#im going to rewatch it this week possibly so we will see what more brilliant insights i arrive at then

[dykemerrilll]

i think it’s interesting that fitzjames’ justification to crozier for eating his body after he dies is to say “i am not christ”, ie his body is not sacred and after death is merely meat that is sorely needed by the crew, in contrast to hodgson explicitly invoking the eucharist in relation to eating gibson’s body. obviously what makes any potential cannibalism of fitzjames potentially justified would be his prior giving of consent, in contrast to gibson dying with no idea what hickey intended to do with his body, but what’s more interesting is the fact that what renders fitzjames’ body as possibly sacred, in the sense of having a meaning and importance beyond its material reality as meat, is crozier’s insistence that his friend’s body be left alone.

in contrast, if you interpret the eucharist monologue as being to do with hodgson’s recent consumption of human flesh (which i do think is the most useful interpretation at any rate), gibson’s body is only sacred once it has been consumed, in direct opposition to how fitzjames’ is given greater meaning by not being eaten. in both of these contexts what gives the body a potential sacredness is the external meaning imposed upon it, but while hickey does try to present cannibalism as having a sacramental quality, it’s obvious that at the end of the day gibson is merely meat.

crucially, this is ultimately also true of fitzjames, despite crozier’s best efforts, because his body ends up possibly eaten and definitely looted anyway. hodgson’s speech has no real meaning beyond futilely trying to justify what he’s done. he finishes the monologue with the only thing that really matters - “i’m so hungry”. moral concerns have no weight in the face of such an immediate material reality, and the body itself does not really have any importance beyond its own materiality - instead what is sacred are the bonds it once had. i think crozier’s refusal of fitzjames’ offer is still important, less so for its effect, but more because it marks the persistence of his love for his friend regardless of other concerns. if anything is sacred in the terror, it’s that.

this emphasises the show’s overall emphasis on the importance of human dignity and fellowship in the face of utter ruin. despite the above, i think the terror is overall ambivalent on the direct moral question of eating human flesh, and it does not really encourage the viewer to judge any of the men who actually engage in cannibalism beyond pitying them. the whole mantra of “god wants you to live”/characters encouraging each other to survive suggests that cannibalism might be justified in that context, but that the disrespect shown to those who end up cannibalised in the show is what renders the act explicitly immoral.

aside from crozier, no one survives the terror, regardless of whether they abstain from cannibalism or not. refusing to butcher gibson would not have saved goodsir, and doing so did not save hodgson; little’s group would not have survived even if they stayed with jopson. crozier’s best efforts did not prevent hickey from finding fitzjames’ grave. but precisely because there is no greater meaning in death and its aftermath, the way the crew treated each other in life is more important, because really that’s all there is.

for little and dundy, the moral event horizon is not when they eventually succumb to cannibalism long after they’ve kept walking, but when they abandon jopson and the other sick men - this is a line they toe in the previous episode when they suggest abandoning fitzjames, but crozier doesn’t let that happen. crozier has also eaten human flesh (the fact that it’s goodsir, who in crozier’s view is “clean” is another fascinating element i’m not bothered to untangle here), and in that respect he’s equal to little, but his refusal to abandon his friends affords him, at the end of the show, his own dignity, best expressed through survival. i don’t mean to imply he has the moral high ground in a reductive sense, nor do i think his survival has really any greater meaning than the fact that he’s the protagonist (by my own logic any of goodsir, jopson, blanky, or fitzjames could still be standing at the end). but i do think the show presents certain actions as ones you cannot go back from with your own dignity or self-respect intact, and these are primarily based on the ability to recognise humanity in your fellow man regardless of circumstance (be that deprivation, illness, or cultural difference).

fitzjames was correct - he is not christ, and hodgson’s attempts to justify his cannibalism through the eucharist are revealed as just that, empty attempts. nonetheless, while there is nothing sacred about the body in death, there is something almost transcendental about the bonds it had in life.