lesbianaglaya
the more you watch the terror the more it's like wow. there was literally no way out. like we know they're ghosts from the beginning but it's fascinating how much nothing any of them did or could have done mattered. everyone is dead from the start — the events of the story are the last of their lives. as crozier says at the very start, no one knows where they are. the narrative itself refrains from making moral judgements on the characters. characters who do good things are not necessarily rewarded nor do characters who do bad things necessarily receive punishment. yet it everything they do does matter!! A lot in fact!!!
when these men reach the end of their lives, as they all die slowly and in varyingly painful ways, they reach out to each other. there's obviously the pairs — the tenderness of the last days bridgens and peglar have together, the care and respect with which crozier and francis interact with each other. but there's also crozier comforting tom hartnell as he dies, telling goodsir he's clean, saying that he knows magnus is a good boy. there's silna's incredible kindness in going to comfort goodsir after morfin's death despite all that she's suffered. there's the joy on fitzjames and the lieutenants' faces when jopson receives his promotion, even as their bodies are visibly decaying. there's goodsir listening to collins even though he cant solve the problem of the tins, and even his final caress of gibson's face as he dies.
looking at these actions through a utilitarian lens, they do not matter. they are nothing in the path of the spectre of death, and theyre certainly nothing in the face of the gaping maw of empire consuming them. but these acts of kindness are not trying to make a big point or a lasting impression on the world. they only exist as exactly what they are — small moments of goodness in the face of the void. they dont change anything, but each individual (both the giver and the receiver) is undeniably the better for having experienced them, reaffirming their humanity even while literally experiencing oblivion.
