Hamlet's Father Part I -- All Hail Prince Mary Sue!

A couple things before we begin this spork in earnest...

First of all, this book is not separated into chapters.  I can understand that -- it probably feels a little silly to chop a 92-page book up into chapters -- but it does make finding a decent stopping point for reading/sporking hard.  So each post will cover about twenty pages of material, more or less if I want to avoid ending in the middle of a scene.

Second, according to Card's website, Hatrack River (which happens to be the name of his publishing company), the book version of Hamlet's Father was apparently supposed to be published with a foreword by Card.  It appears to not have made it into the book proper, but I'm reposting it here anyhow (with my commentary in non-italics), because it's chuckle-worthy reading alongside the book:

I have loved Shakespeare's plays since my days as a theatre undergraduate, when I learned to get my head into his characters and my mouth around the blank verse.  I have taught his plays to literature students, directed actors in performing his plays, and even fiddled with some of his scripts so they'd be fresh and funny to modern audiences despite the way the language has changed since he wrote them.  (See my adaptations of Romeo & Juliet and The Taming of the Shrew at www.hatrack.com.)

Part of me is curious to read those other adaptations now, but most of me is terrified.  No, I'm not going to spork them too... find them yourself if you're morbidly curious.

I don't like all the plays equally.  Coriolanus simply doesn't speak to me.  In fact. none of the Roman plays do.  But the play that bothers me the most -- because I don't much care for it and I think I should -- is Hamlet.

If you don't care for Hamlet, why did you feel the need to rewrite it?

Of Shakespeare's great tragedies, I love Lear and Macbeth; Othello at least I understand.  But Hamlet?  I have little interest in a dithering hero; nor am I much inspired by revenge plots.  Yet I keep hearing that this is the greatest of them all.

Hamlet is about far more than a revenge plot -- it's a story of one man's internal struggle with the morality of taking revenge for the death of his father, and raises interesting questions about religion, insanity, and how one man's obsession can have far-reaching consequences.  And while I understand it's not everyone's cup of tea, just calling it a "revenge plot" with a "dithering hero" is way too simplistic.

So I analyzed the story to see what it would take to make me care about it.  "Hamlet's Father" is what I came up with.  I'm fully aware of the fact that I have just messed with the play that many consider the greatest ever written in any language.  But Shakespeare stole his plots from other people; and nothing I do is going to erase a line of his great work or diminish his reputation in any way.  So why not?

If it takes turning a character into a homosexual pedophile to make you care about Hamlet, I'd start asking yourself some questions...  And while your story might not physically alter Shakespeare's work, it can certainly taint other people's enjoyment of the original work.

If you think it's blasphemous to fiddle with Shakespeare's work, then for heaven's sake don't read this story.  I leave his version in shreds on the floor.  But my body count is just as high, as long as you don't expect me to account for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.  I figure Tom Stoppard took care of them for all time.

Well, at least you admit to the shredding part... you certainly gutted the story of the original play in your efforts to rewrite it.  And for those who don't know, Tom Stoppard wrote Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, an absurdist play that also retells the story of Hamlet, though it does it through telling the story through the eyes of two minor characters rather than tearing apart the original.  Go read it or watch the film version, it's actually pretty hysterical.

Now diving into the actual book... wish me luck, here we go...

Comic from Perry Bible Fellowship

The book begins with a page stating this is one of a limited run of 1,000 books, complete with Card's autograph and the book's number (139).  Then we get two title pages and a page of copyright information before the story proper begins.  No dedication, curiously...

Hamlet's father sent him to the university at Heidelberg as soon as he turned fourteen.  Even though he had to leave all his friends behind, Hamlet was glad to go.

It wasn't Denmark he wanted to leave.  It was the castle at Elsinore; it was the throne that he would never occupy; it was Mother's endless sadness and infinite distance from him.

It was Father.  -- p. 7

Yes, that's our intro.  And apparently Card's solution to making Hamlet interesting is to saddle him with Daddy issues.  This is a rather common -- and in my mind somewhat cliched -- way to add to a character's backstory, but it feels a little weird to give to a character like Hamlet, whose driven by his desire to find his father's killer.  Note to people who write adaptations (including fanfic writers), before you add to a character's backstory, make sure it fits with the story and character.

The prose goes on to describe that Hamlet's always thought of his father as an equal to God, "all-knowing and all-powerful," but feels inadequate because his father never seems to pay attention to him.  *yawn*  It's the same sort of Freudian Excuse  you've seen in everything from Star Wars to Batman to every crime procedural ever to everything in between, and while it can be done well, it's not particularly innovative here.

Oh, and page 8 has an illustration of Hamlet sitting in a graveyard.  It's nothing particularly inspiring, but it's not awful either.

Hamlet apparently called his friends his age -- sons of noblemen or wealthy commoners -- his "Companions."  No, I don't know why it's capitalized, and frankly, I don't see why it needs to be.  I know the word is capitalized in Mercedes Lackey's Heralds of Valdemar series, but that's because it refers to a race of ultra-magical beings who look like horses.  (It's better than it sounds, I swear...)  Here it's just used to refer to Hamlet's childhood friends, and feels awkward.

Moving on... Hamlet's six and playing with his Companions when Polonius the chamberlain comes in and announces that the king's going on a hunting trip and is bringing Horatio with him.  Normal readers who go into this blind probably won't read too much into this, but knowing what I'm getting into, this is raising nasty red flags...

This is becoming my go-to "squick" face, isn't it?

Hamlet, being six years old, goes off to pout over this... in the graveyard?  Apparently that's his favorite place to go when he wants to be alone.  Odd... though at least the page illustration makes sense. 

He's still moping around in an apple tree in the graveyard when he gets a visitor.

"The fruit has grown large and ugly this year," said a familiar voice -- Yorick, the old jester.

"It's too early for apples."

"Then what kind of weather is it that drops ugly boys out of the sky?" -- p. 10

Muahahaha... I like Yorick already.  He's a character we only ever met as a disembodied skull in the original play, so it's actually pretty nice to see him here.  It's too bad that even at six Hamlet's got no sense of humor.  I thought this book was supposed to make him more interesting, not suck him dry.

Hamlet retorts that he's not ugly, and Yorick says sadly "better to be ugly."  Red flag #2...

That starts a debate over whether it's better to be pretty or ugly and about Hamlet eventually marrying, and Hamlet declares he's never going to get married, which I suppose is normal for a six-year-old boy.  Then Yorick shoos him back into the castle to talk to his mother, though Hamlet pauses to wash up in a fountain... and he hears voices.  Hey, I thought he wasn't supposed to go mad until his father actually kicked the bucket.

Oh wait, the "voices" aren't voices, it's someone crying.  I'd think that voices and crying sound different enough to tell them apart, but what do I know?

It's Horatio crying in the stables, and Hamlet asks him how the hunt was.  Not gonna ask why your friend is crying, kid?  Seriously?  Hamlet's more upset over the fact that Horatio not only went on the hunt instead of him, but got to sit in "his" place on the horse in front of his father.  I'm aware that six-year-olds tend to be selfish little snots, but still, they're capable of a little empathy.

Horatio explains that he and the king got lost during the hunt and didn't rejoin it until the way home, and tearfully expresses how he wishes he had been there to see the actual kill.  Red flag #3...  

Card rushes the timeline here, showing how time and again the king takes the other boys on hunts and expeditions but never Hamlet, and Hamlet thinks it's because there's something wrong with him.  Isn't anyone getting suspicious of what's going on here?  Yes, I'm aware that this is the king, and back in that day before monarchs were largely ceremonial, it was pretty dangerous to accuse a king of anything.  But later on the book suggests that Denmark's actually a constitutional monarchy, so surely someone could bring this up as a problem?  Anyone?

Card also goes on to turn Hamlet into a Mary Sue -- I know the "correct" term for a male Mary Sue is a Gary Stu or a Marty Stu, but Mary Sue is by far the better-known term.  Don't believe me?  Here's a sample:

Not that Hamlet thought for a moment that the other boys were actually better.  Hamlet always took pride in never allowing them to allow him to win at any of their contests.  When he lost, he took it without shame or anger, and no one reported on the outcome to Father or Polonius, lest they interfere and punish someone for outdoing the Prince.  Thus, whenever Hamlet won, he knew that his victory was real.  He was the fastest runner, save Laertes; he was the best at Latin, save Rosencrantz; he was the strongest at wrestling, save Guildenstern, and then only on some days could the older boy throw him down.

At one thing, though, Hamlet was the best save nobody, and that was the sword.  It was a natural gift -- the armsmaster said so. -- p. 13

And that's not all!  He also learns all the important matters of running the kingdom before he's even thirteen, from how to greet important visitors to how to prepare food for the winter to how to tell if one can tax the people more heavily or ease up on the taxes.  Card... did no one ever tell you that perfect characters are BORING?  You might not have liked a "dithering hero," but a hero who's automatically the best at everything he does isn't going to interest most readers.  Especially when the wicked, often dark sense of humor Hamlet showed in the original play seems to have been surgically removed.

Oh, and apparently Hamlet's father is a terrible king, and treats his brother Claudius (yes, THAT Claudius from the play) like dirt.  But Claudius too is just OH SO PERFECT and lets it roll off his back without any problem.  And Hamlet likes Claudius so much he wishes he was his father.

So... Card's solution to making the play more interesting in his eyes is to eliminate all the moral arguments and ambiguities that made the original play so fascinating?  To take complex and troubled characters and reduce them down to "good or evil, black or white, nothing in between"?  I'm sorry, but no.  You don't get to do that to Hamlet.  Pure "good vs. evil" works in 80s kids' cartoons (somewhat), but most people prefer their heroes and villains more complex than just "ultimate pure good vs. cackling kitten-eating evil."

Save the kittens, write more complex villains!

While swimming one day, Hamlet tells Laertes that he wishes Claudius were his father, and Laertes goes off on him.

Laertes turned on him savagely -- angrily, even.  "Do you wish your mother were an adultress, then?  Or do you wish her not to be your mother, either?"

"I was just... wishing," said Hamlet.  "Father hates me, so I might as well not be his son."

Laertes looked out across the water, his face dark with -- what, anger?  "There is no boy happier than the King's own son," he said. -- p. 16

Red flag #4...

Laertes tells Hamlet to stop worrying about his father's approval, that a good king doesn't surround himself with "toadies who will always tell him that he's wonderful and brilliant" and instead work to become the kind of man he wants to be.  Decent advice...  He also says that if he got his wish and hung around with his father all the time, he'll just become a terrible king like he is.  I'm sorry, I don't recall the king being terrible in the original play... I know, Card did say he was shredding the play as he wrote this, but still, this irks me.

Laertes gets out of the water, and we get THIS lovely bit:

Hamlet watched him, thinking two things:

Why is there no one I can talk to about the things that matter most to me?

How beautiful he is. 

Um... wow.  For as reportedly homophobic as Card is, this is a major Ho Yay moment.  Remember this moment, I plan on coming back to it later...

Hamlet wonders if his father chose to surround him with Companions (why is that capitalized this is gonna bug me all book) more beautiful and lovely (his exact words) than he was to make sure he never thought of himself highly.  He also wonders if he was a horrible baby to make his father hate him as soon as he was born, but Yorick tells him no.

"All I have of my father is his name," said Hamlet.

"What if his greatest gift," said Yorick, "is to give you no gift?"

"Which is the greater fool," answer (sic) Hamlet, "the fool who thinks he's wise, or the fool who knows he's a fool and plays the part?"

"The fool who knows he's a fool is wise, and therefore no fool," said Yorick.  "But the greater fool is the wise man who does not know he is wise, for then he follows not his own council." -- p. 17

Star Wars did it better

More chatter with Yorick that doesn't amount to much, and we have a page break.  Whee.

We skip forward to the last time Hamlet saw his father alive -- at sword practice.  And of course Hamlet is so good with a sword he no longer fences with boys his own age but with the grown men.  Because Hamlet's last name is Stu, apparently.  At least we actually see him training, I guess, instead of learning swordplay in two weeks like Eragon...

Anyhow, once sword practice is over Hamlet goes and kneels to his father, who scolds him for getting his leggings dirty.  Because we can't forget that Hamlet's dad is EVIL and a jerk, I guess.

So the king is dissolving the Fellowship... I mean the Companions and sending Hamlet off to school in Heidelberg.  Hamlet assumes this means his dad despises him, because just like Eden everything has to be about Hamlet.  *sigh*

I'm only at about Page 20 of this thing, and was hoping to push forward to 30, but this post is already pretty long, so I think I'll stop here for now.  This is enough to establish that Hamlet's a Mary Sue, there are ominous red flags pointing towards Card's controversial ending to the story, and Card's solution to making the story "interesting" is to chop out anything that might be morally ambiguous or complex and reduce one of the greatest psychological studies in the theater world to an utterly banal story of "good vs. evil."

I need a freaking drink.  And by "drink" I mean "go eat ice cream."  

Gimmie... I deserve it for getting THIS far...