#fedallah mobydick

[coulson-is-an-avenger]

i cannot stop thinking about Fedallah mobydick. the first description in the book calls him a phantom. he's the first major character to die. he's from a group of people that melville initially seems to admire and then spends the rest of the book being viciously racist about. Ahab trusts him enough to ask him to do seafaring crime for him and Fedallah likes him enough to agree to it. we never learn their history. he spends the whole story ostracized and under the suspicion of everyone around him and never does anything even remotely unkind. he tries to save his friend and fails. he can't save himself. he suffers the most gruesome death in the narrative. he is one of the only two people Ahab is willing to take any sort of council from. he's a skilled harpooner but doesn't get to bond with the other harpooners and we never see why. he's stuck on a doomed voyage thousands of miles from home surrounded by people who think he's the literal devil, and his only friend is hell bent on a suicide quest. he must be unbelievably lonely. he is despised by the narrative despite being objectively right about everything. he makes me so sad to think about in any capacity and i want to be his best friend

[mossy-rainfrog]

[ID: Four traditional pen drawings involving characters from Moby Dick. The first shows Fedallah staring darkly out into space with a thought bubble, showing a photograph of Bingus the cat. The second drawing shows Ishmael drawing Queequeg in a sketchbook as Queequeg reclines in front of him, chin in his hands, and smiles as Ishmael laughs. Text on the art reads: "lazy day - drawing his husband". The next drawing is of an autism creature, with Fedallah's harpoon and Zoroastrian skull cap. The fourth drawing shows Ahab and Fedallah walking together. Fedallah has a brace on his knee in view, side by side with Ahab's peg leg. Text on the art reads: "disabled besties".

Character designs: Fedallah is a thin, Persian man with a dark beard and mustache, wearing a long shirt and white Zoroastrian skull cap. Ishmael is a thin, white man with short hair and sideburns. Queequeg is a muscular Māori person with tattoos on his face, and a curly topknot on his hair. Ahab is a chubby, Persian man with short, curly hair, a beard, and a scar across his face. He has a pegleg, and wears a long coat. End ID.]

part 1 of all the mobydick themed doodles ive been doin at my new job for the past month in between trainings and call work :3 god i love fedallah. btw.

designs as always are from the delightful @pocketsizedquasar and their magnificent comic btw!!! go check them out always mwah mwah mwah

[pocketsizedquasar]

hi i’m sahar pocketsizedquasar and i keep forgetting to post art i made weeks and weeks ago

patreon saw it first 💖 check me out over there for early access + exclusive sketchbook art + WIPs of comic pages

[ID: First image— three watercolor sketches of Ahab and Starbuck embracing. the first one is in a teal and orange color palette. Starbuck has his face buried in Ahab’s hair and is holding him tightly, while Ahab looks forlornly off to the side, saying “I miss him.” Starbuck says, “I know.” the second sketch is in dark blue and yellow, and has Ahab leaning forward into Starbuck’s chest with his eyes pressed closed, while Starbuck holds him and looks off. The last sketch is in yellows, pinks, and purples, and shows them both lying down, Ahab laying on top of Starbuck’s shirtless chest, with Starbuck resting his cheek on top of Ahab’s head.

Starbuck is a thin and lean white man with freckles, short curly hair, and a mustache. In the first two sketches he is wearing a collared shirt, and in the last he is shirtless and wearing only pants. Ahab is a chubby and muscular Persian man with short curly hair and a thick beard, and scars on his face. He wears a collared shirt.

Second image— A watercolor sketch of Ahab and Fedallah, walking together with linked arms.

Ahab and Fedallah are both middle aged Persian men, Ahab taller and broader, and slightly darker skinned than Fedallah. Ahab has a thick beard and long curly hair in a ponytail, while Fedallah has both a mustache and beard. Fedallah is wearing a white tunic and white topi and headscarf, and carrying a harpoon. Ahab is wearing a bright maroon coat over a teal vest and light cream colored shirt and pants, with a dark cravat.

The third and fourth images are different photos of the same drawing.]

[incorrect-mobydick-quotes-blog]

Moby Dick as Satire Headlines

Ahab: Local Man Manages To Get In A 15-Minute Existential Crisis Before Work Everyday

Starbuck: Casual Christian Accepts Jesus As His Lord But Not His Savior

Stubb: Guy In Philosophy Class Needs To Shut The Fuck Up

Flask: Winner Didn’t Even Know It Was Pie-Eating Contest

Fedallah: Why Does Everyone Hate Me? (by Satan)

Queequeg: Gay Man Unaware He Focus Of Thousands Of Prayers

Tashtego: I’m Like A Chocoholic, But For Booze

Daggoo: No One Is Actually That Tall

Ishmael: Gay Teen Worried He Might Be Christian

Pip: God Answers Prayers Of Paralyzed Little Boy; “No,” Says God

Bildad and Peleg: Point/Counterpoint: “According To The Economist, NASA Is An Industrial Subsidy In Disguise” vs. “Oooh, Look At Me, I Read The Economist!”

Elijah: Solitary Crow On Fence Post Portending Doom, Analysts Warn

Moby Dick: Orca Mother Carries Around Dead Calf For Two Weeks As Warning To All Who Would Defy Her

Crew of the Jeroboam: Is This A Bunch Of Assholes Fucking Around Or Is This A Clown Ministry?

[mobydickmusical]

This was from Dave’s Great Comet Instagram takeover, well over a year ago, yet I somehow only noticed it the other day?

“Far too self conscious to do video on the train. This is my reading today, doing research for Fedallah in Moby Dick. In the novel he is a bit of a caricature, a Middle Eastern magical demon, which does not feel so good to have in a contemporary adaptation. So trying to read up a bit, to be able to write him more realistically and empathetically.

(P.S. in the novel he is Zoroastrian, but making him Muslim seems a bit more relevant for a piece that is discussing multiculturalism in America today.)”

[mossy-rainfrog]

Ahab alone is enough to die.

[ID: A digital illustration for Moby Dick, based on the Twelfth Night Anne Hathaway photoshoot. Captain Ahab stands in the center, looking horrified as Starbuck, Fedallah, and Pip all grasp at him from different angles. All characters are tangled in a bright red harpoon line, except for Ahab, who is unharmed. Starbuck’s right hand holds the end of the harpoon line, with a heavy, sharp dart on the end, and the cord wraps around his hand and then throat as he leans in to kiss Ahab with a hand under his chin. Ahab’s eyes and mouth are open, as if he has been caught off guard, and he stares at Starbuck with a devastated concern. A bright red crown sits atop Ahab’s head and bleeds onto his face and collar. A drop of blood rests on Starbuck’s chin. The harpoon line passes in front of Ahab’s chest, and is grabbed by Fedallah, who holds the cord close to his chest, and buries his face in Ahab’s shoulder with an anguished expression. The line is tangled around Fedallah the most; wrapping twice around his neck and tangled all over his chest. With his free hand, Fedallah grasps onto Ahab’s waist. The line finally wraps around Pip, who is clinging to Ahab’s sleeve, and pulling at the line in front of Ahab’s chest. Pip’s mouth is open as if he is calling out, and the harpoon line circles around his shoulders, and finally hangs from his arm. Behind all of the characters looms the massive shape of the whale, Moby-Dick. Moby-Dick’s skin is wrinkled and scarred, and one massive eye stares down at the scene before him.

The next three images are all closeups of the drawing.

Character designs: Ahab is a large Arab man with short, curly, dark, greying hair, a pointed beard, and scars across the bridge of his nose, and over his lip. He wears a long, maroon coat with gold buttons. Starbuck is a thin white man with short red hair, a short mustache, and many freckles. He wears a dark waistcoat over a white shirt. Fedallah is a thin Persian man with a mustache and short beard. He wears a white turban and a dark long shirt. Pip is a teenaged Black boy with short curly hair, and he wears a light colored shirt. End ID.]

the ID for this is long enough already, so I’ll keep this brief, but hi I have spent weeks on this piece and it genuinely feels like a magnum opus or something. this is possibly my favorite thing I’ve drawn all year. designs as always from the delightful @pocketsizedquasar ‘s Moby Dick comic!

anyways I am constantly anguishing about the fact that Ahab thinks of himself as the lone sacrifice in his doomed journey, the one “enough to die”, but in reality, everyone who loves him, who tries to save him, faces his punishment first. Ahab ISN’T alone, despite what he thinks, and that connection directly gets the three closest people in his life killed. how am i ever supposed to recover from that.

[pocketsizedquasar]

another patreon saw it first! judging ahab for his taste in men /lh. it’s ok buddy

[ID: A 2-drawing pencil & ink sketch comic of Ahab and Fedallah. They are standing together and looking off to the side, Ahab with a tired expression, and Fedallah slightly curious. Ahab is saying “I can’t believe i’m gonna fuck that white man,” with a small doodle of Starbuck’s face in the speech bubble. Fedallah replies, “You don’t have to.” In the next drawing, Ahab looks up in exasperation while Fedallah glances back at him incredulously. Ahab says “No, I’m gonna.”

Both of them are middle aged Persian men. Ahab is taller and bulkier, with short curly hair and a thick beard and wearing a large coat. Fedallah is shorter and his hair is concealed with a skullcap over a head wrap, and he has a wide mustache and beard. He is wearing a buttoned up tunic.]

[pocketsizedquasar]

It’s my birthday!!! And also here’s a very long overdue update to the pequod squad lineup that i’ve been meaning to do for ages. happy birthday to me! read my Moby Dick webcomic if you feel so inclined :] link in bio

[mossy-rainfrog]

hello everyone, I made a series of doodles to put inside of my copy of MobyDick and I would like to share them :3 pls enjoy:

[ID: Two traditional drawings. Ahab shows off his new pegleg with a flourish. Ishmael infodumps about whales to a fond Queequeg. End ID.] [More detailed ID in ALT.]

New Leg Goofin is for chapters 108-9, when Ahab gets fitted with his new leg! it's right before a super devastating chapter so i needed to make myself laugh lmao

Wikipedia Page About Every Whale is for the whole goddamn book, honestly, but I chose to put it at the beginning of ch.32, Cetology, where Ishmael really does try to explain every whale ever

[ID: A comic of Stubb and Flask bursting into Ahab's quarters, thinking the Captain is in danger, only to find Ahab and Fedallah playing a game of cards. End ID.] [More detailed ID in ALT.]

This gem belongs to p.344 where Stubb wonders if Fedallah means to kidnap Ahab, which was such a baffling ridiculous concept that I couldn't help but make fun of it. literally Ahab snuck this man on board bro, what the fuck is fedallah going to do to him. they're playing uno. shut up

[ID: Two drawings, with the first showing Pip after being cast away, haunted and alone on the deck of the Pequod. The other shows Ishmael and Queequeg homoerotically grasping hands while processing whale sperm. End ID.] [More detailed ID in ALT.]

this goes out to chapters 93-95, because the UNREAL whiplash from "a child was just abandoned at sea" to "hey let's be horny about whale sperm" is still the most insane transition of all time. Ish, what the fuck

[ID: A simply doodled meme diagram for how to greet a fellow amputee. The "wrong" answer shows Captains Ahab and Boomer shaking hands, while the "right" answers show Ahab in a handstand and then kicking his leg up high, both times to cross his prosthetic with Boomer's. End ID.] [More detailed ID in ALT.]

this goes out to p. 454. every interaction between these two absolutely delighted me but my mental image for the specific line about them "crossing ivory limbs" got. very silly.

[ID: A small comic of Ahab asking the Harpooners to give him blood to temper his harpoon in. They stare back at him with varying expressions of confused, uncomfortable disbelief. End ID.]

the last one, for p.504. yknow that feel when your boss just walks up and asks you to bleed on his custom made harpoon??? yeah uh. normal workday things

anyways thank you for reading, I had a delightful time making these and am so very fond of them all, so yea :3

credit as always for the designs goes to the darling @pocketsizedquasar , as well as credit for pricelessly annotating my copy of MD and thus getting me to actually read it, love youuuu💙💙

[pocketsizedquasar]

[More detailed ID in Alt]

[ID: A digital drawing of nine people, all characters from Moby Dick, at pride. From left to right, back row: Queequeg, Ishmael, Daggoo, Tashtego. Front row: Fedallah, Ahab, Pip on Ahab’s shoulders, (Nathaniel) Starbuck, and Mary Starbuck.]

*stumbles into pride month 29 days late with Mr. Starbuck’s Starbucks* pequod pride parade

(ft some boyes who i haven’t drawn too much here before: mrs mary starbuck and mr fedallah! some more concept sketches n stuff abt them on my patre0n if ur interested in them!! also more info about. the various extended women that i’ve added to this cast lmao that i didn’t include here bc they weren’t actual named book characters but on god i am going to make them exist including: ahab’s wife, ahab’s wife’s girlfriend, and mary’s girlfriend <3)

[pocketsizedquasar]

fedallah my best friend my babygirl he did nothing wrong ever and he deserved so much better than the absolutely horrendously racist way he was treated by the narrative and i’m fistfighting melville in a wendy’s parking lot about it. btw.

(read my mobydick webcomic btw i prommy i’m not as racist as melville)

(drew this a few weeks ago so i could solidify his colors n add him to my lineup)

[ID: A digitally drawn character reference for Fedallah from Moby Dick. He is a thin, middle aged Persian man with light brown skin and dark curly hair and beard. His hair is mostly covered beneath a white skull cap. He wears a white button down tunic, purple ish-gray pants, and a knee brace on his right knee. One full body drawing of him shows him holding a harpoon. There is also a lined drawing of just his face, and one of a closeup on his knee brace from the side, showing its construction and buckles. His name is handwritten in both English and Farsi.]

(ft some sketchbook sketches below the cut, which have been available to patrons to see for weeks along w lots more sketches so if early/extra art is ur jam… check me out there hehe)

[pocketsizedquasar]

HI please shout about your ahab and fedallah ideas im so curious, what you did say sounds sooo cool and good. theyre... i have my own normal feelings about them general, but its more of a narrative relationship thing than like- them actually interacting?? idk. im fascinated your work has a grasp on my psyche for real

HI YES OK I LOVE THEM SM ok ok so

all of this was kinda just born from me thinking abt what i can do w/ fedallah to fix how shitty & racist he’s treated by the og narrative and just sorta. asking questions abt him and taking those answers to their logical conclusions , and filling in the gaps w my own personal thoughts where needed

ie: why is fedallah on this ship? why would be put his life at risk for this? not just the general deadly risk of whaling, but also the legal/social implications of the fact that he’s a stowaway and the shipowners definitely do not approve of him being on board? he (and the other four of ahab’s oarsmen) certainly is not getting paid by the shipowners for this; did ahab offer them portions of the captain’s pay instead? we know ahab wanted a boat’s crew of his own, but why did he ask for fedallah, specifically? why does he trust fedallah so much — both to be his harpooner, and with his prophecies&foresight? why are they so devoted to each other, such that fedallah is constantly referred to as ahab’s shadow?

the answer to a lot of these came very naturally like: okay, they must’ve been friends. they must’ve been close. they must’ve known each other for some time, and in such a way that ahab would trust fedallah this much, and fedallah would be so willing to massively inconvenience & risk himself for him.

^thats what i can get from the text (wringing it out though i must, since melville refuses to tell us this himself, but it’s what we can infer based on what we know)

the rest of this is my (head)canon territory (aka canon to the comic) and me filling in the blanks:

- ahab saved fedallah’s life, once. i think that’s how they met. in ch 19 “the prophet” elijah tells us ahab was once in a “deadly scrimmage with [a] spaniard;” i’m stealing that to say that that fight was an encounter where aforementioned spaniard was targeting fedallah, and ahab as passerby got a bit caught up in it but, seeing a fellow brown dude tm in trouble, stepped in & saved him.

(also: consider—sexy sword fight ahab. that is all. i know the text just calls it a “scrimmage” without specifics but like. sword fight. swords. ahab w a sword. that’s all)

anyway. they’re in spain maybe? the text says “deadly scrimmage with a spaniard before the altar in Santa,” which i can only assume is referring to holy week in spain / santa semana? and, since we also know this fight was “deadly” and ahab is, ahem, not dead, by this point, obviously the other guy must’ve died, so ahab&fedallah probably skedaddle very quickly. back to ahab’s ship, probably, which was likely just temporarily making port in spain for whatever reason.

- from then, fedallah very much clings to ahab — you saved my life; i owe you a debt; if ever you need anything of me etc etc, you know how it goes. ahab brushes off the offers and claims of a favor in return; you don’t need to do anything for me, i don’t begrudge you this, i don’t feel you owe me anything. it’s fine mdude.

- anyway. they’re besties!! they enjoy each other’s company! fedallah is a frequent (though not necessarily permanent) member of ahab’s ship rosters. they bond over being SWANA in the good ol’ us of a. fedallah teaches ahab how to make chai properly — he never got to learn; his mother died far too early in his life (book canon). they probably fucked once (1) on a drunken night and then mutually decide never to do that again /lh.

fedallah’s also disabled — he wears a knee brace on his right leg, perhaps an aftermath of that fight w the spaniard, perhaps from something before — when ahab gets disableified by The Dickening TM fedallah’s council on how to manage pain and other things like that is extremely helpful.

and ahab never takes fedallah up on that favor. he doesn’t think he needs to; he has no desire to. fedallah is his friend. he doesn’t view their relationship that way; he genuinely doesn’t feel like fedallah owes him anything, for saving him or for anything else.

- & then moby dick happens.

- moby dick happens and ahab loses his leg and spends weeks on his own ship tied and restrained to his own bed because his own crew decided that him — in his newly disabled, unable to walk, but in Pain and “Insane” state — is too much of a threat to be allowed to exist freely. and he spends weeks straitjacketed to his own bed.

and then he gets back to shore and his own prosthetic snaps underneath him and stabs him in the abdomen and nearly kills him and it’s taking him weeks to recover, and those shipowners are talking about sending him out again anyways, even though he’s still in the middle of recovering from That, and if we’re being honest still hasn’t properly recovered or healed from losing his leg in the first place — did you know that the first few months after an amputation are the most important when it comes to long term healing of the scar tissue? and we know he wasn’t able to take care of himself in those critical weeks, lashed to his bed, muscles atrophying and whole body growing sore as it’s forced to stay in one position for god knows how long on end, and oh he’s going to be in pain for the rest of his life because of this, isn’t he.

so they’re putting him back on the pequod while he’s still in recovery. the last time he was on that ship while recovering from a major wound, his officers tied him up like an animal. he doesn’t know if he can trust these new officers, though they weren’t on that voyage. he doesn’t know if he can even trust his own body, his own prosthetic leg, to not fail him, to not break on him and incapacitate him again.

so he needs an ally on this ship. he needs someone he can trust.

so he asks for fedallah. finally calls in that favor, even though he’d never planned to.

- anyway, in terms of how i’d describe their relationship, it’s basically what i said in the tags of that post fjskdjsj they’re not friends they’re not lovers they’re not family but also they’re all of the above and also more; there aren’t words for them to talk about what they are to each other; they trust each other and are devoted to one another and imo losing fedallah on the second day of the chase is the final nail in the coffin of the tragedy that just keeps building.

like, when fedallah tells ahab in chapter 116 that fedallah will die first, and ahab will follow, ahab doesn’t take that as a thing to be worried about: he takes it as another pledge that he will survive this voyage.

and when it actually happens, well. look how ahab responds:

even with melville’s inability to treat fedallah like an actual person, ahab is more panicked than we ever see him when he realizes fedallah is gone. and yeah, you could argue that he’s just panicked that he’s going to die because fedallah died first, but if you listen carefully to a lot of what ahab says throughout the book, he’s not actually that afraid of himself dying. that might still be cause for panic here, sure, but i also very much choose to read this as shocked grief — gone? not gone! not gone! — his friend is fucken dead!!!

- (also worth nothing that immediately between those two passages^ is starbuck begging ahab to turn around once again, saying how many awful things have happened already, and one of the things he says is “thy evil shadow gone” — and immediately after starbuck’s speech, we get ye infamous “of late I’ve felt strangely moved to thee; ever since that hour we both saw—thou know’st what, in one another’s eyes” from ahab immediately followed by him ultimately rejecting starbuck and life and the possibility to turn around and etc etc — and with this context? w the context of having Just lost fedallah only to have yet another person calling him ahab’s “”evil”” shadow in a long litany of people who have spent the entire book hounding fedallah as evil and the devil? i don’t know, it’s hard not to read these lines from ahab as almost spiteful. i once saw something in your eyes. i can’t see anything anymore but this. this was always going to be the outcome — ‘twas rehearsed by thee and me a billion years before this ocean rolled.’)

- ow.

- fedallah makes me ache. we know so little about him and he does nothing tangibly wrong but he spends the entire book being derided by both the narrative and the other characters as some evil hellish monster. and for what. look at him. he’s just a silly little guy. he was ahab’s friend. he had to have been.

- it’s important to me that you know that fedallah is much, much shorter than ahab. he’s a short king

plus bonus fedallah’s full design because i love him:

[pocketsizedquasar]

ANOTHER BIG SKETCHBOOK DUMP with EVEN MORE ON PATREON (19 WHOLE PAGES!! @ pocketsizedquasar on there!) ft some screen cap redraws from the 2010 mobydick adaptation, which as an adaptation generally sucks, but DID give us some very sweet harpooners + pip moments ; tashdag queerplatonic relationship rights ; just. so much starhab smooching (i think more than 1/3 of the pages have starhab..) ; fedallah and ahab bein sweet ; starbuck and his wife bein sweet ; and some surprise tma stuff sprinkled in

[pocketsizedquasar]

lots of <3 love <3 in todays QNA ! questions from @coulson-is-an-avenger and @grayscaleskies <3

u can still ask questions for me or the cast! more answers to come next week

[mossy-rainfrog]

[ID: A black and white traditional drawing of Fedallah from Moby Dick. He is a thin Persian man with a mustache and short beard. He wears a turban and a long shirt, and holds a whaling harpoon beside him. He is holding onto the harpoon with both hands, leaning on it, as he looks down to the side with a reserved, pensive expression. Beside him, in pencil, is written his name, and "my sweet boy, my best friend" with a sad face. There is also a small doodled heart. End ID.]

Hello Herman Melville I have been reading your book and have come to the conclusion that you do not deserve to have Fedallah in your novel. He is a good man and seeing him villanized as a racist stereotype brings me anxiety, so I will be expecting a reply to this DM when you are ready to relinquish him to someone who will treasure him like he deserves xoxo

God, seriously though I have not been able to stop thinking about this guy for days. He's Ahab's friend!!! He tries to warn everyone of the coming tragedy!!! He is quiet and skilled and his character is an ocean of missed narrative opportunities. AUGH. holds him

EDIT: I can't believe I forgot to add this; they have yet to post their Fedallah publicly, but this lad is still based on the design/influence of @pocketsizedquasar 's Moby Dick comic!!! pls go check it out!!! :D

[pocketsizedquasar]

new batch of sketch pages up on Patreon! here’s some previews💖💖 ft starhab smooches and other starhab nonsense, short king fedallah, fedallah & ahab’s first meeting, and , most importantly, WAMEN!!!!! multiple wamen (including mary starbuck, ahab’s wife, and both of the wives’ (wamen) lovers) !!!!! and more

u can find me there @ pocketsizedquasar