#he's failed the tsar and his comrades and russia. in doing so he has also failed himself and the man he wants to be

[nikolajrostovs]

we just had the most interesting discussion about war and masculinity in the old wap server and you gotta hear this.

If you wanna talk about nikolai rostov you will always, ALWAYS get to the topic of manliness. Because genuinely masculinity is such a core part of his character. There is no nikolai without masculinity, and that masculinity is as performative as it gets.

We like to joke about his tsar crush and okay yeah he definitely does have a gayass crush on the tsar. But he himself connects it to being part of a group, a group with a common interest. Everyone in the army loves the tsar.

Being part of a group is why he joined the military in the first place! He wants glory, he wants to prove himself, to be strong, and to be a part of this big group of manly men. And he needs to be a part of a group, because nikolai is a follower in every single way. He's not a leader at all. And the moment he becomes a hussar, he fixates on Denisov. Denisov is brash, headstrong, hairy, and so intelligent. He knows what he wants, he stands up for himself, but he also cares deeply for his men. He's a really great leader, but to Nikolai he's also the perfect manly man.

Weirdly enough, hair is such an important part of Nikolai's relationship to manhood. Denisov is consistently described as hairy. At the start of the novel, Nikolai has some very sparse beginnings of a mustache on his lip. A shitty teenage boy mustache, truly. Over the years it gets thicker as he gets better at performing his masculinity, and soon enough he's just like Denisov. He's the man he always dreamed of being (except a little worse because Denisov is a much nicer person than him).

Dolokhov's hands are also described as hairy. Sure, it's gay as shit, but Nikolai, in distress, fixates so much on the hair on Dolokhov's hands. He says himself that those hands hold him in their power.

And the gambling, too. Cards and gambling are very much a man's thing. No girls allowed. Nikolai is so terrible at cards, and he plays against a known cardsharp. You might think this is an idiotic move, and it is. But he is indeed kind of stupid, so he does it anyway. And why does he keep going? Well, one, gambler's fallacy. Two, he convinces himself it'll all be okay in the end. Gambling is a Man Thing, men gamble all the time and they turn out okay! It's okay! It always turns out okay, except for when it doesn't, but surely he's enough of a man to know how to gamble. But then Dolokhov is more masculine than Nikolai, and his hairy hands hold him in their power, and they ruin him.

So, Nikolai succeeds in his performance as a manly man. He becomes what society expects him to be, even if it's not his true self. And then he marries Marya, a woman, because what else would he do? Men like women, and men marry women. Men don't like men. Remember all of this definitely has to do with how he's at least a little bit aware that he's gay.

And what kind of husband and father does Nikolai become? A neglectful, dismissive, rude one. He's a masculine man, he doesn't have time for his family! Of course he has to have a family, because he has to pass on his genes and create a new generation of Big Strong Sons, but he shouldn't actually care about his wife or children. And he becomes a farmer, too, which is just THE most masculine thing he could do.

So do we ever actually get to see Nikolai being his honest-to-god true self? Does he ever drop the manly man act and just enjoy life? Well, no, it's never truly gone, but I think he's most comfortable with Natasha. I mean, Natasha is his best friend, really. She's his favorite person in the world, and he can be honest with her. They're very similar people, and thus she understands him and he understands her. Just read the Christmas part of the book please. It's so amazing.

In conclusion, in the immortal words of jimmy rostova, "he's trying so hard to transition to hussar gender"

#thanks to the wap server for awakening me in the enlightenment channel #war and peace #nikolai rostov #me actually having an intelligent thought about the Guy and running with it #also speaking of running. his performance fails when he runs away from battle. as sansa said: weakness is not accepted in the group #he's failed the tsar and his comrades and russia. in doing so he has also failed himself and the man he wants to be #also all of this was interspersed with me talking about this really cool finland-swedish book about war and guilt and generational trauma #every day i wish “heiman” by ann-luise bertell had an english translation. #discourse moomins