History Characters / Hamlet

* MeddlingParents: WILL NOT get his nose out of his children's business.

* OverprotectiveDad: To both of his children. He sends a spy to monitor Laertes while he studies in Paris, and drives himself between Ophelia and her love Hamlet.

* TalkativeLoon: Hamlet talks nonsense and antagonizes those around him so they think he has gone mad and don't suspect him of plotting against the king. However, at certain points it's unclear how much of Hamlet's madness is feigned and how much of might be authentic.

* PoliticallyIncorrectHero: Hamlet can be inescapably sexist, something that poor Ophelia pays the price for. Then again, [[BrokenPedestal considering what’s he’s been going through after finding out about his father’s murderer]], [[HatesEveryoneEqually it’s not like he cares about everybody now anyways]].

-->'''Hamlet:''' Man delights not me. No, nor woman neither, though [[StealthInsult by your smiling you seem to say so]].

* {{Foil}}: Where Hamlet can be said to encompass every color of human spirit, Horatio is colorless and has no character save what [[AudienceSurrogate we project onto him]][[Administrivia/TropesAreTools --rightfully so.]]

* HeterosexualLifePartners: He and Hamlet seem quite close, to the point of Horatio attempting suicide upon Hamlet's death [[YouAreWorthHell (effectively forsaking his own salvation)]]. Horatio is the only person Hamlet truly trusts enough to share his plans with, and the only one who doesn't betray him in some fashion. Some productions do add a homoerotic element to their relationship (or, in some sissy cases, they cast Horatio as a woman in love with Hamlet).

Polonius gave us the wisdom that "[[BeigeProse Brevity is Wit]]", but we should give it back, because he will never, ever stop talking. It doesn't matter if he has anything to say or if he'll actively make the situation worse; he'll yap on until whoever he's talking to gets sick of it and shuts him up. Problem is, a daughter can't shut up her father, so Ophelia has to take Polonius's advice and live by it. Not the best at romantic maneuvering, Polonius meets his end at the sword of his daughter's ex-sweetheart, our boy Hamlet.

* OldWindbag: He'll go on and on[[note]]and on and on and on and on and ''on''[[/note]] in sententious displays of his "wisdom" to anyone who will listen. Hamlet calls him a "tedious old fool."

A noblewoman and the sometime target of Hamlet's affections--though that is soon put to an end by disapproval of her overprotective brother and her pretentious father. On top of that, Hamlet has become withdrawn and consumed with sorrow after his own familial turmoil and now begins to take out his anger against his mother on Ophelia, assaulting her with cruel innuendos and accusations of infidelity. And ''then'' her father dies, murdered by Hamlet, which pushes her over the edge and into madness. It's unclear whether she was even stable enough to keep herself breathing, which becomes important when Gertrude finds her drowned body. Gertrude chooses to call it an accident, but if gravediggers and priests know anything about death, Ophelia may just have killed herself.

* ShooOutTheClowns: Gotten rid of by the end of Act IV to make way for the seriousness to come. ''Hamlet'' being what it is, this is naturally done by killing them both off.

* JerkassHasAPoint: He's rather dismissive of Ophelia getting a Christian burial since he believes she drowned herself deliberately, but he's not wrong to say it's unfair that the nobility often bend or even break laws to suit themselves, avoiding the penalties of suicide that common people have to suffer. Ophelia gets a official burial because of her rank and Claudius putting his foot down, basically buying her way into consecrated ground; one law for the rich and another for the poor.
* ItGetsEasier: He is understandably matter-of-fact about death after having been sexton at Castle Elsinore his whole life.

* AccentuateTheNegative: Over and over and ''over'' again. Makes sense as he's very prone to depressive episodes.
-->'''Hamlet:''' What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me.

* AttentionWhore: Is prone to these during his manic episodes. His show-down with Laertes at Ophelia's grave is an example. Played for all it's worth in the Kenneth Brannagh version in which he narrates ''[[PlayWithinAPlay The Mousetrap]]'' at the top of his voice and eventually jumps onto the stage.

-->'''Hamlet:''' How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable\\

* ExcessiveMourning: It certainly isn't, his father having died only a few months ago, but Claudius treats him as though it is.

* HatesEveryoneEqually: Or claims to.
-->'''Hamlet:''' Man delights not me. No, nor woman neither, though [[GetYourMindOutoftheGutter by your smiling you seem to say so]].
* TheHeroDies: But that's okay, because WeAllDieSomeday, and thousands of actors will take their turns bringing the Melancholy Dane to life once again.

* {{Hypocrite}}: He despises Claudius for murdering his father, but whereas Claudius only commits one murder for personal advancement and spends the remainder of the play feeling guilty about it, Hamlet kills or ensures the death of several people who are only tangentially involved in what's going on, although he expresses remorse for the deaths of Polonius and Ophelia.
* IAmNotMyFather: Hamlet has no desire or capability to be a warrior-king like his father. Doesn't stop him from beating himself up for it, though.

* IconicOutfit: Hamlet won't be casting his nighted colour off anytime soon, thank you very much.

* KarmaHoudini: He dies, yes, but he never receives any direct comeuppance for his hand in the deaths of Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and Ophelia, and Laertes forgives him for [[EasilyForgiven murdering his father]].

* LonelyRichKid: Hamlet might have more meaningful connections at school in Wittenberg, but at home in Elsinore he is profoundly lonely--somewhat justified, given his [[IntelligenceEqualsIsolation extraordinary but isolating intelligence]] and the fact that [[HumansAreBastards almost everyone around him is a lying, manipulable bastard]].

* NietzscheWannabe
-->'''Hamlet:''' What a piece of work is man ... and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me.

* PoliticallyIncorrectHero: Hamlet is inescapably sexist, something poor Ophelia pays the price for.

* TomatoSurprise: During the duel with Laertes, Gertrude casually mentions that Hamlet is "fat and scant of breath". This fact seemingly justifies the whole deal with everyone assuming fight will immediately make him thirsty. Authenticity of this line is fiercely challenged by many Shakespearean scholars, who argue it's supposed to read "hot", not "fat"; or that "fat" is Shakespeare using an archaic regional term for "sweaty". [[YouAreFat Or, of course, she could just be teasing him]].[[note]]Keep in mind that Richard Burbage, the first player to enact Hamlet, weighed in at around 250 lbs.[[/note]]
* TragicHero: Hamlet's story is, [[{{Deconstruction}} superficially]], a classic revenge tragedy, a very popular genre at the time. In more general terms, Hamlet may be seen as the tragic representation of the soul as an individual, torn between a search for truth and an immediate duty, between fate and free will, between one moral code and another, whose uncertainty and hesitation lead to his downfall.

* TooDumbToLive: Because curtains are definitely swordproof.

* PlayingGertrude: Almost universal among adaptations, hence the [[TropeNamer trope name]].

* AffablyEvil: A fairly common treatment in productions more sympathetic to him. This is backed up by some textual evidence.

* AmbiguousDisorder: Whole plays and college courses have been written based on Hamlet's apparent bipolar disorder--HairTriggerTemper and over-talkativeness during his manic episodes, anguished soliloquies during his depressed ones.

* ShooOutTheClowns: Gotten rid of by the end of Act IV to make way for the seriousness to come. ''Hamlet'' being what it is, this in naturally done by killing them both off.

* VillainWithGoodPublicity: Claudius is an authorative and PR savvy individual who knows that Hamlet is "loved of the distracted masses" and therefore refuses to simply execute him for treason. He's good at quickly taking control of situations and calming everyone down and seems generally beloved by the court and populous, all of whom are unaware that he usurped the crown by killing his brother.

* The Gadfly: Yorick was reportedly known for pulling pranks and jokes on the royal court.

[[folder: Yorick]]

* ParentalSubstitute: [[PosthumousCharacter Yorick]] seems to have been a surrogate for Hamlet's unavailable royal progenitors.
* PosthumousCharacter: Yorick, the twenty-three-years-dead CourtJester, who makes it onstage [[AlasPoorYorick as a skull]] even though he clearly doesn't. The Gravedigger is excavating a mass grave ''full'' of random skulls and would have no way of knowing whose this actually was.

* TalkingToThemself: It's unclear if she's talking to herself, the characters onstage, or absent characters.

* SoleSurvivor: Horatio is the ''only'' major character...and really, basically the only minor one, even, to survive after everyone else dies around him in the final scene. He even tries to commit suicide himself, only for Hamlet to stop him.

The prince of Denmark, nephew of the reigning king . . . and son of the reigning king, since he married Hamlet's mother only two months after his blood father's death. That incestuous mess would be hard enough for Ham, but before he can even decide whether to be or not, the ghost of his dad pops up and convinces him that Uncle-Dad killed Hamlet's real father to take the throne. Filled with rage and urgency, Hamlet must [[{{Revenge}} kill the king]]. . . . But should he? Can he? What would it mean if he did? Is this task worth it?\\

* ByronicHero: Angsty, thoughtful, cynical, lonely, weary of the world, arrogant, loved by many yet alienated from his own family, overly dramatic and emotional in some interpretations, filled with self-hatred . . . check.

* GuiltComplex: Hamlet obsessively castigates himself for his failure to do something . . . and still fails to actually do something. This can be seen as one of his major flaws.

* ICannotSelfTerminate: A meta reading of his early-on death wish. Is he referring to [[SuicideIsShameful God's laws prohibiting suicide]] . . . or the everlasting ''writer'' having fixed the ''canon'' of his work against his protagonist killing himself?
-->'''Hamlet:''' O ... that the Everlasting had not fixed\\

:: : . . . Are you, though? It's difficult to call him proud as he clearly has a very low opinion of himself but at the same time, he is prone to snobbish arrogance and definitely considers himself SurroundedByIdiots. He doesn't seem particularly ambitious, only mentioning the fact that technically he should be king instead of Claudius twice and still being at university at the age of thirty. One could call him revengeful as his mind is consumed with thoughts of vengeance throughout the play although it's worth noting that he only acts on them at the end when he's in the grip of a deadly poison.

* InterclassFriendship: Hamlet, prince of Denmark, and Horatio, university student and only commoner at Elsinore. Horatio's humble station is part of the reason Hamlet [[TheOnlyOneITrust trusts]] him so implicitly; as a prince, he's used to being surrounded by {{Professional Butt Kisser}}s who flatter to gain favor and advancement, whereas . . . that's kind of off the table for Horatio. He also makes it clear that this is why Horatio can trust him:

* CaptainObvious: Polonius is the master of this trope. Appropriately enough, his last words are, "O! I am slain!" It has been assumed he says that due to the difficulty the audience would have had confirming the death of a character behind a curtain, but still . . .

* HypocriticalHumor: He claims that brevity is the soul of wit . . . while being one of the most talkative and least witty characters in the play.

* ChewingTheScenery: His protestations of grief at Ophelia's funeral get . . . dramatic.

* HelpfulHallucination: Seems impossible, since Hamlet was not even the first to see him, but the scene when he appears to Hamlet but not to Gertrude almost calls this into question . . . Claudius very much did kill his brother, though.

* {{Foil}}: To . . . (wait for it) . . . Hamlet! Wow, surprise. In the play's backstory, Fortinbras's father, the ''other'' Fortinbras, was killed in combat by King Hamlet, giving Fortinbras the same [[YouKilledMyFather motivation]] as Hamlet. ''Unlike'' Hamlet, he is perfectly content to be a war king and commands his rightfully obedient troops with decisive mettle.

* PosthumousCharacter: Yorick, the twenty-three-years-dead CourtJester, who makes it onstage [[AlasPoorYorick as a skull]] . . . even though he clearly doesn't. The Gravedigger is excavating a mass grave ''full'' of random skulls and would have no way of knowing whose this actually was.

* OedipusComplex: Hamlet's relationship to his parents is sometimes interpreted as this. Notably, Creator/SigmundFreud himself thought so, saying that ''Hamlet'' is, "rooted in the same soil as Theatre/OedipusRex." This is despite the fact that part of why he's disgusted by his mother marrying his uncle is because, at the time, it'd be considered incest, and a good chunk of his motivation is avenging his father. Granted, Oedipus did [[EyeScream gouge his own eyes out]] when he found out he had unknowingly killed his biological father and married his biological mother...

* KarmaHoudini: Arguably. Some readings of the text and some adaptations have him attempting to conquer Denmark underhandedly rather than just passing through with his army as he claims, and the ending for him is Hamlet supporting him to be the next king. If this was his plan, then he's not only exculpated for his treacherous actions; he ends up being ''rewarded'' for it.

* NotSoDifferent: From young Fortinbras. Hamlet respects his HotBlooded, decisive, passionate nature, and this, coupled with their similarities in situation and circumstance, is a large part of the reason Hamlet leaves the Danish crown to him when the entire royal line has been extinguished. [[{{Foil}} Hamlet sees Fortinbras as the man and ruler he wishes he himself could be.]]

* {{Foil}}: To Hamlet. [[NotSoDifferent They are both out to avenge their fathers]], but whereas Hamlet vacillates for five acts and keeps his entire plot to himself and the [[AudienceSurrogate audience]], Laertes raises a mob and leads a coup against Claudius.

* NotSoDifferent: From Hamlet, as Hamlet lampshades:

* NotSoDifferent: From Hamlet, [[LampshadeHanging which Hamlet of course points out.]] Despite Fortinbras's desire to avenge his father, on old King Hamlet, he and Hamlet seem to conceive a mutual respect for one another. Hamlet even bequeaths him the Danish crown in the final act to avoid a SuccessionCrisis after the royal line has been wiped out, [[MagnificentBastard which also ties Denmark and Norway closely together and will end a great deal of potential conflict between the two kingdoms.]] [[WorthyOpponent Fortinbras also proclaims that he will honor Hamlet with a full military funeral and says he would have made an excellent king, in his opinion.]]

* JerkassHasAPoint: He's rather dismissive of Ophelia getting a Christian burial since he believes she drowned herself deliberately, but he's not wrong to say it's unfair that the nobility often bend or even break laws to suit themselves, avoiding the penalties of suicide that common people have to suffer. Ophelia gets a official burial because of her rank and Claudius putting his foot down, basically buying her way into consecrated ground.

* FamousLastWords: "The rest is silence."

* FamousLastWords: "[[CaptainObvious O, I am slain!]]"