#shakespear

that's the sound i make when i show up to tell you shakespeare was married to anne hathaway

all I can think of is

like

fuckin

Macbeth is my favourite play. I mean, "Shakespeare is a great playwright" isn't exactly a hot take, but it has both some amazing dialogue and, in my opinion, one of the most compelling narratives of Shakespeare's plays (something I often find a weakness in his work).

But there's no disguising the fact that it is, basically, a work of propaganda for its time. The evil witches behind it all, the villainous Macbeth against the heroic English and Scots rebels (who's leader is the ancestor of Britain's then-King James). There's also at least one really antisemitic line.

Now, I'm also quite fond of the TV series "Gargoyles." And in that series, they basically take Shakespeare's Macbeth and make him... not a hero, but a considerably more honourable and sympathetic figure than Shakespeare's Macbeth (which, from what little I've heard of him, is probably more faithful to the actual historical Macbeth than Shakespeare's take).

I honestly think "Gargoyles" Macbeth would be pissed off fiercely by Shakespeare's play (he's old enough to have seen it when it first premiered), particularly the villainization of his beloved Gruoch, and also the whitewashing of their enemy Duncan.

But, I do appreciate that, you can still see glimpses of Shakespeare's Macbeth in the character. The "Gargoyles" writers obviously knew Shakespeare's play well. Most obviously, I think "Gargoyles"' Macbeth, an unwilling immortal who spends most of the series trying to die, would deeply appreciate Shakespeare Macbeth's most famous monologue.

"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and frets his hours upon the stage,

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing."

It is especially fitting that Macbeth, at that point in the play very jaded to death, is moved to this speech by the death of his wife, which is probably the thing that would most move "Gargoyles" Macbeth to such emotion as well.

"Gargoyles" Macbeth also very much draws, I feel, on the spirit of Shakespeare Macbeth's final lines, during his confrontation with Macduff, and the sense of defiant pride expressed therein:

"I will not yield

To kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet

And to be baited with the rabble's curse.

Though Birnam Wood be come to Dunsinane

And thou opposed, being of no woman born,

Yet I will try the last. Before my body

I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff,

And damned be him that first cries "Hold! Enough!"