There's something potentially really interesting in Kassandra, Paris, and their relationship (or lack of one, depending on how one wants to characterize them both).
To start with the beginning, which would be how Kassandra reacts when Paris has (presumably) not actually done anything yet:
-In Euripides' Andromache, she was apparently old enough when he was newborn to have visions and called on the whole city to have the infant Paris killed.
This doesn't necessarily need to come with her being old enough to have been cursed already, if she's not very detailed as to why. (Otherwise, she would be a lot older than most of the rest of Priam and Hekuba's children, even if Paris is made one of the younger ones.)
-In Euripides' Alexandros, we don't actually know exactly what Kassandra's prophetic scene(s) amount to; I've seen some speculation that this play involved references to Kassandra newly having become "mad", so her curse would be recent, if so. Paris' foster father is assured to have had some part in the revelation/establishing of Paris' natal identity, whatever Kassandra's involvement.
-Sophokles also had an Alexandros, but we know even less here, so let's turn to Hyginus, who might be helpful for both of these plays.
-Hyginus' Fabula #91 doesn't mention the foster father like Euripides' Alexandros; instead Kassandra declares Paris to be her brother and Priam acknowledges him.
If Hyginus hasn't left something out of the plot (of whichever play this is probably summarizing, maybe Sophocles, since Euripides didn't use the bull device to get Paris to Troy), Kassandra is here not actually used to call for her newly discovered/born brother's death, but instead facilitates his recognition by his birth family.
-In Ennius' Alexandros, one of the few fragments we have assures for us Kassandra calling on the populace to "quench the brand"; that is, Paris. Of course, with so little to go on we don't know when this is supposed to have taken place (since one can, no matter how little that might make sense if Kassandra is the one to deliver it, put such a scene at Paris' birth, like in the Andromache).
What we've got, then, is at the very least a couple incidents where Kassandra is calling for an innocent to be killed, and one incident where she might instead have facilitated recognition without any obvious call for murder.
And the thing is, of course she's technically "right" to do this. Paris is the "problem" and removing him would save Troy (well, from Paris as the spark that lights the fire, anyway, given that Zeus could have chosen/could choose to destroy the heroic race with natural disasters). One could probably not really blame her, especially when she doesn't even know him yet.
But after this - what then?
There would be some amount of time, if not between recognition and the Judgement, then between Paris coming home with Helen and the Achaeans turning up. She will get to have a chance to know him, perhaps whether she wants to or no. Does she keep to her insistence that he should be/should have been killed, without guilt or conflict? Keep to it, because it would be/would have been best, yet feel conflicted about it, because this is yet one of her brothers?
It'd certainly be one way to take to insist she simply hates him, whether he's inherently actually hateable and unpleasant or not. Maybe she'd even be in her right to! But if this is her position, even when Paris has not yet done anything to warrant it, how does she deal with that? To and for herself, and when it comes to her family? Is this yet another thing that separates her from the rest? (Maybe not Deiphobos, though ;P)
And if she finds herself liking him, yet knowing with utter certainty that Troy will suffer because Paris is alive with them - how does she deal with that?
It must in some way be easier to think someone should die for the good of all the rest when you don't know them, even if they don't deserve it because they have done nothing to cause any troubles yet, than after you've begun to know them, have begun to form a connection with them, liking them.
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You mentioned Love never dies in one of your recent podcast episodes. I would love to hear if you have any more thoughts about that you would like to share here?
Oh little do you know.
@theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin and I first watched Love Never Dies when Andrew Lloyd Webber released musicals for COVID, it was instantly the most incredible thing either of us had ever seen and we watched it again as soon as Muffin came online the next day.
We have since rented it, rewatched it before the 48 hour rent period expired, and I think watched it a fifth time somehow though I don't recall the details for it. It's... very possible we watched it thrice that rent period. One of them was broadcast to the Rank Heresy discord server, so it did have a purpose, we just... also rewatched it...
Love Never Dies is the single funniest, most delightful, most entertaining and glorious musical we have ever seen. Everything about it, from the uncomfortable incest anthem, to TEN YEARS OOOOOOOOLD, to the nonsensical "Devil takes the hindmost!" leitmotif (thought I was having an English fail, but no, Muffin had no idea what that meant either), to the Phantom's great artistic vision being a Coney Island circus extravaganza where girls sing about swimsuits, to said extravaganza hemorrhaging money so Meg has to prostitute herself to keep the lights on, to Christine dying at the end and Ralph says to the child he raised, "Aight son, hope you like phantoms because you'll be living with one from now on. Kk bye", to ALW being so mad the ugly guy he projected on lost the girl that he wrote the whole thing in the first place (um actually Christine loved the Phantom so after the ending scene where she chose Raoul she actually ran back into the opera basement, made love to the Phantom, then ran back again to Ralph. It was a night of passion and the song about it will take ten minutes. Beneath a Moonless Sky, my beloved. Also Raoul is a stupid idiot who spent all his money and Christine regrets everything).
And yes, the above list was only going to be a few lines long but I couln't stop naming beautiful things I loved.
Oh my goodness, another thing I almost forgot (which is sayign something!): the Phantom finds out Christine and Raoul have a child, his immediate response is "Ah, yes, it would be a shame if something... happened... to that child..."
Proceeds to get the child on his own while his parents are distracted, only the child starts playing the piano... my god... the child is ten years old... MY GOD...
This is where we get the incest anthem, the Phantom drops the infanticide plans and starts serenading his son about the beauty underneath, a terrible intense impulse you must follow, and desires we deny ourselves, how his son will accept and embrace it, and... the lyrics are just so bad, alright, and the acting somehow made it worse. Watch at your own peril.
Wild fucking ride.
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