so you wouldn't be caught while you fled."
Merlin blinks. He hasn't focused on that part of the situation, truly. He has been more concerned with the hurt in Arthur's eyes, the way his expression turned cold and commanding within a second. All of it, targeted at Merlin. "You were angry."
"I was frightened." Something shudders across Arthur's face before he can conceal its honesty. "I always knew you were a reckless idiot, with how little you cared for doing magic in plain sight, but I knew even I couldn't save you from that display—"
"You." Merlin feels dizzy. He sinks heavily into one of his chairs, and he hears Arthur take a deep breath as his magic releases his hold on him. "You knew. About my magic."
"Of course I knew; I'm not blind," Arthur says, aghast. "I just figured you were pretending otherwise so we wouldn't have to talk about it. Did you really not—" And then his mouth closes. He blinks. Merlin can almost see the coals inside of Arthur's head producing steam. When he speaks again, his voice is small. "I see now. How things might have occurred differently to you."
Part of Merlin wants to cry, part of him wants to scream, part of him wants to laugh hysterically, and he very bravely and wisely does not do any of that. "So you weren't sending me away. Forever, that is."
"No." There is a similar edge of hysteria to Arthur's voice. "Just until I could make it safe for you again. Until I could bring you back to Camelot."
"You kept track of where I was," Merlin says distantly. "You—" He shakes his head quickly. "Arthur, you didn't— please tell me you didn't tell Uther to torture you rather than reveal where I was— I'm not worth it, why did you, why—"
He stops when he finally catches Arthur's eye. Arthur is looking at him in a way Merlin had only caught in glimpses before, like a beam piercing through the clouds, but now the full force of the sun is shining upon him. "How is it obvious to everyone other than you?" Arthur asks.
Merlin's face shatters, and Arthur is out of his chair, making his way over with apologies, and Merlin hears him saying something about how he assumed, he was wrong, he didn't mean to, and that nothing needs to change. He puts his hand on Merlin's shoulder, and Merlin realizes they are both great idiots, and it is probably better to speak with their actions, rather than words. So he does exactly that.
It is only when Arthur has his breeches half undone that he pauses to speak, as he hikes Arthur's tunic up for better access to his chest. "I do love you too, by the way."
"Glad we got that sorted," Arthur replies, and they tumble into bed, basking in the privilege of an undisturbed exile.