#thomas evans

Ship's Boys of The Terror + Questions

the real cornelius hickey would never have inflicted this on them

terror shitposting (50/?)

BONUS CONTENT:

In the first year of the war, male heirs had been spared from enlistment calls, but the constant losses brought desperate measures. There was no more room for concessions and traditions, it was only war, and everything was cruel and uncertain now.

When he wasn’t at home trying to comfort his mother, Thomas spent his time by Molly’s side. At home, Thomas felt he had to be a man and hold everything together, but with Molly he could be honest. She could see through any armor Thomas tried to wear, and he was never a very complex enigma to begin with. She saw the simple, confused, loyal, and terrified boy he was, and she loved that.

When his draft letter arrived, Thomas knew exactly what he had to do. He called Molly to take a walk by the harbor, taking advantage of the morning fog and the sight of boats swaying with the waves, and then he knelt down and made the proposal he had been wanting to make for years.

but then there’s strong, evans, and heather at the start of punished, as a boy, which at first glance seem kind of strange. from what little we see of them, all three seem to be decent enough guys--- tuunbaq doesn't have the same reasons to kill them as with the others. and besides, if it just wanted to kill them, wouldn’t it have been killed far more men in the five months between the ladder and punished, as a boy? why did it kill them, and why then?

as in many cases, my thoughts naturally go to the parallels between crozier and silna. both inherit command of something (the men of the expedition, tuunbaq) after the violent death of the previous leader (sir john, silna's father), but that something proves to be a burden beyond their control, it dies under their command, and the two of them finally wind up in tragic exile.

it follows, then, that their respective responsibilities, the men of the expedition and tuunbaq, functionally parallel each other. (by no means am i equating their actions, this is only in relation to the crozier/silna parallel)

anyway, by this point in the show's chronology, even though sir john has been dead for five months, crozier is in command in name only. of course, with the ships ice-locked and the arctic winter set in, there isn't much he can do, but by this point he's still clearly mired in alcoholism and the past, and not inspiring confidence among the men. i would argue that crozier does not fully assume command of the expedition until halfway through a mercy, when he emerges from his cabin after enduring withdrawal, especially considering that scene comes directly after the scene where silna cuts her tongue out. that is the moment they both take command.

returning to tuunbaq: i see tuunbaq’s attack in punished, as a boy as almost a rebellion of sorts, though not towards its own leader. by coming onto terror to attack heather and strong, it attempts to tell crozier, "you aren't doing your job. maybe putting some of your men in danger will wake you up."

and this is especially the case with evans, since he isn't killed in the initial attack. tuunbaq only kills evans after crozier lets him out of his sight. two things there--- for one, crozier and evans were almost certainly not the only pair of men that briefly split up while searching. and for another, even if they had stayed together the whole time, it really wouldn't have mattered; tuunbaq is absolutely capable of killing two men at once. so why evans? why the man that crozier is with, rather than anyone else? it wasn't just for the sake of killing him. it wasn't because they split up. it's an attempt to communicate to crozier through violence.

meanwhile, we see the same thing with hickey. it's in punished, as a boy that hickey first lays eyes on tuunbaq, and immediately afterwards, hickey decides to kidnap silna. he enacts violence towards a leader (though not his own) in almost the same way that crozier intended to. it's easy to miss the fact that hickey's actions towards silna in the episode are extremely close to the ones crozier would have enacted towards her, had the weather not been so bad. crozier intended to effectively kidnap silna in order to interrogate her--- again, communication through violence. it just so happened that hickey got to her first. at this point in the show, hickey is only under crozier's command as much as tuunbaq is under silna's; not in practice, but with the assumption that they will be. hickey and tuunbaq both end up engaging in violence as a means of communicating with silna and crozier. (again, not equating their actions, just identifying a parallel!)

🎖Thomas Evans

My take on a playlist for @cold-boy-tapes day 7 prompt: An obscure Terror character playlist. This idea came to me as I was falling asleep. Click below for the song list, I have zero idea what this playlist actually sounds like, I made it on my lunch break.