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arcticclimes · 2 days ago

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#the terror #the terror amc #francis crozier #james fitzjames #the terror shitposting #this is exactly their dynamic

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arcticclimes · 4 days ago

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Dr. Goodsir and Mr. Collins on a little picnic date 🧺🍑🌿

Close ups because I like this one:

#the terror #the terror amc #harry goodsir #henry collins #omg look at them getting to be happy!!!#the colors stand out so much to me #super bright and joyful

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arcticclimes · 5 days ago

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#the terror #the terror amc #the terror shitposting #james fitzjames #RIDICULOUS I love it

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arcticclimes · 6 days ago

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i wrote this in response to to @glaciergore but the meta got loooong and demanded its own post!

a fruitful route into Hodgson’s ‘I want to live’ monologue for me is actually a deleted scene from earlier in the episode, which falls between Billy's murder and cannibalism. as the mutineers glumly haul their boat over the shale, Hickey, seated inside, reads aloud from Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan. he is a captain addressing his crew; this is a parody of a sermon, but whereas Sir John had three corpses at his sunday services on Beechey Island, Hickey keeps 'near him' just one, 'Gibson's body wrapped in canvas' (though, since this is a tragedy, the hauling corpses around him may count too). Goodsir recites under his breath 'some of the words he learned from Lady Silence [...] From his lips now, these words have become a prayer.' faith— its power, its confines, its different sources— matter to this scene.

although we aren't explicitly told in the script, how must Hodgson feel here? is this penance? his road to Mount Calvary? he is no Christ, even if his back aches. Billy is the one who died and will be martyred to sustain the mutineers' earthly existence. Hodgson sees saints being made everywhere and finds himself on the wrong side.

think of Irving, sustained by his faith as Hodgson never could be. Hickey's murder of Irving is among the few times Irving stares into his eyes, returns his gaze, recognises him (to Hickey's satisfaction), but also, maybe, sees past him. Irving dies looking at the sky. he still has his God; Hickey's knife cannot unstick his soul as the Tuunbaq could. murdered by his fellow man, Irving may still reach salvation.

because Irving had a god, he mined his sense of self from an incorruptible lode. saints incite violence against themselves because, regardless of the attacks to their mortal frames, a part of them endures that only gods can touch. by contrast, Hodgson is all mortal and so all touchable. he struggles under the guilt of rejecting the Church ('a perfect moment in a whole imperfect life') and attempts to fill his spiritual absence with material validation. Hodgson relocates his belief to the men around him and so inevitably disappoints and is disappointed because we are imperfect creatures. he tries to be a chum to the crew ('I'm more afeared of the cold, boys') but will volunteer to write the record of their executions in pursuit of redemption from Crozier.

intriguingly, when Hickey reads to the mutineers in that deleted scene, he is imitating book!Crozier, who replaces Sir John's Bible passages with Hobbes' Leviathan after he takes command of the expedition. Dan Simmons' text repeatedly quotes Hobbesian philosophy ('"Life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short," the captain had intoned'), although his Hickey never picks up the book like in the show script. nonetheless, Simmons' Crozier loosens the glue bonding the men when he topples Sir John's faith at the head of the ships. with no higher substitute to set their sights on, the men look among themselves. their dirt and filth is just dirt and filth. nothing will transform. they are hungry. they want to live.

Hodgson delivers his monologue at his lowest point, after he rejects the Catholic Eucharist ('the blood and body of Christ') for its low parody (the blood and body of Billy Gibson). 'every poor or weak or selfish thing' he has suspected about himself since the age of seven is confirmed when Hodgson consumes Billy. he kills whatever was holy or 'perfect' inside of him, wipes out God's image, and is left with the idol he made of mortality in life. it may sustain him for a few days in this world but damns him in the next. '"Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are."'

i suspect Hodgson approaches Goodsir for his monologue because he recognises in him another fallen man. dismembering Billy unseats Goodsir's faith in medicine to heal ('If ever I was a doctor, I am one no longer'), though he will soon depend on its power to destroy. i think it is possible that Hodgson would like to comfort Goodsir in this scene, except what comfort, what compassion, is left to them? all Hodgson can offer is his confession. he humbles himself in front of the one person remaining (at this point) whom he respects. as another man, Goodsir cannot absolve Hodgson for eating Billy, nor can Hodgson absolve Goodsir for dissecting him. they go their separate ways. Crozier comes the closest later ('I forgive him') but even his grace keeps its mortal limits ('I forgive all of them but you').

however, Hodgson may be more Catholic than he thinks! his monologue identifies the sublime wonder of Mass ('The singing sounded delivered by angels themselves'; 'I felt clean') but self-excludes from it ('The next week, when it came time to dress, I pretended to be ill'). Hodgson thinks his impurity and the beauty of transubstantiation are incompatible. by choosing Goodsir as his confessor, though, he stumbles into, however unwittingly, a more important epiphany: the priest is a sinner too. every Eucharist is a parody of itself up until the moment the wine becomes blood, the miracle, as man is a burlesque of God's image until he dies. Hickey's Leviathan reading recalls a captain's sermon, yes, but also Crozier's eulogy for Sir John. the scene is comprehensible as a funeral: Billy's funeral service. just because it is a parody does not mean it isn't powerful. such is the definition of a ritual: the thing you keep doing until it works. a parody without transformation becomes a tragedy.

the saint expects the violence against them. knowingly or unknowingly, they run towards it.