OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH OKAY I HAVE A LOT OF THOUGHTS ABOUT THE OLDER GENERATION IN HAMLET + THE DYNAMIC BETWEEN HAMLET SR, CLAUDIUS, AND GERTRUDE... bear in mind that this is mostly just my opinion and not necessarily textually based but!

i see king hamlet as a very bold and masculine person; he was canonically a warrior king, and i feel like he approached most of his life as a warrior. very commanding, very demanding, very high standards. we also see hamlet say smthn smthn “claudius is less like my father than i am to hercules” and i think the implied equating of hamlet sr to hercules is purposeful - i think he’s very much your Traditional Buff Brave Hero. and i think hamlet and claudius both fall into the category of being much quieter, and more thoughtful, and less noticeable, and less masculine.

(this goes with me seeing hamlet as trans, too! generally i see hamlet as nonbinary + transmasc but a transfeminine hamlet could work really well too; i think a big part of hamlet’s self-deprecation is that hamlet doesn’t live up to the king’s hypermasculine warlike image. w transmasc hamlet i see it as feeding into his misogyny, but you could do really cool things with a transfem hamlet who is trying to avenge and impress her father while also trying to break away from that expectation of continued manliness. but i am off topic and i will STOP talking about hamlet trans just know that hamlet trans)

i also think about these posts a lot! (one, two, three) my opinion is that... hamlet looked up to his father so much; he viewed the king as absolutely his hero, but at the same time, they weren’t... close. hamlet sr was somewhat emotionally distant and he had VERY high expectations. and i definitely see claudius as being the odd one out in the family - and just like hamlet jr, he was much less masculine and much cleverer than he was “supposed” to be. and i feel like he did his best to provide a guiding hand for hamlet or at least to temper some of the adverse effects of the king’s style of parenting. and while i don’t think claudius is hamet’s father (re the third post - though it could be an interesting staging!), i do think he was much... “safer” than king hamlet. for gertrude in particular. i love love love the idea of a claudius who genuinely feels like he is doing the right thing by killing the king, even if he knows no one else would agree with him.

and it all makes it so much more painful for hamlet himself because he has to choose not just between these father figures but between his own dual natures - the more “warlike” side of him and the kinder, quieter side. and it’s impossible to say he chooses “right” or “wrong” because there IS no easy answer; it’s a terrible situation he’s put in. but his choice to listen to the ghost and kill claudius is what leads to the downward spiral of the tragedy. and yet - what else can he do? because he always wanted to make his father proud. he’s duty-bound to do so; it feels like an obligation. hamlet doesn’t want to kill claudius. but he feels like he has to.