#gladiator meta

This scene? After Colosseum?

There's so many things going on in this scene, and for the love of everything that is holy, in order to talk about any of it, I've clipped Macrinus out of the picture because he doesn't exist.

I'll start with the fact that, while these two are described as somewhat pathologically paranoid, this is the first day we see them living through that gives them significant reason to be worried. Most days, they seem to coast by being both terminally naïve and endlessly isolationist in terms of their company, focusing solely on each other and themselves, particularly their hedonistic pursuits, while assuming that everybody they surround themselves with loves them, for whatever reason. Everything is going great for them as far as they're perceiving it. They don't know the audiences are not cheering for them - they take every cheer as if it was aimed at them. Presenting Acacius at the Colosseum for the first day of the games? They receive no applause beyond what the audience is already dishing out upon their introductions. But producing Marcus Acacius has the audience heated, and these two somehow think that's for them. They're idiots. Morons. They're so stuck in their own delusions of grandeur that yes, while they do recognise they're in Rome and Roman emperors have a terrible tendency to catch a blade, they don't seem to be actually living that reality at all.

What we know from the script is, however, that they have never truly known stability or safety: his whole life, Geta has been shielding Caracalla from their father's explosive anger. Caracalla, presumably, has witnessed this if nothing else, though I'm curious about that golden tooth within this context. I'm sure he's caught some inbetween there, too, because Geta can only afford so much shield from a grown man. And they've never had any protection from any of that. Nobody would stand up to an emperor to protect a prince; they were his rightful property. He could do with his boys whatever he pleased, and Geta's sole duty has been, it seems, not to survive, but ensure that his brother does. His pain has never mattered. His rights, needs, wants, wishes have never mattered. Caracalla's have.

I'm sure they used to be at each other's throats like the wolf pups that they are when they were younger. But what you can see with them in their early adulthood is that this is something that does not apply anymore. They'll hurt anybody else, particularly anyone they perceive as hostile to them, and most often it's done just for fun and pleasure. This makes Caracalla's fetish for watching violence particularly interesting - what with the complex relationship kinks and fetishes can often have with prior trauma, feelings of powerlessness, and attempts to regain control - but that's for a wholly different meta there. What I'm getting at is that it's always others they inflict cruelty upon, and enjoy, but never each other; there is an absolute dynamic between them, it's them against the world, them for one another. Geta's first duty is to protect Caracalla, and Caracalla trusts him implicitly. At least before this scene.

While script!Geta has less patience for his brother than Quinn's Geta does, there is never any doubt there who and what his priority is. Caracalla comes first to him. So, it's safe to say that with Dondus screaming, when he flings his water in Caracalla's face, it's never with the intent of hitting him. I have sensory issues and I'll be the first to admit I've thrown things when my processing threshold is violently crossed and it's something you just don't second-guess, like someone hitting your knee joint with a hammer. But regardless of intent, the consequences are so very interesting. And I'm sure Caracalla, even, knows that this wasn't intentional. Dear gods though, look at his reaction.

This is the face of someone telling you you have crossed a line that cannot be uncrossed.

And, for the sake of my sanity, I need to make sure everybody understands that Caracalla's way to emphasise just how much things have broken here is to say absolutely nothing, leave the room, and go cry under a table. Terrifying. But I digress; what is terrifying is Geta, after this has happened.

This is the face of a man who has crossed a boundary of his own, and it has quite little to do with the previous. Yes, Caracalla is angry at him, and there will be consequences in some form. Again, for now, the consequences are that he's chosen to become inconsolable and hide under furniture, likely much as he did when their father had his rages. But Geta, for the first time in his life, broke out of his role of a protector, and the one to be beaten.

He's realised that Caracalla is not untouchable. And for ages, he doesn't move, because his whole world has shaken here; and what he does then to justify his actions is blame his brother for them. Caracalla did absolutely nothing to earn what he did to him, but it's now his fault, for being so unstable. A liability. How could Caracalla make him do this to him, truly.

This evening, Geta's been brought face to face with his reality: he is not loved. He is not untouchable. While he can mandate the word of gods, he is not, himself, regarded as a god. Not like he deserves. Not like he should be. He's suffered so much - but he is a great man, and he knows this. He's not stupid, and he's a conqueror, albeit from his comfortable seat at home. But he deserves better.

And what, pray, is standing in the way? What is holding him back? His brother is. Caracalla, who is always embarrassing him. Who is his first and last responsibility each day and each night, who needs him to watch his every move, to keep him safe not only from the world but from himself and his own instability, his insanity, his unpredictable actions. Without Caracalla, Geta could be focusing on being an emperor. He could be achieving so much more than he is, if he wasn't his brother's constant, eternal keeper, his babysitter, his court jester. And he deserves more, doesn't he? He deserves to be remembered.

So, let Macrinus (who doesn't exist as you can see from the screenshots) handle Caracalla this time. Geta has an empire to think of.

And this, this is what interests me about this scene more than anything. For Caracalla's part, things seem at a glance much more benign, though no less broken: the one thing he took as certain as air has fallen apart - that his brother would always stand for him first, and would never lay a finger on him to hurt him. His brother, who bled for him, protected him from their father, and has ever since looked after him, elevated him to the highest status, aside from some... minor symptoms of hubris, of course. But while all of this hurts him, deeply, fundamentally, it isn't enough to make him immediately see Geta as his enemy.

And I can't stop asking - should he? Should he now regard Geta as his enemy? His whole world is collapsing. It's from this very moment onwards (yes, this one, specifically) that he begins to show symptoms of acute psychosis: delusions, paranoia, severe lapses in reality, memory, and continuity. He doesn't look like he sleeps either, but of course, other factors come into play with that part. (And gods know I don't blame him for that.)

Geta was his foundation, his bedrock. They were in this together, whatever happened. Yes, they bicker, but they've always known how that goes: Geta's patience is endless with Caracalla, and Caracalla's thirst for violence is not turned towards him, even at its worst. Geta has no issues turning his back to Caracalla in the state that he is while the man is wielding a sword and doing god knows what with it in the background. Not for one second does Geta flinch when coming between Caracalla, his sword, and a man he's already condemned to die, because Caracalla would never harm him, either.

But after this? After the first blow, however small? What then?

I'm just asking questions here. This could lead onto the next subject - the way Caracalla's whole demeanor changes when he inflicts the first wound on his brother and finds that he bleeds just the same - but I'm keeping that to me for now.

#(other thought: do you think Cara really realized whats happening?) via @sherryholmes

Lads, we're about to find out what the text post limit for Tumblr is, because this is the longest post I've ever made here. Unfortunately it's also a post I've been procrastinating on for days, and turns out, for a good reason. Every part of this was awful. Trigger warning for literally everything but mostly for child abuse and exploration of chronic trauma.

In regards to Caracalla's mental state in this scene and forwards, there's at least three different perspectives that come into play at once, and of the main two (trauma/dissociation and the complications from his syphilis) neither is inherently more important than the next. Both of his issues affect each other as well as the way he perceives his reality, and to get to how much he's really keeping up with things at the end here evidently required half a day's worth of analysis into the whole of the timeline for this scene, but also Caracalla's past from - and I wish I was kidding - birth onwards. But to start someplace that makes sense, we'll go back just a bit from this scene: specifically, to the night before any of this takes place.

Worry not, Geta has never in his life been more sincere. You can tell from everything that surrounds this scene - how he looks to Caracalla when he announces the games in their very first scene, how the biggest smile we ever get out of him is when he sees his brother enjoying those games, and how he endures Caracalla in every other scene even when Caracalla's challenging him or being a legitimate, active threat to their rule. Geta is constantly tending to him, constantly watching over him, and constantly making small gestures of love and care towards him, and you can pick these up throughout the movie, whereas evidence towards anything to the contrary is completely absent.

Not only this, but Caracalla always looks to him first for everything: he looks to Geta when he feels joy, he looks to Geta when he feels fear, he submits to him when he's in pain without question. This is not someone who has real doubts about whether he is loved or cared for: he knows that he is, even if it's suffocating him, even if he feels lesser in the shadow of it. When the ships careen into the imperial box at the Colosseum, Caracalla measures his safety from Geta's reactions; when Geta isn't worried, Caracalla stays seated despite being utterly terrified himself. You can tell that Geta is his safety - that he has this place to run to when he is afraid. And it is so natural and so instinctive and so absolute that he sticks to the scene, ignoring his own instincts, in favour of trusting his brother's guardianship.

But perhaps most importantly: Geta is fully capable of violence, and yet he abstains from it in every. single. instance. where it might be warranted. He has physical superiority in every sense: Caracalla is terminally ill and ailing, and he's bodily much smaller, Geta could quite literally just pin him down if he wanted to. He can literally pick Caracalla up and has done so on screen. There's NO doubt here that he could hurt his brother, but again at every instance he chooses to avoid that - even at his own peril.

When Caracalla charges at Acacius, holding a sword? Geta puts himself between them, without fearing what might happen to him. He does so because Caracalla is not only putting their rule in jeopardy by making poor impulsive, emotionally charged mistakes, but also because he's about to give a known traitor a sword, which Acacius - Rome's most acclaimed general and war hero - could easily cut him with before anyone could lift a finger to stop it. In this scene, Geta uses no violence beyond necessary force; the way he grabs Caracalla is certainly firm and undeniably controlling, but at no point does he use his physical advantage to hurt his twin, even when he is physically restraining him. When he puts Caracalla down again, he does so with immense gentleness:

(Caracalla landing on his elbow like that is his own damn fault, but I guess it's also the price he must pay for having some shreds of dignity left to him while wearing a wrapped-up sheet and nothing else.)

On the evening of what reasonably might be the worst day they've ever had, Caracalla's blaming Geta for everything: it was Geta's job to get things right, it was Geta's job to protect them, and now the people are rioting and demanding their heads. Geta, already at his limit, finally snaps at this - and of course he does, because he's still trying to reassure Caracalla even while he fears for their lives just as much if not more, knowing full damn well that Caracalla was the one spitting fire shouting for Acacius's death at the arena but Geta is not blaming him for it, he's holding back and trying to find a way to fix it. This was his job. He is the protector of them. He is meant to make the choices that keep them safe. But now he's failed, and Caracalla's there, shouting at him for letting them both down. He knows, he knows.

Even then, he aims for Dondus, not Caracalla. And he's only spilling his drink: he's not throwing the glass, he's not aiming to strike. He could have done anything, he's literally losing it here. And who would blame him for it? Not Macrinus. He could be their father, he could just beat Caracalla into silence, is he going to do it? No. Even at his worst, the most he can do is throw some wine at Caracalla's loud pet monkey.

But most showingly: when it comes to a literal fight for his life, Geta does not one thing to act against Caracalla. He ignores pain not to fight back, but to turn to gentleness, because he is never his own priority. His entire palm is slashed open and he puts that to Caracalla's face to pet him, to reassure him, to tell him that he's loved, that Geta wants him to remember them - what they are - what Geta is to him, and what he is to Geta. How even if he failed now, there has never been a time he wasn't ready to sacrifice himself for Caracalla's safety. Because he loves him.

He doesn't need to plead to save his life. His brother is sick, feverish, weak, upset, already shaky and uncoordinated; Geta has two good goddamn legs to himself, he has a head's worth of height, he has half an arm of reach and strength; he could at any moment use any of these assets to fight back. Yet he does nothing, not even to save his own life. He holds Caracalla by the arms so that Caracalla can't hurt him, and he tells him he loves him. He begs for Macrinus to take the blade, his whole focus entirely on his twin, even after Caracalla's stopped fighting him. He doesn't care about the knife, he's worried about his brother.

I wonder if he didn't fear leaving Caracalla alone more than he feared dying anyway.

There's a ladder of "evil" to this film, and one by one they're revealed not to be the main concern we should be worrying about. First we are introduced to Acacius, a cold and seasoned soldier who leads an army to sack a city - a dignified hero of the people, and a victim of the emperors. Then we are introduced to those emperors, the oppressors of the people, of their own armies, seemingly the source of Rome's corruption - only to find out that they're scarcely anything more than scared boys looking for someone to guide them in a world they don't understand, where everyone wants them dead, and where from their early childhood onwards they have only ever learned that the only thing they have is each other. They've barely been surviving this whole time; they don't know what they're doing, and they don't know who to turn to for help. And finally that who we should be looking out for is men with grand promises, who manipulate the whole of it behind the scenes, who see victims and instead of feeling pity they take advantage of their pain, their fear, their weakness, their sickness, and their grief. That that is Rome's corruption: callousness, selfishness, blind vengeance, a lack of compassion for those weaker than one's self.

What do you think about Caracalla choosing Dondus instead his brother?

Caracalla loves Dondus more than Geta?

Hi. <3 This is a really interesting subject, actually, so glad that you asked.

Starting from the last question: does Caracalla love Dondus more than Geta? In a way, yes.

From our angle, Dondus is Caracalla's pet. Dondus is also a very human child-shaped pet, dressed up in that manner; monkeys are usually kept for this purpose, people think of them as eternal babies, they want to have them because they're cute and child-like, without realising that monkeys grow up and turn into wild animals. Dondus, where we meet him, is also a baby; this was Sherry's first movie and you can tell, because she's very young and in the wild would still be clinging to her mother like she does to Fred in the film. An adult monkey wouldn't want to ride you like this - they're curious, independent, active and energetic and easily bored, and I doubt that Caracalla any more than most people keeping monkeys as pet was prepared for that.

But as he is, Dondus isn't anywhere close to maturation yet. He's Caracalla's baby - someone small, vulnerable, and entirely dependent on him. He loves Caracalla unconditionally because he has no choice, and Caracalla can love him back the same, because if Dondus is ever inconvenient, he can simply hand him back to the slaves and tell them to deal with him. This is a totally pure relationship to him, something he can not have with anybody else. This is Caracalla's safe space.

In short, Dondus is uncomplicated, and he is an ideal to Caracalla. He is something that Caracalla can love without risk of complications or rejection, and without taint or doubt, innocently, and with all that he's got to give. Dondus is the image of a child, someone that entirely depends on Caracalla for protection... the same as Caracalla did, and still does, with Geta.

When they were children, Caracalla was unable to protect himself, and more so unable to protect his brother, without control; he was completely powerless in their circumstances, and Geta was the one who put himself between Caracalla and danger because he was strong enough to protect him. Time after time Caracalla would witness their father dealing punishment out to Geta, who protected him - but Geta is not uncomplicated, and there has always, always been doubt in their relationship, and this dynamic in particular is at the core of it. There's competition, jealousy, uncertainty, a gnawing, growing lack of trust. Their position as much as Caracalla's illness has heightened this, and he can feel the stress coming from all angles. Geta is taking his spotlight. People refer and defer to Geta, not to him. He's lesser, always (still) weaker than Geta ever was, and their communication is falling apart: Caracalla doesn't know what Geta thinks, and Geta, increasingly, has no idea what Caracalla is thinking either, or what he needs, where this resentment and anger and the moods are coming from. Maybe Caracalla doesn't know either as his body and mind are failing him. His world is very uncertain and extremely terrifying, it has no uncomplicated left in it, nor does it have unconditional. He doubts whether Geta even loves him anymore.

Would Geta not want to rule alone? Caracalla does. He's always sidelined, always in the shadow. Geta must feel the same. Nothing is ever their own, everything is shared, and it is a painful, terrible burden to bear. But if Geta feels the same and Geta already has so much power - then Caracalla is already losing this battle, isn't he? Geta might be plotting against him, trying to get rid of him, and if so, there is nothing that Caracalla can do to stop him. He doesn't know and accusing Geta of it might... reveal something. Either about him or Geta - and if there was nothing there before then there would be something there after, inevitably, unstoppably. Caracalla's left to wonder and dread it, and struggle against his own losses, his ailing health, his terrifying collapsing reality, and the worry that not even his own brother will keep him safe anymore.

Macrinus can tell this is happening, which is why he drives that nail in: he claims to know that Geta is going to blame Caracalla in front of the Senate. What could that mean? Stripping him of his power? Caracalla's hurt by this, and frightened, and angry, obviously enough. But he doesn't quite seem ready to kill over it: rather, he seems depressed, because he's anticipated this. He just didn't want to hear it. He didn't want it to be true.

But what he is willing to kill over is the same thing that Geta was always willing to die for: to protect the one who cannot protect himself. All his life, Caracalla watched Geta do this for him: take beating after beating so that Caracalla would not be hurt, and all this time, Caracalla felt powerless, and helpless, and afraid and traumatised and broken for it. There was nothing he could do. But he is to Dondus who Geta was to him, and in this situation, he does have power. It is his duty and purpose to defend and protect Dondus, because Dondus cannot protect himself. Dondus, to Caracalla, is less a monkey than he is a substitute for his own powerless self: Dondus is the child that Caracalla could never keep safe, who had no comfort or love, and who always had to live in fear and who still lives in fear now, uncertain of his place even in his own family. He's given Dondus everything he couldn't have for himself: safety, endless love, warmth, a home where he knows he is wanted and treated like a prince, where no one will ever harm him, or act like he is lesser than them.*

*(As a note; substitutes are very common in trauma recovery and coping, and are often a key element of regaining a sense of control over one's past experiences. This can either be a healthy thing, where the trauma is slowly healed through recreating a version which allows the mind to process past the trauma, or it can become an unhealthy self-perpetuating cycle where this repetition does not resolve the trauma and has to be endlessly restarted because the mind will never stop trying to heal itself, even when it fails to do so on its own. People get caught up in these cycles, and it's likely that this would also happen to Caracalla when Dondus matures, because Dondus would with extreme likelihood eventually "reject" him as all teenagers reject their parents. Caracalla is not mentally able to handle this from his substitute - or anybody, for that matter - and would therefore go through the trauma then of being rejected by his family again, and likely end up finding another substitute that is dependent or made dependent on him, and so on and so forth. But that's besides the point, merely a curiosity in terms of Caracalla's relationship with Dondus in general.)

In this moment in Caracalla's world, Geta becomes their father, Caracalla becomes Geta, and Dondus becomes Caracalla. This is a recreation of his own life, and his own fears, and he knows what he has to do: the one thing that even Geta could not do, which is to remove the danger altogether. By doing this, not only is he protecting Dondus and himself, but he is proving himself to be stronger than Geta ever was - Geta was also a child then, but Caracalla is a man, a man who is capable of violence and self-defense and all the things that Geta could never guarantee them when they were boys, and the danger came from an adult man. And since Geta has already chosen to betray him, Caracalla has nowhere else to turn: it really is now or never. It is on him, solely on him, to be brave this time, and make sure nothing hurts this vulnerable being who has no other safety than him, or himself, ever again.

But this is also why Geta does get through to him, and why Macrinus's plan of having Caracalla very conveniently rid him of Geta without him ever directly dirtying his own hands falls apart. Geta reminds Caracalla of the true order of things: he is Caracalla's protector. He loves his brother, even when they fight. Even when Caracalla hurts him, Geta will not hurt him in return; he will not hurt Caracalla, or let any harm be done to him, even to protect his own life. That is the Geta that Caracalla knows - that he remembers - and against Geta's own testimony, Macrinus's lies fall apart.

We're brothers! Remember all the times - against our father, I protected you. With my own body, I shielded you from him. I took his blows, because I love you - you are my brother.

It's clear they haven't been talking, not openly, for a while; that their relationship has been strained and they've had arguments, and that there is a powerful doubt growing in that relationship, whether things are the same as they were. But Caracalla still does believe him, he remembers the boy who would rather die than let him be hurt, he sees that boy before him now when Geta does not fight back against him, and he knows that that boy would not do what Macrinus says Geta is planning. Even though it feels good for Caracalla to let out his anger - even though he feels powerful, maybe for the first time in his life, lashing out against Geta, he stops fighting him, because Geta would not hurt him, that wouldn't make sense, and therefore Dondus - the child - is also safe. The situation stops making sense to him there, and he freezes, because freezing is the only thing he can really do.

In that frozen state then Caracalla might be wondering if, in that situation, it ended up being him who played the part of their father, not Geta. After all, it is Geta who is once more injured, but now Caracalla's is the hand that dealt the injury. And as he witnesses what inevitably follows, it makes sense: because he knows that he is not in control of himself and not moving his hand of his own accord, and yet that very same hand is the one that cuts his brother down, the only explanation is that it is truly their father's doing, then. That it is their father who makes the cut - finishes what he had started all those years ago with the boy who would always intervene where just punishment was due.

So... yes, in some ways, Caracalla technically loves Dondus more than he loves Geta, but it's not really about Dondus and never was. This is him loving himself and struggling to survive in a situation where he already knows he's losing everything, and he doesn't even know if the one person who would always be there for him (who would always be happy for him, who would share all his joys and his sorrows, his fear and bear the brunt of his anger without faltering, too) even loves him anymore. Or if he's being betrayed - if everything in his life has really just been violence and fear and rejection and hatred down to the bone, and nothing else ever even existed. If nothing in the world is pure except for Dondus, and the love that he wanted to feel for himself, that he once felt from Geta but which is now going away, has no direction, has no meaning and no place left in his life. It's less about Dondus, and more the concept of his own vulnerability, his own need to feel in control of something, to feel loved and protected, that one remaining shred of purity and innocence left to him.

I'd hope not too passive, that boy is going through a lot very actively in those stories. But in all seriousness, for several reasons, and in this essay I will...

Sorry this is going to be a 50 000 word essay and also a biography about me the author but

I genuinely don't think he intended to throw it at Caracalla at all, I think it is meant for Dondus, the issue with this situation being that Dondus is seated on Caracalla's shoulder and therefore throwing a drink at Dondus means throwing it at Caracalla.

It's obviously because of Caracalla - Geta snaps when, despite holding his shit together at the brink of a full-blown spiral and trying to both manage the situation and calm his brother who really isn't helping, Caracalla outright lays the blame on him for what's happening. As if Caracalla hadn't made the same choice that Geta ultimately committed to (thanks to Macrinus) and enjoyed it to the full, but Caracalla can never do a thing wrong, and if something does go wrong, that's Geta's fault. Geta's supposed to keep them safe and make things go smoothly and protect them, and Geta's clearly failed to do that, and now they're facing an actual uprising on the streets that's directly threatening their lives.

“My hand held the blade, but my Father's hand guided mine. I was the puppet, dancing on his string.”

I have this theory or thought, Caracalla is not just reliving himself k-lling Geta. But also “playing out” what he witnessed their father do to Geta.

Obviously it is Macrinus’ hand. But we understand how the twins see the people they trust, as parental figures in some way. Which is probably why Geta felt betrayed by Acacius and Lucilla (deleted scene where he suggested if Lucilla should adopt them).

Parental figure is such a theme with this film that I think people tend to overlook. Finding your mother, looking for a parent figure in someone. Even making yourself a “parent” to yourself and others to survive.

Another line before, that is also deleted. “Now I am the only one.. I was the true us, and he was the false me. We were always "we," all our lives, but now I am only I, me, alone.” It is likely just his illness overtaking him since he is already in the late stage of syphilis plus lead poisoning.

I can’t help but ponder on that line, like where in their story (in film) would he say this for besides Macrinus pushing him to the wrong idea. Like what did Geta do to make Caracalla think this way during the entire film before executing Acacius.

God YES. All of this.

It's obvious with Lucius, but less glaring with the twins - yet they are, throughout the film, paralleled thematically with Romulus and Remus, orphans raised by a wolf. "Raised by wolves" on its own is a phrase used to describe people who grow up in harsh circumstances, without adequate love and support, struggling to survive and forced to fend off for themselves. The real Caracalla and Geta weren't twins, the ones in the movie are for symbolic reasons. This says as much about them as it says about Rome.

And both their characters are shown to be judged for their shortcomings; for their lack of an education, for their mismanagement of the state, for their cruelty and insularity. Yet when we meet them, and are shown them as people, both of them are so desperately seeking guidance from any real adult around them: they're very young, and they have no idea what they're doing at all. The tragedy of their situation is that, like so many people with childhood trauma, they turn away support which is caring and supportive because it makes them suspicious, and turn for the kind of authority figures whose perceived love for them is demanding and conditional. This isn't any more conscious for them as it is for most trauma survivors, but it is such a painful pattern. If they can't perceive someone's ulterior motives, they can't trust them, and they've not been raised to understand that people might be altruistic and strive for the betterment of the whole without a selfish angle. This is why Geta pushes Acacius: Acacius is much like their father, an older, powerful, respectable, dignified military general who has the nation's support and love. But Acacius must want something for himself. Geta hates that he refuses to show it. That he turns down personal honours and tries to slink away from his duties to attend to some shady business called retirement and home life and loving your wife. That doesn't compute with him so there must be more and if he just pushes him far enough, surely Acacius will show his true colours.

They do the same with Lucilla: the reality that she doesn't desire anything much for herself just doesn't sink in to them at any stage. They think they can leverage glory and luxury and power with her, but she doesn't want it. She'll never give to them what they're looking for because in exchange for their power and status, they're offering her more of the same, and it's about the last thing she could possibly care about.

So what is HER ulterior motive, then?

But Macrinus, who is always a push and pull, trading "care" for leverage, sinks in like a hot knife to butter. Instantly. Because it seems that he plays by their rules: he wants something, but what he wants is benign so they can give that to him, because he is taking it in such a way that is beneficial to them, he's only looking out for their mutual best. No questions asked. Neither of the twins pushes for anything.

And with what happens with Caracalla, I. Fucking. I'm.

The thing is, Caracalla would not really go for Geta's life, just as Geta would not go for his. Macrinus doesn't realise this and his plan almost fails for it, because Macrinus does not understand love like they have for each other: he thinks that pushing these same leverages with them will ultimately lead to its natural conclusion. Only, for whatever fucking reason, Geta gets through to Caracalla and Caracalla stops his assault on him and that will not do because if they resolve it peacefully - then Caracalla will expose Macrinus's plan to Geta. Before this point, Macrinus never dirties his own hands, and I don't believe he had any intention of doing it here either. Caracalla killing Geta is both obvious to the world and expected and sickeningly convenient for Macrinus, because Caracalla is sick and easy to control through that. Geta is already doing it left and right and Macrinus is so much better at it because he doesn't love Caracalla, so what the fuck does he care what he tells him or how he bends him to his will. Geta is a problem, Caracalla is an available tool to be wielded. But when Caracalla doesn't kill Geta, Macrinus has to - in a way that allows him to convince Caracalla that, actually, he did that. It was Caracalla. So that Caracalla won't complain and the plan can proceed regardless of the minor hiccup.

Caracalla's mental state is so bad in that scene. He's utterly frozen and dissociative and unresponsibe when Macrinus takes to him. He's literally just witnessing, apparently his own hand but he's not moving it, kill his brother before his eyes. Whatever Macrinus tells him after to explain this is fair game. And in the moment, yes, this is his father acting through him. It's what Severus always aimed to do, what they both feared their whole lives. Geta got in the way. Now he is punished, from beyond the grave, for it. He should have submitted to his fate a long time ago. He's always been a problem, an obstacle. And now Caracalla is alone but he's alone because he... wanted it? He did want it. Always wondered what it would be like if Geta wasn't in his way, if he wasn't perpetually overshadowed by him. Of course he did this to Geta. Of course it was his hands. Of course it was meant to be. Him, wielding a blade, and guided by his father's final justice.

And why is he crying for it? Why does it hurt? He's not crying. He's fine. He has consuls to name. Tomorrow, he'll look for Geta again, because Geta always comes back after their fights. He wouldn't leave Caracalla alone. But Macrinus tells him that Geta is unwell and that doesn't quite make sense but it has a horrible echo and Caracalla's willing to accept this explanation because questioning it would break him and he doesn't have it in him anymore to be broken. More than he is. Geta would be proud of him, so he goes on with this thing that he wanted, his dream of being a fully realised emperor, a single entity, a person in his own right.

Ough. Thank you?? First off??

So - their father's violence is canon per released script;

(and I'm still waiting for them to give me an extended cut with Geta's entire speech intact, because in the movie, you can tell it's been trimmed harsh. I crave for this and I will not rest before I've seen the full version. Just need to say this again since it's been at least two days since I last did so.)

Julia is a total mystery, meanwhile. We only know that she's not there in the movie and since no one ever mentions her, she doesn't seem to have been there ever, which indicates she died when they were very young. Meanwhile, Caracalla's confused rants to Macrinus seem to indicate that they had a difficult birth;

Maternal mortality prior to modern times was high - around 1.2% average pre-industrial, compared to .013% in the study I have open for UK years 2020-2022. So significantly more. Further, twin pregnancies are much more dangerous, and this was particularly notable in the past, so putting these together it seems not far-fetched to assume that she died of the complications in her pregnancy with them that Caracalla seems to indicate, most likely during birth since there'd be very little chance for the twins to survive if this happened before she was in labour.

I'm not entirely sure why Severus beat them. We know that he did and we also know that he did fuck all to educate his sons, which is both extraordinary as hell for their status and how important a good education was to the noble class in ancient Rome, but with the twins we can't even be sure Geta can fucking read since he doesn't recognise a passage from The Aeneid of all things. Vergil's Aeneid is not only the creation myth of Rome and one of the most significant works from the period, but also the book that Roman children typically learned to read with, so - what is going on here?

Historically, the parents of Caracalla and Geta encouraged competition between the two and pitted them against each other in some very messed up attempt at raising them into success, which we know failed about as hard as it could have, considering how they ended up (dead). So it's entirely likely Severus in canon saw their closeness and it bothered him, and he tried to model for them a harsh and strict (heh.) military ideal, but WHY then has neither of them the faintest aura of military training? Neither of them even knows how to hold a sword. Dear gods they're fucking useless. What happened???????? I doubt anyone in the production actually gave a thought to this or attempted to explain or map out why they are totally useless at their jobs and they were simply portrayed this way to underline that they were unfit for their titles, but the result is that in-universe, between the canonically acknowledged violence and this seemingly total lack of any formal education, it simply looks that the twins were left to be raised by wolves and neglected horribly throughout their childhood. They did not receive a typical Roman education, much less one fit for heirs; all they seem to have learned is how to rely on one another against the world, and the fear of it, the suffocation of it, alongside Caracalla's quickly progressing terminal illness are rotting away even that foundation that they have.

Maybe Severus could not bear to see them after losing his wife. Maybe they looked like her. Maybe he hated them for taking her away from him, which is not at all a rare reaction for a father to have upon losing his partner to childbirth complications. And because Caracalla is the one who seems to have suffered the most from this, it's likely that he blamed Caracalla specifically for Julia's death, and Geta, feeling guilt over his perceived role in causing this hurt to his brother and by extension the death of their mother through what he has "done" to Caracalla, would feel that it's his duty and purpose to protect his vulnerable twin from their father's vengeance. After all, he was the real cause of the tragedy. Caracalla was only his first victim.

It's important to note that Romans believed that babies had agency, a sort of a higher consciousness, upon birth; that they could want and intend for things to happen in ways that grown people can't understand. It's hard for people to see babies as fully human, and there's always mythology surrounding pregnancy, birth, and newborns, because newborns are vastly a mystery to everyone surrounding them, and would have been even more so during this time when we knew nothing about brain development or what is physically going on with babies, much less psychologically. So it would track from there that people around Geta and Caracalla told this myth of their birth to each other, or even to the boys themselves; after all, there's no way for Caracalla to actually remember any of this happening, so he had to hear it from someplace before it could turn into the memory that he claims to Macrinus that he "cannot forget".

No doubt Geta's insistence on getting between his brother and the fist, and their growing dependency and intimacy with each other as a result of having literally no other support network whatsoever, would have further infuriated their father. He has two sons - one damaged in birth, and one seemingly perfect one who simply cannot live to any of his expectations, or do anything right. While they are twins, Geta as the first born and the healthier one seems to have been hit very hard with the older sibling syndrome, where he seems to bear all the responsibility in their relationship, and Caracalla none of it. This is unlikely to have happened after their coronation, so it's safe to assume that Severus laid out the foundations for it from the get-go.

I think it's safe to say that Severus despised them, whatever the reason was. He neglected them and abused them, and since they had no one else to turn to, they clung to each other for survival until that, too, turned into poison.