#Hadestown meta

[attheendoftheline]

His arms, her hands.

Both of them are extremely reactionary to touch. Absolutely too touch starved individuals that aren’t great at handling at first. I like how Orpheus allows himself to be  immediately hypnotized staring at his hand and so on— while Eurydice tries to fight however she feels. This isn’t the topic but I wanted to point it out.

Eurydice always holds her hands out the same way. She holds them cupped as if she expects you to drop something into her hand, she waits on the other person to act. Despite always holding her own and bouncing from town to town she is very quick to trust. Trust someone will be there to hold her hand or if she is being gifted something, it will be good.

I also absolutely just noticed the way O’s fingers grace her palm first, a brief touch- caution, making sure it’s what she wants. Hades goes slow with coins but it’s more for show, we know he’d likely force them if she took a second longer. I love this way she always holds her hand because it’s both trusting and foreshadowing.

Not only is it a show of trust but it is also the fact she leads. Orpheus only ever touches her, holds her, grabs her when he knows she wants it, she wants him. She holds out her hand first when she opens up, she pulls him into a hug and was full ready to drag him out of hades in act 2. It’s the “touch starved character to super touchy character”. And I can understand it! The girls had a impossibly hard life, half the time I think she’s checking just to make sure he’s really there with her! She also has the running thing of placing her hands to his chest, and the iconic hold absolutely melting into his arms.

It’s the trust. He has his arms extended/open and she runs into them, she accepts. That’s their thing. What reason doesn’t she have to trust him? The man who comes after her for over a millennium from time loop to retelling?

It’s also interesting considering Hadestown was made with giving Eurydice agency in mind, as in the myth she steps on a snake and dies accidentally. She doesn’t get much stay in the story. In this version I like how every action she makes is so clearly her choice? Good or bad. She’s absolutely an active player and it’s great

Am I a bit over analytical? Maybe? Am I a sucker for touchy characters obsessed with each other? Bet.

#hadestown #hadestown broadway #hadestown musical #eurydice hadestown #orpheus hadestown #orpheus and eurydice #meta #Hadestown meta #Greek myth #eva noblezada #reeve carney #character study #body language #scene analysis #forshadowing #I’ll stop making gifs when I dead

[melpomeneprose]

𝚃𝚈𝙿𝙴𝚂 𝙾𝙵 𝙿𝙴𝙾𝙿𝙻𝙴 𝙰𝚂 𝙱𝙸𝚁𝙳𝚂.

repost, don’t reblog. bold whatever applies all the time, italicize the ones that are circumstantial.

Eurydice, a hungry young girl, a runaway from everywhere she’d ever been, no stranger to the world, no stranger to the wind.

Eurydice-> Εὐρυδίκη (Greek) -> literally translating to -> “Wide Justice.”

Songbird vs rattlesnake.

sparrow.     innocence, big dreamer, waking up too early, walking home, being afraid of meeting new people, slim hands, always cold, reading a book under a tree, the smell of the forest, missing your home.

eagle.   independent, caring too much for others, sharp looks, walking down the city late at night, the tallest and more spectacular building, iron, being single and okay in a world that tells you that being single is bad.

swift.     falling in love easily and heavily, traveller, the infinity of the bluest sky, storms, broken smiles, forgetting people who used to be your beloved ones, feeling out of place, mistrusting people, a fleeting romance.

crow.     feeling as if you have seen so much and as if you know a lot, prejudge, tight hugs that leave you breathless, a grey sky, serenity, intelligence, being left behind, chains, smoke, the pride of someone wise.

dove.      petals, jealousy, being tired of living with the same old faces, whispered secrets, marble, sundresses, white clothes, the first sunset of winter, pride in who you are, learning to get over someone.

seagull.     family, golden light, the sea murmuring in your ear, summer afternoons, caramel ice cream, collecting seashells and other things and calling them treasures, living breezy and carefree, swimming in sunlight.

canary.       artistic, getting excited easily, dancing and singing while you are alone, looking at your friends having fun, no phone, being afraid of judgement, spring, a meaningful gift, the first ray of sunlight.

Borrowed from: @honorhearted. 💕

Tagging: @audaciiae (Apollo), @lifedreamt (your choice), @curseconsumed (your choice), & @ladyseidr (Orpheus). 💕

#muse: eurydice #about / to confide or confess #tag games #dash games #character study #hadestown verse. #hadestown #mythology and folklore #greek mythology #hey little songbird #hadestown meta #for skill in music named / queue #long post #long post tw

[lucimiir]

Hadestown is cool because it has so many versions and you can appreciate them all and you can also see how it all grows. And the Broadway production is undeniably the best, like even if you liked one specific production more you can acknowledge that the final product is the most cohesive and polished and accomplished version of the story.

And the reason that’s cool is because that’s exactly what happens in the story. Orpheus’s song grows and refines in exactly the same way, and life imitates art and art imitates life and the world is cool and so is this musical.

#hadestown #hadestown broadway #hadestown nytw #hadestown concept album #anais mitchell #orpheus hadestown #epic iii #hadestown meta

[arcadianambivalence]

I just realized the structure of the Hades/Persephone parts in “Chant” calls back to “The Wedding Song”

She sings the question:

Lover tell me if you can / Who’s gonna buy the wedding band? / Times being what they are / Hard and getting harder all the time

In the coldest time of year / Why is it so hot down here? / Hotter than a crucible / It ain’t right and it ain’t natural

He gives a natural/unnatural response:

Lover when I sing my song / All the rivers’ll sing along / And they’re gonna break their banks for us / and with their gold be generous / All the flashin’ in the pan, all to fashion for your hand / The river’s gonna make the wedding band

Lover you were gone so long / Lover I was lonesome / So I build a foundry / In the ground beneath your feet / Here, I fashioned things of steel / Oil drums and automobiles / Then I kept that furnace fed / with the fossils of the dead / Lover when you feel that fire / Think of it as my desire, think of it as my desire for you

It’s interesting to note how Orpheus frames his response as something nature will do for them, while Hades describes what he already made in Persephone’s absence.

#hadestown #hadestown meta

[akicklineisinevitable]

something about Hatchetfield is so Hadestown coded. something about how it's a sad tale, but we sing it anyway. as if it will turn out this time. (i'll find you in the next timeline). something about how not everyone can make it out, and those that do don't make it out unchanged. something about love that was doomed from the start (wait for me? i will.) (emma, im sorry, you lost) (i'd have to let you go). something about how the scenery changes, but the stories are the same. something about it was a world of gods and men (there are monsters and there are men).

#i am EMOTIONAL tonight gang. i am SAD. #there's no like one-to-one way to jam the narratives of hatchetfield and hadestown together #but the themes man. tgwdlm and orpheus' music. black friday and hades' capitalism. npmd and orpheus and eurydice's doomed love #remember when tgwldlm first came out and we were theorising that the show was all a loop? that they were all infected from the beginning? #someone's got to tell the tale. whether or not it turns out well #originals #hatchetverse #hatchetfield #hatchetfield musicals #hatchetfield series #hatchetfield universe #the guy who didn't like musicals #tgwdlm #black friday starkid #nerdy prudes must die #npmd #hadestown #hadestown musical #hatchetfield meta

[ratcarney]

i respect the decision to make if it’s true into orpheus’s pseudo-“i want” song and to change it into more of a rallying cry but i miss nytw’s if it’s true and the fierce MOURNING of it. orpheus is angry at himself for forsaking eurydice and you can HEAR it in the way he sings. “take this voice, take these hands” is fucking LETHAL. in nytw if it’s true, there is no “and the boy turned to go, because he thought no one could hear” because there is no way that nytw orpheus is leaving without his wife. the actual line that hermes says is, “the boy kept singing loud and clear ‘cause everybody knows the walls have ears.” like his ass is nOT LEAVING.

the fundamental fragility within reeve’s orpheus makes his if it’s true powerful because he’s finding his own voice within it. but in nytw hadestown, damon’s orpheus has his own voice, and he’s losing it. reeve is asking, damon is begging. that’s the bottom line.

#hadestown meta from jo ratcarney? in 2024??? CRAZYYY #i just need to say this #i was gonna say this to my friends and then i was like omg. i have a blog for this #anyway #jo.posts #hadestown #orpheus

[thewingedwolf]

i love the Fates in hadestown bc they have so much sympathy for Eurydice during the chips are down, of course they do, she’s just a poor hungry girl who can’t escape her Fate, and we shouldn’t judge her bc if we were in her shoes, hungry and scared, and a god came to us and offered us a home, a lover that is cold and distant but will keep us safe and fed, could we really say we wouldn’t do the same.

but when Eurydice despairs over how shitty the deal she made actually is, they are practically gleeful at her pain. and when the people rail against Fate, when the workers straighten their backs and look Fate in the eye, dare to love and care and fight against the hand they’ve been dealt, and the Fates are livid. no longer full of sympathy for orpheus’ suffering, they ask who dares fight Fate.

i think the switch is so interesting in how it plays with the despair, poverty, and depression of all the central characters. Our grief and fear are happy to comfort us with “there was no good choice to make” when we’re down but when we pick ourselves up and try to be better, the depression rages back as a monster to stop us. The Fates love humanity and love the gods - until they dare to defy the Fates. Until they dare to hope for more than what is simply fated to happen.

#hadestown #rani makes text posts no one will read #rani attempts meta #i think it’s noticeable that the ending where there is the implication that even if orpheus & eurydice can’t escape fate that their constant #birth and rebirth and determination to change things *finally* affects hades & persephone that they allow the seasons to change properly #it’s not ‘almost spring’ it’s ‘time for spring.’ orpheus cannot let go of eurydice and it gives hades the courage to let go of persephone #to at last understand a lover as distinct from yourself. not to complete you but complement you. and the fates at last are quiet at the end.

[considerablecolors]

OKOK LAST POST FOR THE NIGHT I PROMMY BUT all this spytown talk has me thinking about the hadestown alt ending they did for when reeve left, but in the context of spies are forever... like for one night... curt doesn't shoot owen and they get to leave together... how would that even play out??? would it be tatiana, cynthia, barb, etc., showing up to give them permission to leave???

but then think about it- in hadestown, when orpheus and eurydice are told they get to leave, they've just made peace with each other again and promised to love each other and are ready to go home together... but how would owen and curt react to this news?

curt would at least be a little bit pleased, surely. we know from watching him in the scene that he doesn't want to have to do this, but... would he really trust owen enough to walk out hand in hand with him? and what about owen? would be even be ABLE to put aside his beliefs, his mission, his distrust, his bitterness, his need for revenge- long enough to just walk away? and walk away with curt?

i mean, you hope to god he would. what's the point otherwise? but- could you imagine?

sitting in the audience at, let's say, spies live in the uk, watching this infamous scene, when right towards the end, right as owen finishes singing his reprise, the rest of the cast comes out to tell the two of them, and the audience, that they get to leave together.

could you imagine, then, the feeling going through you, as you realize, this is it? all those fanfictions, all those analysis posts, all those daydreams about what could have been- about to play out right before your very eyes?

and- could you imagine- if after all that, they wouldn't go? if curt and owen refused to leave? if that final gunshot ran out and the show proceeded as normal, no differences, nothing at all to suggest anything was ever going to change in the first place, but-

you know. you know the chance was there. and you now know that no matter the circumstances, no matter the monologue or ballad, no matter what hypotheticals all our brains could come up with to possibly change what's canon and true- you now know that if given the chance, they'd say no?

i mean, you hope to god they wouldn't. what's the point otherwise? but- could you imagine?

#sorry guys this is really sad but my brain is running around in circles thinking about it!!! #spies are forever #tin can bros #curtwen #hadestown #cc speaks #*paul voice* promise me you'll think about the implications (saf meta) #spytown #kinda not rlly? but saf hadestown crossover so??

[starry-bite]

thinking about how anaïs mitchell and rachel chavkin's collaboration on hadestown is so close and loving and tender

and about how reeve and chavkin have both said so much that the big orpheus rewrite ultimately made him more expressive of anaïs

and about how chavkin resonates most deeply and personally with eurydice

something something we are drawn to and can't help telling stories with our own spirits in them

the snake eats its tail and the tale begins again

#hadestown #grem leans #as creative partners makers of art spirits irrevocably contained in this story #hadestown is haunted etc #anaïs mitchell #rachel chavkin #orpheus #eurydice #orphydice #mods are asleep post hadestown meta i suppose

[amatalefay]

Somebody on Reddit asked about the imagery in Way Down Hadestown II, and Anaïs Mitchell once again proves herself to be an actual genius.

#hadestown #anaïs mitchell #anais mitchell #meta #way down hadestown ii #way down hadestown reprise

[stuckasmain]

But we sing it anyway

Moulin rouge is a story inspired by the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. You probably know this as ever since finding out about it from my playbill I haven’t shut up about that fact, well? Here’s a concise post. The story is inspired, not exact, however it’s a little bit funny… just how much it ties with Hadestown (a much more direct adaptation of the story).

Moulin rouge is also a timeloop story, while not as overt in its lyrics and presentation as Hadestown it makes no effort to hide this. At the very end of the pre show in fact! Christian comes to raise the sign sending the audience “back in time” alongside him to the prior year. In both cases the men- a more correct statements would be surviving lover- are what initiates the story beginning again. Both shows can be viewed in this way as a song of grief. Orpheus is apart of an old song that’s been replaying for longer than he may know and Christian is writing a love song, their love song, their story- as Satines dying request. He’s keeping her alive this way. They’re always together this way. Moulin rouge is a timeloop in a much more self inflicted way, Is she gone or will she live with every preformance? If he can even get it to be preformed. However unlike the movie we aren’t seeing Christian write the story- we are seeing him as a part of it, talking to us directly. Don’t believe me on the timeloop/living memory? Just watch how he raises the sign- the heavy sigh the love in which he has the whole first act- the excitement and joy like this time- this time is different. Sort of like someone else we know…

Optimistic and naïve, though deeply sad boy with a Godly musical ability X Jaded woman scored one to many times by the harsh realities of life

Both make the other better, they contrast each other, change each other, become each other in some sense or another. In both cases the optimism and lust for “happy endings” comes far too late for the woman and the man has learned how the world is at the cost of the love of his life.

However, in the case of Moulin rouge we do get a glimpse of a much more complicated relationship. While all of the mentioned does happen we also see jealousy, frustration, miscommunication. A more full developed relationship than a metaphorical one (not saying Orpheus and Eurydice are any less of a couple just that in following the myth more closely we loose some time of just them).

Christian follows Satine to hell long before she dies, he jumps headfirst in without even having met her! Momantre- the Paris underworld- he comes in search of it in this version of the story and finds her already there. Trapped by circumstance rather than soul ownership and the “twist” is he doesn’t bring her home. He makes his home there.

In both, the surviving lover is left near catatonic on the stage, rocking themself for some form of comfort or unable to move at all. Their sobs echo through theaters in which a pin could drop. Love doesn’t heal illness, nor does it reverse starvation. It means a lot to those of us alive, to the memory of those loved. But to death?

What gets me is how Satine is actually the one to save Christian! (She stops his suicide attempt) She, like Eurydice, meets her end in the most joyful, hope filled moment. That second where audience and character alike think it will turn out this time… despite full well knowing it’s a tragedy. Christ!!

Conclusion-

All tragedies must now end with a confetti cannon encore. (Moulin rouge nat. Tour you’re getting my therapy bills)

#anyways i love getting my heart ripped out #moulin rouge #moulin rouge musical #moulin rouge! #moulin rouge the musical #moulin rouge broadway #hadestown broadway #Hadestown #orpheus and euridyce #orpheus x eurydice #christian x satine #christian moulin rouge #satine moulin rouge #orpheus hadestown #eurydice hadestown #character study #relationship study #character comparison #meta #musicals #Broadway #tragedy #love #grief #time loop #self inflicted time loop #Greek myth

[attheendoftheline]

The way he fumbles and thrusts out his arm stiff as board while trying desperately to sound confident will never not be funny, but it also is a great show of the mind. He’s awkward, he’s wildly sincere and completely oblivious to how his honesty/behavior is odd to the world. He breathes like a child rescued from a well. The man is mortified and awestruck at the same time but genuine.

There’s never a moment you doubt his actions/words aren’t with a utmost sincerity. Absolutely lost with love. I call this out because we see the same thing not to long after only with a completely different context…

It is the same desperation, the same Longing , but a different fear…not of rejection but failure- of the journey- of not finding her.

He thrusts the carnation out in-front of him with a new intensity then he had the paper flower, their is a confidence to him unlike the other scene. Yet it’s thin— equally wracked with fear and partial grief (not full as he’s very much in the ‘denial’ stage.) The grip is as strong as his nerve. If there’s one thing to ever garner from Orpheus’s character it is that when he says I’m coming too, he means it.

It’s the way twice here he holds it out in-front of him with such intensity and only for/refering to Eurydice . Taking his heart right out of his chest and displaying it to her, for her. This is how much I love you, this is how much I’d do. The world is dead or dying there is little flowers to be had and he takes the time to make out out of a old flyer with a almost childish enjoyment— he had no real need but wanted a nice gesture. He later produces a real one after singing on her request— the flowers are his heart, his love, his promise that even if he is not always there he will find her again. And is that not what the story stresses itself? This has happened before and it will happen again and again and each time he will love her, and follow her into the cold and dark.

#hadestown #hadestown broadway #hadestown musical #orpheus hadestown #orpheus and eurydice #eurydice hadestown #i make myself cry with these I swear #orphydice #meta #reeve carney #body language #character study #symbolism #scene analysis #characterization #ship #Hadestown meta #analysis #themes #repetition #circular narrative #possible reincarnation

[funblogoftricks]

A love song for anyone who tries

So there's a lot of posts about Zerxus being a damn fool, and that's fine. Some are mournful, some incredulous, and some don't blame him.

I've also seen a post or two about Zerxus being more clear-eyed than he seems, being clever with his words, negotiating for himself and his son, maaaybe his city, as selfish and ambitious as the wizards around him - and that's also fine.

But I wonder if there's something in between the naivete and the cynicism. Remember that Zerxus is the one with the visions; he has seen the end. He's the one who feels it coming. He's the one who knows what it feels like to stand in the palm of a god, to feel small and useless in the face of certain doom. Zerxus, paladin of the people, First Knight of Avelir. Useless.

What does a good man do in the face of unavoidable, terrible fate?

I think maybe, he just tries.

"I know you took your pain out on us. Don't you forget the kindness we're capable of. We're your children too."

That doesn't sound to me like a total lack of understanding of what Asmodeus is, but it doesn't sound like an arrogant attempt at manipulation, either. It sounds like a desperate plea. What else would you say to a god, if you had once chance to speak to one, before they tried to wipe your people off the world? What words could you justify, knowing one day you would answer for them? That you would have to explain them to your husband, or your son, in the afterlife?

What could you do but try?

The best weapons Zerxus carries are his compassion and his conviction. He is a paladin. A fighter. He will not lay down his arms in the final hour. He cannot. Hopeless though it may seem, he's giving it everything he has, the greatest strength he can muster.

Let it not be said that Zerxus Ilerez didn't try his damndest.

What else is there to do?

#critical role #exu: calamity #exu calamity #exu #zerxus #zerxus ilerez #cr exu #meta #yes this is inspired by hadestown #the parallels are killing me alright #its a sad song / its a sad tale its a tragedy / its a sad song / but we sing it anyway #cause here's the thing / to know how it ends / and still begin to sing it again / as if it might turn out this time #/ I learned that from a friend of mine #orpheus was a poor boy / but he had a gift to give / he could make you see how the world could be / in spite of the way that it is #its a love song / for anyone who tries

[jadenight67]

This is literally for one person so. Strap in?

While watching the season premier of The Winchesters I was struck by a reoccurring thought:

God this is going to hurt when it ends

I mean how can it not? John and Mary are so young and the spark is there. Mary is full of such anger and hurt, longing for more than the hunter life. And John is a haunted man, desperately trying to find a greater good to fight for after being devastated by war. You can see the threads of who they are here and how their talents and flaws will snowball into the tragedy that their lives become. And that's not even mentioning Carlos and Latika; two vibrant characters who are conspicuously absent from the family history Sam and Dean know.

Some might ask, what's the point in telling a story if you know how it ends? Why rehash the history for a man who ultimately abused his kids and went against the wishes of the woman he loved. Why torment us with the tragedy of a woman who never was able to escape the generational trauma she was stuck in, and who was unable to prevent her children from suffering the same fate?

Because to know how it ends, and still sing it again. As if it might turn out this time. I learned that from a friend of mine.

Hadestown is hands down one of my favourite musicals ever written. It bends genre and breaks the fourth wall to provide a story rich in meaning and heart. When Hermes sings "It's a sad song, it's a sad tale, it's a tragedy" in the opening number, we know from the beginning exactly what story is being told. It is an old song, a sad song, a love song.

Over the course of the musical you watch as Orpheus and Eurydice make choices that pull them apart; Eurydice's need for more for security driving her into the arms of Hades and Orpheus' inability to see the world as it is revenge him from seeing the real problems they faced. And when it comes down to it, after all the struggling and triumph, after helping the gods dance again, doubt still creeps. And Orpheus looks.

And yet, in the final numbers, we see the stage reset, the story preparing to tell itself again. A literal representation in telling a story for the story's sake mirrored in the play being performed night after night. As if it might turn out this time. And so it goes, again and again being told as a reminder and a warning and for the sake of the story itself.

Thankfully, in our case Dean is no Orpheus, always doomed to turn and look. Here he is Hermes, the story teller, the one guiding us through a story we think we know. The Winchesters, much like the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice, has merit even if it may not appear relevant on the surface. While I doubt any of us will be forced to sing before the Lord of the Underworld, we will have to find the strength to push through an impossible situation. And while we may not be fighting demons and ghosts in our day to day lives, many of us have complicated relationships with family and must learn how to see them as more than just the harm they caused us, perhaps not forgiving but understanding for our own healing and growth. The Winchesters provides a unique opportunity for a character to take back the narrative and tell their story how THEY want, their voice guiding us forward.

There are other far better written meta on what exactly may be happening in The Winchesters, where exactly this story is going. For my part, all I can say is I look forward to seeing what story Dean would like to tell us, what old song he wants to sing for us again and again and again.

#supernatural #the winchesters #hadestown #holy fuck it's been a while #shity meta from a silly little theatre kid #did I cry thinking about the parallels between Mary as Eurydice and John as Orpheus #perhaps

[plant-posting]

I have one (1) fear about Alecto The Ninths plot and it's "what if John wanted Alecto to wake up so he could remake the world Noah's Flood Style— and each chapter of AtN is just the new iteration of the world with the same characters in a different setting," and the reveal in the end is that the characters have been reborn/redoing all of the things that have happened in the story slightly differently but it all ends the same— with John remaking the world groundhog day style until it becomes"perfect" in his own eyes. What I'm saying is, cowboy AU canon??

#its like hadestown #we keep retelling the same story because it MIGHT have a different ending this time #crack theory mostly #but still #there was an article somewhere #saying ntn took place over 100000 #and i thought that was for a reasin #but could also be a mistyping so whatever #the locked tomb #tlt #atn #alecto the ninth #nona the ninth spoilers #tlt meta #tlt theories #the locked tomb theories

[thebeautifulfantastic]

i'm thinking about how hadestown is a story of opposites when it comes to character journeys.

how orpheus starts out an idealist only to have the cruelty of the underworld shoved in his face, while eurydice starts out a realist only to gain a sense of wonder through loving orpheus. how (and this one really makes me go insane) persephone and hades are a love that has faded over time, but seeing orpheus and eurydice's love in full bloom, they start to rekindle their own sentiments.

thematically, it's an endless cycle of repetition. and that's why it's a sad song, it's a tragedy. but we sing it anyway is so powerful, because despite the outward fatalism of the ending, there is some hope in this story and it lies in the act of retelling it over and over again because maybe it will turn out this time. the players left behind to tell the tale are the ones keeping hope alive.

#also orpheus and eurydice's love is representative of spring #(i.e. their love is fresh and new) #while hades and persephone's love is representative of autumn #(i.e. it's dying and fading) #but eventually spring will come again #not just literally for the world but for their relationship #but will spring come again for orpheus and eurydice? not in this telling of the story #but if we sing it again? maybe they'll get their spring #brb going insane #analysis #meta finding tag #hadestown #theatre