Actions

Work Header

Rating:
Archive Warning:
Category:
Fandom:
Characters:
Additional Tags:
Language:
English
Stats:
Published:
2020-05-21
Words:
8
Chapters:
1/1
Kudos:
11
Bookmarks:
2
Hits:
234

Relay

Summary:

evil is a relay sport (when the one who's burned turns to pass the torch)

Notes:

"And yet, while I recognize the problem intellectually–the system of coding, the way villainy and queerness become a kind of shorthand for each other–I cannot help but love these fictional queer villains. I love them for all of their aesthetic lushness and theatrical glee, their fabulousness, their ruthlessness, their power. They’re always by far the most interesting characters on the screen. After all, they live in a world that hates them. They’ve adapted; they’ve learned to conceal themselves. They’ve survived.”
--From 'Dream House As Queer Villainy' by Carmen Maria Machado

An exploration of the role of villainy/evil (and, of course, of the shared resentments of Hickey and Crozier) in The Terror, set to Relay by Fiona Apple.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

Embedded Video:

 

 

YouTube Link:

https://youtu.be/oRvh2mEDZJM

Notes:

This AMV came about as a result of exploring the role of villainy and evil in The Terror, and how, if we define the villain as someone or something that drives the action and motivates the characters, then the ultimate villain of The Terror is Victorian England itself. If the expedition was doomed from the start, it was doomed in part because of its role in the colonial avarice of the Victorian era. The ultimate victim of the story, the Tuunbaq and the Netsilik, pay the price for the inability of the characters to overcome their attachment to this system of values. The Franklins, Crozier, Hickey, Irving, Stanley, and the Ross's, who arguably bear the most responsibility for the destruction of the expedition and the arctic, are likewise the ones who are unable to overcome their personal attachment to England. On the other hand, the characters who are able to find some measure of freedom or redemption are the ones who are able to let go of this rigid social hierarchy (Fitzjames, Blanky, Silna, Goodsir, Bridgens & Peglar, etc.).

It is Hickey and Crozier, the characters who are most unable to overcome the consequences of their resentment of Victorian England, who are most directly responsible for the death of the Tuunbaq. In acting as each other's mirrors, they illuminate the absurdity and destructive power of Victorian colonial states. They both do unforgivable things and they both refuse to forgive each other, but we as the audience can see where they've come from, both literally and figuratively. They are the ones who are burned, and they are the ones who ultimately pass the torch.