tautline-hitch
my favourite line is Terror’s foretopmast staysail downhaul because—no, I apologize, I will take it no further.
there are some excellent lines in The Terror—I think “I am hungry and I want to live” is excellently understated (like i 100% get why the Monologue strikes some people as slightly bathetic, but it works for me); “Close is nothing” remains solid; “Does one not bring one’s habits to Terror” is as I have said I think before a pretty enjoyable exploitation of the inaudibility of italics—but I would like to mention one that is much less of a showpiece and also I think quite excellent:
I don’t know what you’re due.
The barb on it! In the aftermath of the previous episode’s flogging, the crack of the cat is right there. Crozier is at this stage barely competent as a commanding officer, but he is also, perhaps more significantly, no longer functioning as a gentleman; he is not dressing or speaking or conducting himself as a gentleman must. And Fitzjames informs him it’s been noticed in such a perfectly gentlemanly way: this little assertion of class and power, of the hierarchy which underpins every interaction on a warship (and this is a warship, because Crozier by his methods of discipline has made it one). What is a thief due? Well, that depends on his station. What are the conditions for mutiny? Shipwreck, alcohol, flogging—and a captain without authority. Which authority Crozier has just spent on those 16 bottles.
I love too that we don’t see Crozier’s face; he looks away from us and from Fitzjames as the line is delivered, still in the dregs of the belief he can disguise how far things have slipped. Instead we get that understated, unconvincing “I did no such thing”, cut across Fitzjames’s line and overwhelmed by it; instead we see what he sees, Blanky and Goodsir’s unsurprised embarrassed resignation. Whatever he’d thought he was to them, in this instant he has become a circumstance to be managed: they believe Fitzjames without question, and he is locked out of that circle. This is the moment, I think, at which he understands that he is no longer in control. For Crozier the end of vanity happens here.
paramaline
#also of course “she asked you ‘why do you want to die”’!! exquisite. #and i would also love to know what follows ‘we both know what is happening’ #that must have been a hell of a conversation however long it lasted. #(i love too that francis has been testing the elasticity of polite society essentially since we met him and this is the moment it snaps) #(his boxer’s bounce and his come-on-then nod) #(the dual effect of his look-round before he throws that punch: #half can you believe this shit (they can) #and half dirty fighter’s fake-out.) #(lovely.)
