#xmdofp

“All those years wasted fighting each other, Charles … to have a precious few of them back …” is one of THE most romantic lines in movie history and I don’t get how anybody can possibly be blind to their being in love when these are canonical words, spoken in the most passionate and profound delivery by Sir Ian McKellen (the LONGING in his voice, you guys), followed by Sir Patrick Stewart managing to convey a million different emotions without moving a single facial muscle in the reaction shots, and then a closeup of their hands perfectly fitting together like puzzle pieces. This is some Wuthering Heights-level yearning; it ain’t subtle. I’ve heard some people say this doesn’t really count as an apology, and those people have zero media literacy; this is an even MORE powerful statement than either “I’m sorry” or “I love you” could ever be. It’s the echo of the theme of “Time in a Bottle,” which not so coincidentally earlier played in the scene where the two of them are saved from a brutal death by their son in the past. It’s a perfect summary of the entire tragedy and beauty of their relationship.

In X-Men: First Class, Charles wears a lot of blue colours in his sweaters, dress shirts, and his jacket. They are also present in the X-Men suit he wears at the end of the movie. Blue often symbolises calm, peace, and serenity, which plays beautifully into what he tells Erik when teaching him to harness the full potential of his powers—to find the point between rage and serenity. In the first movie, Charles is a source of comfort, peace, serenity and knowledge. In X-Men: Days Of Future Past, he wears a lot of red and reddish-brown tones, from his robe to his pants and dress shirts. Red is seen as a much more passionate, angry colour, and it goes perfectly with the emotions he portrays in the first half of the film. He is angry at the world, at Erik and at himself. He lashes out and, without his powers, has to rely on physically intervening in situations, like placing himself between Erik's gun and Raven. The only time we see him wear blue is on the plane when he's playing chess with Erik, like he so often did during the events of FC. But as the movie ends, after he spoke to his future self and found his way again, he wears a blue sweater for the climax of the movie, much like he is trying to find his way back to himself. In X-Men: Apocalypse, Charles wears purples and lilacs a lot, which is a mixture of blue and red. It seems as if Charles realised that he cannot go back to the way he was before the events of FC and DOFP, that there is still a lot of anger and hurt inside of him about everything that happened. But at the same time, he can reconcile these feelings and these darker sides of himself he has experienced, with his sense of self, with the calm, serene, nurturing and wise man he is. He may not be able to be who he was in FC, but he also moved past who he was in DOFP, and while the memories of these two people still exist in him, he can reconcile these parts of himself with each other, the red and the blue, to be purple, a colour symbolising wisdom and ambition. In this essay, I will--