Line #222 Theatre/Brand


1	[[quoteright:293:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/brand_7.jpg]]
2
3	''Brand'' is a dramatic/epic play written by Creator/HenrikIbsen and published in 1866. The play tells the story of a [[GoodShepherd young and idealistic priest]], who more than anything else wishes to make society better. His uncompromising attitude alienates him from his parish over time, and he ends up alone in the wild mountains, wondering what went wrong.
4
5	The cast, for the convenience of the reader:
6	* Brand, the proverbial [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin title character]], and TheHero of the play. Priest by profession.
7	* Agnes, his wife. Married to him after the end of the second act.
8	* Einar, a painter and childhood friend of Brand. Something of a light-hearted fellow from the start. Formerly engaged to Agnes, who left him for Brand.
9	* Gerd, a beggar girl with a fatal effect on Brand.
10	* Brand's mother, no name given. A hard hearted old woman of some wealth.
11
12	Officials:
13	* The Bailiff, main antagonist. Keeper of law and order in the community.
14	* The Provost, superior of Brand. Tries to keep him in check just barely.
15	* The Bellringer
16	* The Schoolmaster, both close up to the work of the priest in different ways.
17	* Other unnamed officials present in the fifth act, there for the sake of a speech and a good meal.
18
19	Others:
20	* A farmer and his son, people Brand meets in the mountains at the beginning of the play.
21	* A beggarwoman and her child.
22	* People of the parish, farmers and their wives. The congregation and everybody else.
23
24	Present off stage:
25	* The beggar band. Only spoken of, but of great importance. Gerd and the unnamed mother belongs to this band.
26
27	Dying off stage:
28	* A man killing his child because he isn't able to feed him, and then committing suicide. Brand's mother, Brand's infant son Alf, between the third and the fourth act. Agnes between the fourth and the fifth.
29
30	This play, or rather, book, marks an early example of TicketLineCampout, making the trope OlderThanTelevision. At the sole expectation of the new play of Ibsen coming into print, people massed at the quay to see the boat coming in and loading off the bookstacks. The first edition was sold out soon after, and people were seen discussing the text on every street the following days.
31	----
32	!! This play contains examples of these tropes:
33
34	* ActionGirl: Gerd is a good shot with stones, and later, she has that rifle of hers.
35	* AloofDarkHairedGirl: Brand fits, although he is a male version. The "epic Brand" states that he has "black, rather long hair".
36	* AllOrNothing: Brand's favorite {{Catchphrase}}. He is arguably an early TropeNamer here.
37	* AlwaysOnDuty:
38	** Brand chooses to stay on because of this. He reasons that he was a priest before he became a father, so the has obligations.
39	** The Bailiff also counts, being so into his job that he almost sacrificed himself to help save his archives.
40	* {{Angrish}}: Brand towards the Bailiff in the fifth act, when he loses his temper, spitting out to him the essential "You have not the faintest clue what I am trying to say here, do you?" and ending in a total loss of words.
41	* TheAntagonist: Mainly the Bailiff, playing the role of ObstructiveBureaucrat from the second act. In the fifth act, he is coupled with the provost, representing TheChurch, and other unnamed officials. This bunch gets the greater lot of Brand's anger, and is paired with {{Satan}} himself. The provost even gives Brand a lesser temptation early in the fifth act, to counter with the more "spiritual" one later. For the more intangible antagonism Brand is up against, see TheDarkSide trope.
42	* AuthorAvatar: Brand himself. Ibsen said that the character was "himself in his finest moments". He was quite fond of this guy.
43	** For the record: Ibsen himself enjoyed posing as the [[TheHero lonely, brooding and heroic type]]. One of the reasons he rarely smiled on photographs.
44	** Consider the physical description of Brand in the "epic Brand": Pale skin and raven hair. Ibsen himself was known for his paleness, and his hair and beard was black in his youth (as described by fellow poet Bjørnson: "with a deadly white complexion and a big beard black as coal").
45	** To top this: Ibsen, like Brand, was a loner at school, who rarely hung with the other kids.
46	* AuthorFilibuster: Very likely.
47	* BattleInTheCenterOfTheMind: All the time. This is a non-action play, of course, but a lot of hero and warrior tropes are invoked. The battles in the play are battles of ideas and the will.
48	* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: When Brand tries to get things straight, he begs God for help. Immediately afterwards, someone turns up only to set events off [[FromBadToWorse in the wrong direction]]. Even though that was not what Brand meant. [[NeglectfulPrecursors Crapsack God]] indeed.
49	** The beggar woman coming for clothes on Christmas Eve should be a good example, since Brand actually ''asked'' God to intervene. Tragedy follows.
50	** The second time Brand prays for guidance in this way, Einar shows up turned into TheFundamentalist. The revelation coming over Brand after that encounter [[BerserkButton leads directly into open rebellion]].
51	* BiggerIsBetter: Brand tries to convince the officials (the Bailiff) that the church is too small. He needs a bigger one. The bailiff disagrees, but gives in, completely missing the point, though. At the beginning of the fifth act, the new church is ready for use, [[SurroundedByIdiots only for Brand to discard it]]. Total havoc ensues, and Brand goes haywire in the process.
52	** RealitySubtext: Ibsen got inspired while visiting the Church of St. Peter in Rome. The dome of that church is the greatest in Europe, hence the vision of a "bigger church" in the fourth act.
53	* BigNo: Brand when realizing his wife is leaving him. Though not said literally, it is clearly the implied meaning.
54	* BigScrewedUpFamily: Brand was born into an arranged marriage. His parents never loved or seemed to care for each other, and the father of Brand's mother pushed her into it, because the boy she had in mind was poor. So he left with a UsefulNotes/{{Romani}} girl, becoming the father of Gerd.
55	* BlatantLies: Brand's mother tells him she has toiled for her money with sweat and tears her entire life. Brand tells her quite clearly she didn't - she robbed her father for the entire fortune on his deathbed.
56	** On a symbolical level, she ''did'' give her life away to this man (sweat, tears and everything), but that did not imply the literal fortune, which she, as a married woman, had no right to own while he lived.
57	* BookEnds: the play begins and ends in the mountains, close by the glacier.
58	* BreakingSpeech: Brand gives this to a couple of farmers trying to make him stay as a priest in the second act. He clearly doesn't want to.
59	* BrutalHonesty: Brand towards Agnes after their son is dead. He refers to "the body" lying in the churchyard, while Agnes still refers to the child as a person, in the churchyard. From a Christian point of view, the child is not there anymore, leaving only a body behind.
60	* BuyThemOff: To get the community coming back, [[BlatantLies the bailiff comes up with a story of a great steam of Herring coming in the fjord]], which will make them all rich. This may be a case of CounterfeitCash, but it actually works, and the people HeelFaceTurn on Brand in seconds, making themselves {{Ungrateful Bastard}}s in the process.
61	** A case of TruthInTelevision: Herring was the greatest possible means of getting wealth for any Norwegian living in the western parts of Norway before the discovery of oil in the North Sea.
62	%%* ByronicHero: Brand. Coupled with the TragicHero trope.
63	* CallBack: Brand is called out in his own principles at least twice. The first time is when a couple of farmers insist he should become their priest, and he denies it because his calling is more dear to him than his life. "Then stay", the farmers respond, arguing that he himself has said that giving up life for a cause is the ultimate sacrifice. Two acts later, Agnes reminds him that he, who had put her to a hard choice, now must prepare himself to give up on his principles if he wishes to keep her alive. She also uses his words against him. Of course, Brand relents in both cases.
64	* CallingTheOldManOut: Brand actually calls his mother out on her greed. She initially wavers, but stiffens herself up. They never meet again.
65	* CatchPhrase: "All or Nothing" - Brand's slogan. Also "Brand, you are stern", heard many times. "If you gave it all except your life, then know you have given nothing." One might also count in the bailiff's "always inside my jurisdiction" statement. In time, the practical follow-up of the "all or nothing" slogan, kills Agnes.
66	* CataclysmClimax: The avalanche at the end of the play, set off by a gunshot from Gerd. Described to have swallowed the whole valley (and everyone in it).
67	* CharacterDevelopment: Agnes. She starts out as a ManicPixieDreamGirl who is taken by the speech of Brand, then progresses to ActionGirl and dutiful wife, ending with a HeroicSacrifice and AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence. Brand's cravings of a serious view of life turns her into a lancer for his cause, and braves the harsh seas with him in complete trust of God, only to save a man's soul. After getting married, he confides in her, and she gives him the strength to choose in the direst situations. In the end, after her son is dead, Brand puts her to the test when a frozen child needs clothes, and she reluctantly gives away what she got left from her own dead child. When she finally admits freedom from this mortal coil, she accepts death as a [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence rise to a higher plane of existence]]. During the course of the play, she has passed from pixie girl to a near saint.
68	** Einar the painter goes the opposite path (off-stage). After loosing Agnes, he turns sick, and gets saved, only to turn into an even DarkerAndEdgier version of Brand himself.
69	** Brand starts out idealistic, but a sense of world-weariness grows in him during the play. Actually, he seems to be [[http://www.monologuearchive.com/i/ibsen_001.html sick of the world from the very beginning]], and keeps himself in check until the fifth act, when he snaps because he can't take it anymore. SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism could actually fit Brand's development trope. His rebellion in the fifth act is, in fact just as much a over the edge moment for him as a social uprising.
70	* TheCassandra: Gerd warns Brand against going down to the fjord. She is right, of course.
71	* Catch22Dilemma: Agnes presents Brand with one at the end of the fourth act. He can recall the clothes of his dead son from the beggar mother (who definitely needs them for her freezing child), and thus break with his own principles. Alternatively, he and Agnes can follow the path they are on, but then, Agnes will die. Brand has to choose between his principles or the life of Agnes (a breach on his principles may possibly kill another child). He is quick to cross the DespairEventHorizon.
72	* TheChampion: Agnes thinks Brand is the man. She also obviously champions him. Brand, of course, is a champion of God, nontheless.
73	* ChekhovsGun: The phrase ''All or nothing''. This leads to him never giving his mother absolution (because she never gave up everything), and later causes the death of Agnes, because he insists she gives the beggar woman all the leftover clothes from their dead son. The final straw that breaks her, is when she is forced to give up the very last piece of clothing. Had he relented a little in both cases, all of them would have been happier.
74	* ChekhovsGunman: Gerd. She solves the play with a gunshot, after five acts of pressing Brand into it.
75	* ChewToy: Brand.
76	* CloudCuckoolander: Gerd, the beggar girl. She is also troped as the wild one. Tends to turn up when Brand is troubled, and has a fatal effect on him, several times. She is also the only one left to tend to him in the end.
77	* ComicallyMissingThePoint: The provost. He seems to have comically missed the point of ''the whole bible'', and one cannot help but wonder how the man ended up in such a high clerical position. Brand gets quite impatient with him.
78	* CorruptChurch: Played straight on the provost in the fifth act. At least Brand blows the accusation wide open in his RousingSpeech. The provost does not find it amusing.
79	* TheCorruption: Brand works really hard to avoid this. He firmly believes that the road to corruption goes through compromise, but screws up fatally because he equates this with ThePowerOfLove. His fear of TheCorruption leads him to a HolierThanThou solution, and Brand ends up screwed anyway - although he essentially stays uncorrupted, he did not count for the fact that he may have been corrupted from the very beginning (because of his FreudianExcuse).
80	* CosmicPlaything: Brand qualifies.
81	* CradleOfLoneliness: When Agnes comforts herself with the clothes of her dead son. Brand, quite correctly, tells her to move on. She does, but it breaks her heart.
82	* CrapsackWorld: The entire community, set in a narrow west Norwegian fjord under a glacier and a possible avalanche, set off at the very end. The people tend to be narrow minded, but seem to see Brand as "the right kind of priest". The glacier also keeps the sun from warming the area, and the result is that Brand's son dies. Brand himself grew up in the coldest part of the area with an uncaring mother.
83	* DawsonCasting: Brand has often been played by actors way beyond the age of forty. One of the latest productions cast an actor who was ''seventy'' years old, or close. This makes Einar's youth, and his pinpointing that they went to school together, rather odd. Brand is seemingly a man in his twenties.
84	* TheDividual: The schoolmaster and the bellringer in the fifth act, doing the work of MrExposition.
85	* DontYouDarePityMe: The Beggarwoman when afforded shelter. She also refuses on the grounds that the priest is an official, and she may get arrested there.
86	* DramaticallyMissingThePoint: Brand invokes the trope in the fifth act, only to have the bailiff walking off and still completely...
87	** All the male characters seem to miss something through the play.
88	* DarkAndTroubledPast: Brand's childhood, which was far from happy. He grew up alone in the coldest part of the valley with a widowed mother who clearly did not love his dead father. Actually, she robbed him on his deathbed, and Brand hints that he was as greedy as she was. None of them would share their wealth, seemingly. Brand grew up a moody boy who hardly played with other kids, as his childhood mate Einar points out to him.
89	** No wonder, when push came to show, that Brand did not care for his mother's estate, and denied her a priest at her deathbed (yep, it was himself) because she never wanted to part with her money.
90	* DarkerAndEdgier: The tone of the play: Cold and callous. Probably the most dark and edgy play in the entire corpus of Ibsen. This is the only play he wrote where [[EveryoneDiesEnding each and every character bites the dust]].
91	* TheDarkSide: The not so easy defeated entity Brand is up against. He defines it as "the spirit of compromise", and will not yield at any cost. In time, he comes to see it incarnated in the officials, and he defines the being he meets in TheFinalTemptation scene as this.
92	** In his RousingSpeech, he actually defines it as {{Satan}}.
93	* DeadpanSnarker: Brand again. Lots of times during the play. Many of the snarks could have been Ibsen's, as he also was fond of the trope in RealLife. Considering Ibsen's innate anger at the time of writing, ''the entire play'' can be considered a snark.
94	* DelicateAndSickly: Alf, the son of Brand, succumbs to pneunomia in the third act.
95	* DespairEventHorizon: The agony of Agnes when asked to give up the clothes of her dead son. Brand in a similar agony when he first learns that his son is ill.
96	* DespairSpeech: Agnes has a long one in the fourth act, lamenting that everything is closed off, later that everything is taken from her. Brand has a similar one in the fifth act, concerning almost the same things.
97	* DesperatelyLookingForAPurposeInLife: Brand all the way. From the outstart, when he literally wavers in the fog, only sure of one thing, he will follow the will of God, whatever that is. A number of times during the play (at least one time pr act, possibly twice in the fifth), Brand has a lesser realization on how things are supposed to be. Every time, it goes FromBadToWorse, until he finally realizes that he left ThePowerOfLove out of his equation.
98	* {{Determinator}}: Subverted in the third act when Brand actually (almost) decides to leave on the spot for the sake of his sick son. A stirring speech from Gerd makes him determined to carry on.
99	* DeusExMachina: Number 2 or 3, to be precise. Only featured by a booming voice crying AnAesop through the massive avalanche. This is also the very last words of the play:
100	--> ''He is Deus Caritatis!'' ("He is the god of love/charity...")
101	* DisappearsIntoLight: Played on Agnes in her IDieFree speech. When she goes off stage, her "goodbye" could as well be played as a symbolical death, and [[BigNo Brand's reaction]] may imply that she is dead already.
102	* TheDitz: The bailiff has this in spades.
103	* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: A mother and her child seeking shelter and clothes ''on Christmas eve?'' Could you possibly have dropped a bigger anvil, Ibsen?
104	* DoomedHometown: The community is placed under a glacier that is doomed to crack at some point. Lampshaded in the first act, when Brand is reminded of an old story, telling that a loud sound, [[{{Foreshadowing}} like the shot of a rifle]], is enough to break it. And in the end, Gerd fires the shot...
105	* DoomedMoralVictor: Brand to the last breath. He clearly represents the "theory of courage" à la Tolkien. But it is not exactly Christian, though. ''And he is an ordained priest''... Brand even lampshades this early on in his "God is a hero" speech to Einar. He is not exactly sure if he can call himself "Christian", but he knows he is a man.
106	* FailureIsTheOnlyOption: Brand's "quest".
107	* DramaticThunder: in TheFinalTemptation when Brand counters with the concept of longing. The being then disappears in a burst of thunder with a scream of horror:
108	-->Die, the world does not need you!
109	* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: Gerd, when she eventually shoots the entity with a rifle. The whole set collapses instantly.
110	* DroppedABridgeOnHim: Ibsen drops a glacier on ''the entire set!''
111	* EldritchAbomination: The "something" that Gerd is constantly shooting at. It goes by various names, and resides inside or on the glacier. She eventually gets the better of it at the time of Brand's final epiphany. CataclysmClimax ensues.
112	** To be realistic, it is probably a hawk. On a symbolical level, [[WorldOfSymbolism it is not]]...
113	** When Brand resists TheFinalTemptation, and the being in question leaves with a scream, Gerd shows up immediately afterwards, and asks him if he "saw the hawk", and Brand states that he just saw it flee. Moments before that, Brand stated that "it" left like a hawk. LampshadeHanging if ever there was one.
114	* EldritchLocation: The "Ice Church" where Brand and Gerd finally end up.
115	* EvilCounterpart: The impersonation of Agnes in TheFinalTemptation scene at the end of the play. "She" tells him that ItWasAllADream, and everything is all right, or will be, if only he gives in and renounces his principles. ''It almost works''.
116	** The temptor is always cast as the same actor who plays Agnes. This is often done [[MindScrew to confuse both Brand and the audience]]. In the written play, the being is somewhat undefinable, and only recognized by Brand when it presents itself as Agnes.
117	* FaceHeelTurn: The community, when abandoning Brand to struggle alone for the last part of the play.
118	* FatalFlaw: see ThePowerOfLove.
119	* FeatheredFiend: The entity Gerd is tracking, which turn out to be the EldritchAbomination constantly pestering Brand.
120	* TheFettered: definitely.
121	* TheFinalTemptation: Brand alone in the wilderness, struggling with his actions and their dire consequences, is tempted by a being who presents itself as his dead wife. The being craves that he gives up his cause, and his slogan "all or nothing." He defeats the being when he brings up the concept of longing, which the being cannot overrule. In a recent production, the being was actually cast as Agnes, and the producer stated that it/she was right.
122	* FollowTheLeader: The TV series ''Series/{{Angel}}'' may or may not owe some points or two to Brand when presenting the main character of the show. One actual line uttered by Darla to Angel (season 2) can be taken as a ShoutOut to Brand:
123	-->''"God doesn't want you. But I still do."''
124	** One can also consider The first Evil, as presented in ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', who does the MindScrew by making {{Evil Counterpart}}s of dearly loved but deceased persons. Darla's role in Angel is an inversion of this, though.
125	** Also the character of ''ComicBook/TheSandman'' by Creator/NeilGaiman, next to Brand in stuffiness, and a PrinciplesZealot of the same order. Brand himself is often clad in black, and no wonder (black was actually the official colour of priests' garments at the time of the play, to underline the point). As is Sandman and Angel...
126	* FreudianExcuse: Essentially a basic plot point. Brand has a FreudianExcuse of a magnitude that would have made Sigmund Freud weep with joy.
127	* FreudianTrio: The women of the play: Brand's mother (Superego), Agnes (Ego), Gerd (Id). Of course everything goes off the scale when both the mother and Agnes are gone.
128	* FriendOrIdolDecision: Stay as a priest for TheNeedsOfTheMany or save my sick son? Taken up to eleven in the third act. For Brand, there is apparently no ThirdOption.
129	* TheFundamentalist: Einar the painter in the fifth act, after loosing all his vigour. At this point, he is on the verge of KnightTemplar to the point that [[OhCrap even Brand shivers at it]].
130	* GenkiGirl: Gerd, also working as a {{foil}} to Agnes' ManicPixieDreamGirl qualities.
131	** FridgeLogic: When a genki turns up in an Ibsen play, it seldom bodes well for the titular character.
132	* GenreDeconstruction: Brand is arguably TheHero, and even lampshades his own heroic efforts. His view of God is also a rather heroic one, a [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Hercules]] lookalike and Old Testament badass}. But Ibsen would not have been Ibsen if he did not at least try to deconstruct the hero tropes. And seemingly Brand does not fit his actual environment at all, and his larger than life visions is almost, but not quite, lost on his fellow men. If not, someone with actual power is there to stop him. Hence, tragedy ensues.
133	* GirlsWithGuns: Gerd gets her hands on a rifle come the fifth act. Up til then, she had to throw stones - and when she eventually gets that rifle, things get nasty.
134	* GiveMeASign: Invoked by Brand in the fourth act, because he knows he has to make Agnes snap out of her depression, but hasn't the heart to do it himself. The beggar woman comes knocking soon after, and Brand interprets her as the sign he prayed for. Tragedy ensues.
135	* GrandpaGod: Subverted and spoofed. Brand spoofs the trope heavily in the first act, preferring a young, heroic divine being for the visionings of the painter Einar, who painted God that way, earning a long snark from Brand (covering two pages).
136	* GratuitousLatin: This is the only play of Ibsen featuring this much Latin. The actual [[AnAesop Aesop]] of the play comes in Latin, much to the arguable annoyance of scholars.
137	* HardTruthAesop: "Give away the goods of your dead loved ones instead of clinging to them when someone needs them more than you, even if it breaks your heart."
138	* HatesBeingTouched: Brand's mother warns him off with a staff when he comes too close to her. Their only meeting in the play is setting them at least tree yards apart.
139	* HearingVoices: Brand alone on the mountain. The voices call to him that he "is not worthy" and will never be more than a nobody. They come as a prelude to TheFinalTemptation.
140	* TheHeart: Agnes is the heart to Brand (or his "link to humanity"). With her gone, he feels shut off, both from himself and the people around him.
141	* TheHecateSisters: The female trio of the play: Brand's mother (Crone), Agnes (mother), and Gerd (maiden). Doubling with the FreudianTrio.
142	* HeelFaceDoorSlam: Brand is taken by an avalanche at the very moment of realization.
143	* TheHero: Brand. And a good tragic one too.
144	* HeroicBSOD: Brand in the fifth act after the death of his wife Agnes. Also Agnes in the fourth after the death of her son. The third act has Brand considering a {{face heel turn}} for the sake of his sick son, but decides not to, so the BSOD moment can be said to start from there.
145	* HeroicResolve: Brand's pledge at the end of the first act: to go to war against the three bad seeds(see the {{rule of three}} below.
146	* HeroicSacrifice: Brand when choosing to stay on in the third act, Agnes upon giving away the clothes of her son to he freezing child. Brand when realizing that Agnes probably dies shortly after.
147	* HeroicWillpower. Brand calls on this, and argues with it, time and again. His SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome draws on this in the second act. His last [[ReasoningWithGod question to God]] at the end of the play is if the willpower [[WasItReallyWorthIt really was worth it]]. The answer comes in the form of a DeusExMachina.
148	* HistoricalVillainUpgrade. Most of the producers after 1950, at least in Norway, tend to cast Brand as a tragic, unsympathetic character, sarcasm set aside.
149	* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Brand has to accept that people around him use his own principles against him. If they are to follow them, he has to follow them as well (if not, he would be called out on hypocrisy). Of course, this makes up most of the tragic outcome of the play.
150	* HopeSpot: Brand was ''just'' about to pack his things and rush his wife and sick son out of the door... Then Gerd arrived on scene with another WhatTheHellHero speech. He chose to stay after all.
151	* HornyVikings: The Bailiff is prone to remind Brand of past national glory, when the area was ruled by a sentient viking king.
152	* HowTheMightyHaveFallen: Coupled with the HumansAreFlawed trope and the HornyVikings.
153	* HumansAreFlawed: Alas. Brand is not exactly a philantropist, and the world is crapsack anyway.
154	* IChooseToStay: Brand for the sake of his mother, Agnes for the sake of Brand, Brand at the expense of his son's life.
155	* IDieFree: Agnes plays this trope fairly straight when she has given away all her belongings. When nothing binds her, she is free, and [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence earth has no hold on her anymore]].
156	* IgnoredEpiphany: Brand gets epiphany proper when reaching the "Ice Church" with Gerd. TearsOfRemorse quickly follows, as he understands what his FatalFlaw was. He doesn't come around to make amends because of the avalanche, [[SubvertedTrope not because he ignored his epiphany]]. The true meaning of the final DeusExMachina has been debated for decades.
157	* ILetGwenStacyDie: Brand had to let go of Agnes. And his son. And mother.
158	* InfoDump: The bailiff has an essential one come the fourth act, telling the backstory of Gerd, only hinted on by Brand's mother. [[ThoseTwoGuys The Schoolmaster and the Bellringer]] likewise in the fifth, to get the audience up to speed on what has happened between the fourth and the fifth act. A good half year has passed since the death of Agnes.
159	* ItSucksToBeTheChosenOne: Justified several times. Brand feels the burden, but he doesn't neccesarily enjoy it. Nope.
160	* InTheEndYouAreOnYourOwn: Brand is left alone in the mountains, to cope with TheDarkSide all by himself. He actually pisses it off, and is left alone, to eventually be comforted by Gerd.
161	* IntrinsicVow: Brand takes this on in the first act, setting off his "good fight".
162	* IronicEcho: The reception of the play, echoing the way Brand himself gets trashed in the fifth act, by the very elite Ibsen tried to rail against (in UsefulNotes/{{Norway}} who were the butt of Ibsen's ironic treatment).
163	* KillTheCutie: Agnes, finished off at the end of the fourth act. She has been a case of [[BreakTheCutie breaking the cutie]] up to that point.
164	* KnightTemplar: Brand can arguably be seen as one, though not a conscious one. He is often interpreted in this way, though.
165	* TheLancer: Agnes. Coupled with TheChampion trope.
166	* LargeHam: Brand, of course. He is often played that way, or cast to be played by a natural ham.
167	* LiteralMinded: The bailiff. Many times.
168	* {{Mangst}}. A lot.
169	* ManlyTears: Brand bursts out when entering the "ice church" with Gerd, and finally realizing where he is. So far, frustration, anger and possible {{Mangst}} has tortured him. A CataclysmClimax is right around the bend, though. Can also be troped as TearsOfRemorse.
170	* MeaningfulName. Brand, meaning "Sword". Agnes even lamshades this in the fourth act. The name also connects with the Norwegian word for "fire". Agnes, of course, means "chaste" (Greek) and "lamb" (Latin). Einar means "lone warrior" (for all those that thinks he is ''not'' connected to Brand), while Gerd means "fence".
171	** Brand, Einar and Gerd all have norse names. Agnes does not. Some intended FridgeLogic here?
172	* MenDontCry: Brand for most of the time, until he bursts out in TearsOfRemorse right before the end.
173	* MentalWorld: actually a pivotal point in the play, invoked and played straight by Agnes, and resulting in an EurekaMoment for Brand. Agnes has a soliloquy in the second act, staring "inwards" to a new world, which she herself has the responsibility for, to cultivate and to populate. Brand follows suit, and concludes that this "inward path" has to be the right one.
174	* MessianicArchetype: Gerd finding Brand alone on the mountain, claims that he is the messiah. Brand fiercely denies it as another temptation. Up to this point, the trope has been played straight on Brand time and again, but Gerd is the only one that actually says it. But she is [[CloudCuckoolander quite far out, though]].
175	* MilesToGoBeforeISleep: From the very first scene.
176	* MindScrew: Possibly the entire play, and a rather brilliant one at that.
177	* MisplacedRetribution: Because his mother never gave up everything, Brand forces Agnes to do it in her place. He effectively [[FreudianExcuse punishes her for his mother's actions]], and it kills her.
178	* TheMorlocks: How Brand sees the development of humans, Norwegians especially.
179	-->Fouler featured men are grown ;
180	-->Dropping water's humming drone
181	-->Echoes through the mine s recesses :
182	-->Bustling, smug, a pigmy pack
183	-->Plucks its prey from ore's embraces,
184	-->[[Film/{{Metropolis}} Walks with crooked soul and back]],
185	-->Glares like dwarfs with greedy eyes
186	-->[[Literature/TheLordOfTheRings For the golden glittering lies]] ;
187	-->Speechless souls with lips unsmiling,
188	-->Hearts that fall of brothers rends not,
189	-->Nor their own to fury frets,
190	-->Hammer-wielding, coining, filing ;
191	-->Light's last gleam forlornly flies ;
192	-->For this bastard folk forgets
193	-->That the need of willing ends not
194	-->When the power of willing dies !
195	* MoneyDearBoy: The provost actually tries to tell Brand that this is the point of being an official, clergy or not. Brand does not buy it.
196	** Brand's mother came up with the same argument. She got to live for her collected treasure. It is implied that she in turn had the trope invoked by ''her'' father.
197	* MrExposition: The Bailiff, who tells Brand, and the audience, some chunky pieces of background plot during the play. Also [[ThoseTwoGuys the Schoolmaster and the Bellringer]]. They have a long scene at the beginning of the fifth act, with a main purpose in bringing the audience up to date on recent events. And also some philosophical outlooks in the process.
198	* {{Mordor}}: Brand's NightmareFuel soliloqui in the fifth act clearly has some envisionings of this.
199	* MrViceGuy: For Brand: pride. For his mother: greed.
200	* {{Muggles}}: The greater lot of the cast. Notably, Brand gets their attention when he goes badass in the second act. They end up useful idiots in the fifth act, and then become canon fodder at the end of the play because the author willed it so...
201	* TheNeedsOfTheMany: Brand's motivation, or also the motivation of the parish people, who time and again argues this way to make him stay.
202	** Subverted from the start, but played straight in the third act. Brand originally chose to stay for the sake of his mother.
203	* StrawNihilist: Brand has shades of it.
204	* NominalImportance: To a degree. Brand, Agnes, Einar and Gerd all have their names. The others are either names by designation, like the bailiff, or "voices in the crowd". We have of course the outstanding mother of Brand, who is only that at nothing else. One possible exception is Nils Snemyr, a MauveShirt who actually gets his name addressed during the famine scene in the second act.
205	* NotAfraidToDie: As long as it is the purpose of God.
206	* NotBloodSiblings: Brand and Gerd. Gerd's father, a poor young man, loved Brand's mother, who discarded him. She married the wealthy man who became the father of Brand, while the boy went to live with the local stragglers (actually UsefulNotes/{{Romani}} stock), and became the father of Gerd...
207	* NotListeningToMeAreYou: After their first meeting with Brand, Agnes reacts with StunnedSilence, while Einar tries to shrug it off. He tries to direct her attention towards the sea and the skyline, and their further plans, in a short, but quite beautiful monologue. At the end of it, he tries to adress her more directly, asking her if she saw anything at all. She answers with a distracted "yes, but did you notice..." clearly lost in the words of Brand. The first sign that Einar is about to lose her forever.
208	* OnlySaneMan: Brand, at several occasions, thinks he is... Thank God for Agnes.
209	** The doctor, who argues that the family should leave the area for the sake of their son's ailment, also counts. He is the first to point out to Brand that his ability to love is somewhat barren.
210	* ObstructiveBureaucrat: The local bailiff, who dislikes Brand, but plays along until Brand "shows his true colours". He is often played as a comic relief, but is in truth a callous opportunist who doesn't give a toss about people outside his jurisdiction. In the famine scene in the second act, he is cold against everyone who can't consider themselves "registered".
211	* ThePowerOfLove: The Aesop of the play, and played straight with Agnes. Also pointed out by the local doctor. Arguably Brand's [[FatalFlaw greatest flaw]], as he insists on the HeroicWillpower alone. The man is in for a serious screw up from ThePowersThatBe.
212	* PowderkegCrowd: The common folk, turning and heel face turning during the course of the play. In the second act, the come close to lynching Brand when he arrives on the scene, then to turn 180 degrees when he braves the unpassable fjord. Later, Brand stirs up the crowd to open rebellion, only to lose them completely to the rumors of a quick income.
213	* PrinciplesZealot: Brand most of the time. Much of the criticism in-play and outside of it, stems from the fact that he is such a hardliner on his basic principles.
214	* QuitYourWhining: In a rather kind way, as Brand actually tries to make Agnes come over her sorrow for her dead child. He knows she has to, but looking into the DespairEventHorizon himself, [[GiveMeASign he prays for someone to intervene]]. Cue the beggar woman.
215	** Brand has arguably [[GetAHoldOfYourselfMan beaten himself up]] to get over it on his own accord.
216	* RageBreakingPoint: The Crowd scene in the fifth act, when Brand finally has it. Up to this point, he has played nice, but with an occasional [[DeadpanSnarker snark]]. Have in mind that he is [[TraumaCongaline severely traumatized]] by now, and has endured a [[SesquipedalianLoquaciousness lengthy speech]] by the provost, only interrupted by more snarks. The theologial/political views of the provost may have been an unintended BerserkButton as well. He is ''supposed'' to formally open the new church, but instead rebels and throws the key into the fjord, and basically says ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight.
217	* RavenHairIvorySkin: Brand (according to the "epic" Brand).
218	* RebelLeader: Brand in the fifth act, when he finally snaps and lets the officials have it all. The crowd follows him for some time, but not overly long. The Bailiff is actually trying to read the "rebel act" to stop him, but is pushed away by the crowd.
219	* RedOniBlueOni: Gerd (red) vs Brand (blue). Or Agnes (also blue).
220	* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Brand gets this through many times, mostly in his {{rousing speech}}, calling the officials out on their flaws.
221	* TheResenter: Towards the officials altogether. Also towards his mother, and arguably the whole friggin community he grew up in.
222	* ResignedToTheCall: Brand takes the job rather reluctantly.
223	* RightPlaceRightTimeWrongReason: Brand chose to stay not for TheNeedsOfTheMany, but because of his mother. He actually hoped she would come around. She didn't.
224	* RocksFallEveryoneDies: Variation, because it is a glacier - that would be ''great chunks of ice'' falling down and killing everyone. A rare non-game example.
225	* RousingSpeech: Several. Most apparent in the fifth act, when Brand actually convinces the entire parish to go to the mountains with him, in search of a better destiny. At this point, Brand seems to have had a lot of rousing speeches off-stage, as the other officials rightly has begun to fear him.
226	** Agnes has one in the second act, to the point where Brand gets new revelations and remakes his choices. Even a local farmer gets his moment of awesome in the same act, trying to convince Brand that his task is right before his eyes.
227	* RuleOfSymbolism: Brand speaks of a "church" that has to be built bigger. The "symbolical church" is implied to be built in the minds of men (a church not made with hands...).
228	** also the glacier/the "ice church", falling down at the end.
229	** "The world", as defined by the entity passing for Agnes in the fifth act, hinting of a dualistic Christian view, where the physical world is to be shrugged off anyway. In UsefulNotes/{{Gnosticism}}, this world is technically evil.
230	* RuleOfThree: The first act presents three characters, who sets Brand off on his first "quest": A farmer who wants him as a priest for his dying daughter, the painter Einar (and his fiancée Agnes), who lives on the light side, and finally Gerd, the wild one. All of them are sides of life he wants to set straight: The dull (the farmer), the idle (the artist), and the wild one.
231	* SacrificialLamb: Agnes, wearing the appropriate name (Agnus Dei). She ends up dead, after sacrificing everything for the good cause. The last sacrifice, though, is Brand's, when he has to give up his wife.
232	* SamaritanSyndrome: For Brand, who really wishes to be there for everyone.
233	* ScrewTheMoneyIHaveRules: Brand is this trope to a T.
234	* ScrewThisImOutOfHere: Invoked in the middle of the provost's lengthy speech.
235	* SecondActBreakUp: Agnes with Einar, when he refuses to help Brand because he fears for his life. She immediately goes herself, and her fate is sealed.
236	* ShrineToTheFallen: the drawer containing the clothes of Alf, dead at that point in the play (the fourth act).
237	* ShoutOut: To Literature/TheBible from beginning to end, both as direct reference and as allusions. Brand himself uses the MessianicArchetype trope over and over, and the author uses it shamelessly on the title character. After all, he is a man of the cloth...
238	* SitcomArchNemesis: Brand's feud with the bailiff. He even begrudgingly admits the bailiff's many positive character traits, but all of these are used in service of a secular worldview that Brand despises.
239	* SnarkKnight: Brand to a T.
240	* SocietyIsToBlame: Justified with the beggarwoman in the fourth act. ALSO justified in the case of Agnes, who falls victim to this chain of events. To make things clearer: The beggars are actually a band of UsefulNotes/{{Romani}} lawfully arrested by the bailiff, accused of straggling, theft and social disorder. The lone mother is one of the few still going free. Brand can justly blame society for his plight, as it is the obstructive bailiff who unintendedly made things worse for him and Agnes, resulting in her death soon afterwards. It is a fair chance that some of Brand's outbursts against the officials later on is connected to this fact.
241	** Another dramatic case of TruthInTelevision: Romani people were known for traveling all over Norway in this time, and the official attitude towards them was often criminalization, arrest, or just making them leave for whatever excuse available. Their plight was not good, and many resorted to petty crimes and begging. The criticism implied in the play is justified by history.
242	* StandYourGround: Gerd effectively ''orders'' Brand not to back out of the fight at the end of the third act. She argues that TheDarkSide will prevail if he does not hold the line against it.
243	* StepfordSnarker: Brand, with all his repressions.
244	* SurvivorGuilt: Brand after the death of Agnes.
245	* TheSoulsaver: Twice. First, the man who killed his child for want of food to feed it. Brand to the rescue because he recongnizes the sheer need for salvation, or at least peace. Once again in the fourth act with Agnes, who cannot bear to part with the clothes of her dead son.
246	* TheStoic: Brand wishes to cope with his problems [[IWorkAlone without anyone interfering]]. He even shuts down his wife in the process.
247	* SpeakOfTheDevil: Inverted in TheFinalTemptation scene when Brand, convinced he is talking to Agnes, and who is supposedly not dead, utters the words "Thanks to.." only to be hushed by the being in question.
248	* StaringContest: Brand vs his mother in the second act. They stand in a way that almost points towards a showdown situation. The "staring" continues for three years until she finally dies.
249	* StockCharacter: The bailiff, who does not get any CharacterDevelopment at all, and the provost in the fifth act, who represents "the body of the church" in all its unintended silliness.
250	* SuicideMission: Brand at the beginning of the play. Yes, as long as he does God's work, [[DeathSeeker he clearly doesn't care if he lives or dies]].
251	* TakeThat: Much of Brand's rantings are criticisms of Norwegian society at the time, and the portraits of the Bailiff and the provost (the officials) sets them out as [[TooFunnyToBeEvil comical villains]]. The play is an inversion of ''Theatre/PeerGynt'', and written at the same time.
252	** A prominent example comes in the fourth act, when the bailiff proposes building a "political party house", and Brand calmly interprets it as a possible madhouse: "and if somebody gets too crazy, we always have the great hall" (a kick to the Norwegian parliament, assembled at "the great thing" or ''stortinget'').
253	** And the provost's rantings in the fifth act arguably serves as a "Take that, church!". Hence, all officials, priests and politicians are in for a beating in the play.
254	** A possible take on {{UsefulNotes/Capitalism}} with an ironic twist?
255	* TallDarkAndSnarky: Brand to a T.
256	* TheCloudCuckoolanderWasRight: Gerd on warning Brand from going down in the valley at their first meeting. Can also be played as a {{Foreshadowing}}, because of her immediate proposal of going to the "ice church" (the glacier), where they both finally end up, and perish. Gerd's visions of grandeur are possibly bigger than Brand's.
257	** A moment of FridgeBrilliance occurs in the fourth act when Brand actually begins to think like her (although not realizing it at the time).
258	* TempleOfDoom: The "ice church" where Brand and Gerd ends up, in fact a part of the glacier. Gerd, being the UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom, has been heading in that direction for most of the play. When this construction collapses, everything else goes with it.
259	* ThirdOption: Inverted. Agnes chose to stay with Brand on the expence of her own life and the life of his son. The real killer is the fact that he could have sent her away and caught up with her later. This was ''not'' a tolerable solution in 1866. It didn't occur to Agnes either.
260	** Many readers have been justly cross with Brand because of this. But then again, SocietyIsToBlame.
261	* ThousandYardStare: Brand when he learns that his mother just died. This happens in the middle of the third act, and is the beginning of a continual DespairEventHorizon as well as the TraumaCongaLine.
262	** Brand has used most of the act on denying his mother his presence, both as a son and as a priest. The mother on her side, denied to give up anything of her goods to charity, and Brand surely didn't want any of it. So she died without redemption from her son. DysfunctionalFamily indeed.
263	* TooMuchInformation: Brand witnessed his mother robbing his father on the father's deathbed ''while still a boy''! This {{Squick}}ed him out good and proper, and made him get as far away from his mother as possible. When his mother begged him to take care of her wealth, he instantly turned her down, and told her exactly why.
264	* {{Tragedy}}. Possibly the purest tragedy Ibsen ever wrote.
265	* TraumaCongaLine: For Brand and Agnes respectively, beginning with the death of Brand's mother, then immediately on to the fatal sickness of their son, and then his untimely death. From which we conclude the death of Agnes. No wonder Brand is screwed up at the beginning of the fifth act, complaining that he has lost his link to God, and nothing actually matters anymore. And all this time, he tries to keep a stiff upper lip.
266	* TurbulentPriest: Brand from the third act and onwards. The bailiff covertly asks him to leave, and a local man tells him straight in his face that the bailiff wants to get rid of him. Come fourth act, the bailiff admits defeat because Brand is popular among ordinary people. In the fifth act. Brand is in for a knighting, and is also discussed when promoting a new bishop. When Brand violently bursts out against them, both the provost and the bailiff lapse into a sigh of relief:
267	-->'''Provost''': Well, now he will never be bishop!
268	-->'''Bailiff''': And there goes his knighthood...
269	* TwistedChristmas: The pauper mother and her freezing child begging for clothes on Christmas Eve, [[TearJerker while Agnes mourns her lost child by cherishing what is left of him: his clothes]]. Moral Dilemma up to eleven...
270	* UndyingLoyalty: Agnes to Brand.
271	* UngratefulBastard: Arguably the ''entire'' community when chasing Brand away in the fifth act. Note that this is the same people who begged him to become their priest in the second act, and who asked him to stay on in the third...
272	* UnwantedFalseFaith: Brand reacts when Gerd tries to make a MessianicArchetype of him, complete with wounds in the right places.
273	** Earlier, Gerd pointed out to him that his priorities were wrong when setting the life of his son over the work of God. Referring to Alf as a "false God" is the trick that makes him stay.
274	* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: Gerd. Emphasis on the "unwitting" part. She is the one calling Brand out on it, making his plight worse, and in the end, she fires the rifle shot that ends the whole community by [[DroppedABridgeOnHim burying the valley under a ravine]].
275	* VillainCorner: Brand, because of his {{Principles Zealot}}ry. This is arguably the strongest argument against his character in literary criticism. His only way out of it is possible death or a HeroicBSOD, depending on who you ask.
276	** Consider ComicBook/TheSandman, who had to die to get out of the trap his own rules had set for him.
277	* WaifProphet: Gerd. Her first encouter with Brand at the end of the first act serves as a {{Foreshadowing}} on what will happen at the end of the play.
278	* WeCanRuleTogether: What the provost essentially tries to tell Brand. He has to give in to compromise, and the world will be his to command.
279	* WithUsOrAgainstUs: A cry from the crowd roused by Brand in the fifth act, to the distress of the county officials. Also an early TropeNamer. The crowd does not hold for long, though.
280	* WhamLine: "Folks, the spirit of compromise is Satan!" And the crowd went totally wild...
281	* WhatTheHellHero: the local doctor calls Brand out on his refusal to see his mother on her deathbed, and again on behalf of his sick son. Gerd calls Brand out on his decision to ''leave'', making Brand's position impossible over time.
282	* WhatYouAreInTheDark: Brand stays for TheNeedsOfTheMany at the cost of his son's life. But he sure as anything does not tell about it. This backfires when the people of the parish turn on him, accusing him of not caring for his son.
283	* WhereIWasBornAndRazed: Brand brings the destruction with him, although unwittingly. His rebellion in the fifth act leads to him being chased off, conveniently towards the glacier. Then, Gerd follows him with her rifle, fires it, and makes the cataclysm ensue.
284	** Inverted when the responsibility for this lies on a number of people involved. Brand was the triggering factor.
285	* WhiteMansBurden: The UsefulNotes/{{Romani}} case invokes the trope. The Bailiff puts on a dark tone when he callously arrests them for jaywalking, and ousts them from the municipality. Brand himself invokes it when the beggar woman on his doorstep clearly is one (although he and Agnes probably would have helped her anyway).
286	* WorldOfSymbolism: Often played straight. The play is ''not'' intended to be realistic. The rather literal-minded bailiff actually thought Brand meant a physical church when he probably thought of something else. This is most probably an in-joke in the play, as Brand strives with his ideas to the point where nobody follows them anymore. This could arguably make Brand a CloudCuckoolander}}, something that can explain the role of Gerd in his life. The last part of the play can be said to represent a MentalWorld occupied only by Brand and Gerd.
287

Context Theatre / Brand