"Plot me no plots" - Citizen/Everyone Who Watched Game of Thrones

Citizen - "Plot me no plots."Act II, lines 268.

In my best Jerry Seinfeld voice (minus some racist slurs), "What's the deal with plot?!"
I found myself asking this as I first started reading The Knight of the Burning Pestle and was more than chuckled to see Francis Beaumont sum up his play-within-a-play midway through the second act. The line from Citizen is pretty straight forward in his desires that he wants the story told his way; that the idea of storyline and development had no baring on his entertainment. Bless my little wannabe literature scholar heart. Give me a solid limited series any day but please do not Atwood the fan service follow up. However, "plot me no plots" rings through time and is just the bold assertion of desire that so many of us play coy about to save some intellectual face.

The word "story" is something that has evolved over history. Pictographs, spoken epics, novels, theatrical performance, movies and the big one today: television shows. A joke uttered about a grandmother and "her stories" is evolving beyond the little old lady addicted to her tele-novellas; many people feel a sense of ownership over the stories they stan. Beaumont's Citizen (and Wife) are present in our time and it is likely that, as it happened in his time, many of today's audience members would not be in on the joke of who/what Citizen represents. With big blockbuster franchises and epic budget television shows dominating the current cultural experience it has become difficult for viewers to separate their personal story telling desires with that of plot and character development that culminates in a story's end.

Who isn't guilty of wanting their favorite character on the throne or for some backwater-Jakku-scavenging-staff wielding-girl to be "The Chosen One"? Personally, I am still mad that Disney axed the canon of the expanded universe novels after spending all my formative years planet hopping around the galaxy with the Solo Twins and their conflicted little brother Anakin. Troy Dennings and I need to have a heart to heart about his addition of "Star by Star" and what he did with MY Anakin and Tahiri.

Personal anecdote aside, everyone who consumes stories is guilty of Citizenship (Oh boy, you better bet I patted myself on the back for that one).  There is something innately human in being an opinionated audience member. However, this "ownership" (*cough* Citizenship) has also proven to be toxic. Shows such as Rick and Morty have produced a very divided viewership; the Edgelordian decree that "it's actually really deep", and the McDonald's counter jumping Schezwan sauce fanatics, and the rest of us who feel conflicted anytime they put on that Rick and Morty shirt they owned before yelling "I'm a pickle!" became en vogue. This all begs the question that is the joke of The Knight of the Burning Pestle, does audience participation ruin a story?

The answer is something that Beaumont's play fails to provide directly. The meta joke of being an audience who is judging the audience who's judging the play from within the play might have been too complex to gather so far removed from the amount of social leveling television has created with the help of the internet. Maybe this "bad" audience participation is perfectly okay. Nothing gets a room heated faster than saying you hate Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, Stranger Things, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Friends, ER or Shakespeare.

If we justify Citizenship with the notion that "books belong to their readers" (Death of the Author and a million takes on the idea since, and including John Green) why is it that these fanatic story stans still feel so cringe-y when they interject? Could it be that we inherently understand that stories we do not write do not intricately belong to us and our whims? Possibly. I feel like it is a little more fundamental. "Shut up it's starting!!" sums the sentiment up. Keep your head-canon to yourself Citizen.

A Tiny Violin for Petrarchan Ways 9/12/19

Love, that doth reign and live with my thought,
And built his seat within my captive breast,
Clad in the arms wherein with me he fought,
Oft in my face he doth his banner rest.

But she that taught me love and suffer pain,
My doubtful hope and eke my hot desire
With shamefast look to shadow and refrain,
Her smiling grace converteth straight to ire.

And coward Love, then, to the heart apace
Taketh his flight, where he doth lurk and plain,
His purpose lost, and dare not show his face.

For my lord's guilt thus faultless bide I pain,
Yet from my lord shall not my foot remove:
Sweet is the death that taketh end by love.

-Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

There is something very telling about the Petrarchan sonnets. It is that men are vastly insecure and possibly harbor some very deeply ingrained fear of women. These fears are based on forced expectations of what equates one's value in society. But what I also see reading this sonnet is something a bit more basic; I see the crushing emotions of adolescence. This idea of "Love, that doth reign and live within my thought" reminds me of being a teenager who's emotions are sharp and new. Love was an obsession and in a simplistic way of thought it makes some sense to view it as a me versus them kind of way until experience dulls the edges.

I rather (in a twisted humored way) enjoy the imagery of a "Clad in the arms" knight losing a battle against a women "that taught me love and suffer pain". Who exactly is this armored "love" the speaker is referring to? Is this a writer's self projection onto the poem? Even removing the idea of self projection the poem still reads one way: The women was more fearsome than "he". The speaker is not putting in much effort with the ideas of what we might collectively think of what an "armored" man is when they subvert the idea for a "coward love... Taketh his flight".

This lack of complexity is why I am reminded of adolescence because the time is marked with the inability to adequately express oneself. Having the affliction of being a women (har har) I may be more inclined to roll my eyes at the entire idea of the Petrarchan Sonnet but it is the final line that should make any reasonable person reevaluate the content. The embarrassment of rejection is a fairly universal experience. While it is not an enjoyable experience it is one given enough time loses that sharp edge. It merely becomes unpleasant. It is childish to say, "Sweet is the death that taketh end by love". The complicated syntax of the final line fails to produce ambiguity as to its meaning. Instead, it simply comes off as an overly dramatic reaction to a basic human experience.

Hero and Leander Ramblings

Update 12/12/19: I just realized I should have titled this "Hero and Leanderings". What a missed opportunity.

17 September 2019: Reading the First Sestiad of "Hero and Leander" by Christopher Marlowe

The reason no man knows, let it suffice,

What we behold is censur'd by our eyes.

Where both deliberate, the love is slight:

Who ever lov'd, that lov'd not at first sight?
(lines 173-176)

Hero's looks yielded, but her words made war
(331)

I want to remove this quote from the context of its story to unpack its potential. Historically the lines between men and women and how they "fight" have been deftly drawn. When removed from the story it reflects the prescribed gender roles. Women use their looks for as long as possible until words become their weapons. What does it mean to yield? Is it Hero's looks waning to age, or is it a look on her face that is betraying her feelings? When your face betrays you do your words become something more? When is it that women make the exchange for looks to weaponized words?

Contextually, Leander using so many words to untangle Hero's arguments for not having sex does come off as a battle. She does in fact yield to his desires shortly after that line, and for that reason the reading of her face betraying her seems to fit. The battle becomes a war and war in the sense of the story expresses a deep passion between the two.

Who taught thee rhetoric to deceive a maid? 
Ay me! such words as these should I abhor, 
And yet I like them for the orator.
(338-340)

There's an inclination to be annoyed by these lines. Reading this line as romanic is difficult in the face of modern reason. The line, "Who taught thee rhetoric to deceive a maid?" calls attention to the fact that men have been prying at women for centuries to have sex and use a multitude of convoluted reasonings as to why. Logically, Hero knows she should hate everything Leander is saying but she 'like them for the orator". If that is her reasoning for giving in to Leander's desires it did not matter what he said to her. It is a dangerous idea to understand the reasonable and ignore logic in favor of feeling. The lines cover a problem that society still does not seem to have a solution for; the problem being sexual impulse and the unrelenting entanglement of sex equating love. If we were strip away the romanic whirl wind of being in a moment does that change the way we interact between sex and emotions with others? However, if Hero had equal desires for Leander the entire exchange is just placating the social mores of the time. The meandering arguments are her defense against the stigmatized shame of ownership of her sexuality.