yard sale junk

In the episodes following Will and Monty’s arrival at the Arboretum, we can see their relationship has irrevocably changed. Montresor is clearly terrified, traumatized, and grieving. Will seemingly cannot remember what happened and is bound for one hell of an existential crisis. But what I want to point out is Montresor’s specific reaction: he’s lashing out and rejecting this version of Will. Any attempt to connect is met with firm rebuttal, and even violence. He can barely bring himself to look at Will. He’s haunted, and his best friend’s ghost won’t leave him alone.

In these panels from 137 we see not only Montresor’s violent rejection of Will’s affection (because he is so so scared). But also the distinct way he’s talking about Will. He immediately goes to tell Annabel about what happened, he refers to Will only as “him” or whatever he was going to say before he was cut-off. From what we’ve seen he never once uses Will’s name. That isn’t Will to him, that’s a wax double, a thing wearing his only friend’s face. And nobody sees it, nobody understands the wrongness of the thing before them. That isn’t a person. That isn’t Will. Something ain’t right about it. [personally, I ascribe to the “every version is equally Will/dividing a chunk of wax theory when it comes to Will’s humanity/personhood but honestly I have no idea]

The point is, Monty is haunted. He is absolutely isolated in his suffering. And in denying his chance to speak on this [though, side bar, I completely understand Prospero’s crash out, he has no idea about this, Montresor’s past, etc he only has Monty’s behavior in public, in Nevermore to go off of] they have created a time bomb.

The narrator in William Wilson, pursued to the ends of the earth by his double who advises him with such horrid affection and interferes with his will, is much the same. As he became more obsessed with the double, he becomes more and more hostile. Determined to bend this one thing that will not do as he says (much like Will, who albeit unintentionally routinely interferes and disobeys Monty’s orders, such as continuing to try to appease him when Monty told him to “quit lickin’ [his] boots”). The relationship devolves turning what once was a close bond, a friendship where they were attached at the hip, sour.

I think Monty and Will’s relationship will follow a similar trajectory over season 2. I think Montresor will continue to lash out at what he views as a cheap imitation of Will, and escalate his already toxic behaviors in their relationship further. But it won’t help, won’t make him feel more in control, won’t make the others listen to him. So he becomes more desperate, unraveling further as his grief consumes him and he desperately tries to figure out what was real, and what to do. Battling with his own feelings, and ultimately I think it will end in tragedy, as most gothic romances do.

At the end of William Wilson, we finally get the context for the beginning. We learn that after years of being pursued by his double, having his entire life unravel as he spirals, the narrator snapped. He led his double to a side room at a masquerade, challenged him to a duel, and stabbed him repeatedly with a sword.

who do we know that has a sword? (Well, large knife)

So yeah, I think after a season or more of psychological horror, and the evolution of the world’s worst situationship (and one of my favorites), Montresor will snap, and make up his mind to kill Will. Finally ending his torment and putting to rest the ghost of his dead friend (by killing him). It would act as a true tragedy, completely preventable yet out of control, maybe if things were different it could’ve worked, but they always would have made those choices. The candle metaphor: while the fire needs the wick and the wax to sustain it, in the end it still destroys it. The candle melts no matter what.

That leads me to this official art (which I’m totally not including just because I love it so much)

This illustration serves as a microcosm of their entire relationship. While Monty seems to understand he is destroying Will, he cannot bring himself to push him away, thus he dooms one of the few people he has truly connected with. He knows what is happening but cannot stop it, and Will isn’t letting go. He should, but he isn’t. Because for a second he’s warm, he’s alive, he’s content to hold Monty—to be at his side—even if it kills him. Their relationship is a tragedy of two people who match each other in many of the worse ways, hand picked to torment the other and yet even worse, they really do care for each other. The love was there, it didn’t save them and in fact it was their doom, but the messy, unhealthy love was there. But it wasn’t enough, because love does not make a relationship healthy. It does not make it good, you work to make it and keep it healthy. Their relationship, if I’m correct will spell doom for them both.

Now, how exactly is Monty doomed you may ask? Well, the flame cannot continue to burn without the candle, it dies out. But to put it in more concrete terms, we can look at the beginning of William Wilson. The narrator tells us of his descent into evil, the strange circumstances which led him here, to this moment where he has crossed the point of no return. To where he has no hope, no sympathy from his fellow man. Killing Will would break Montresor, it would mean fully stepping into the role of the devil, bringing him to a point where he (most likely) really does care for nothing and nobody. It is theorized that the double in William Wilson may represent the conscience, and in killing his the narrator has utterly doomed himself, so much that he may as well have taken his own life. The death spiral reaches terminal velocity. I don’t know if Montresor would die after killing Will, but I think he would have lost a key part of himself.

“You have conquered, and I yield. Yet henceforward art thou also dead -- dead to the world and its hopes. In me didst thou exist -- and, in my death, see by this image, which is thine own, how utterly thou hast murdered thyself.” (“William Wilson”, Edgar Allan Poe)

so yeah, I think Willtresor is doomed, and I’m here for every heart-wrenching, complicated, homo-erotic, truly gothic (in the literary sense) moment of it!! They truly are such characters :]