Line #153 WMG/WaitingForGodot


1	[[WMG: The three people are early 20th century revolutionary wannabes]]
2	Vladimir: Russian. Estragon: French communist or Spanish communist-republican (those who are against Franco). Of course Godot is Irish, but Ireland already settled down with Britain with relatively less blood.
3
4	[[WMG: Every staging of the play is in the same continuity]]
5	The second act has some vague similarities to the first, some of which are inexplicable. Offstage, these changes continue until not even Didi can remember the previous acts. This means that theoretically in between performances of the play the wait continues until not even Didi can remember the previous day's waits, and in between different stagings of the play the characters and setting slowly change to however they are performed next.
6
7	Thus ever since the play was first staged, they have been waiting. Every perfomance is part of the same long wait. And until the final performance of the play, they will still be waiting. And Godot will never show up.
8	** [[GoMadFromTheRevelation NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO -]]
9
10	[[WMG: Pozzo is Hamm]]
11	Not Hamm from the Bible but Hamm from Beckett's ''Endgame''. This is actually a popular theory and makes sense.
12	* In ''Waiting for Godot'' Pozzo is a man with EXACTLY the same personality, tone, appearance (pretty much) and lifestyle as Hamm and is looking to get a new servant to replace Lucky. In ''Endgame'' Hamm's servant is Clov, his adopted son, who has served in his household for years.
13	* In ''Waiting for Godot'' Pozzo goes blind. In ''Endgame'' Hamm is blind.
14	* In ''Waiting for Godot'' Pozzo begins to struggle to walk. In ''Endgame'' Hamm cannot walk.
15	* In ''Waiting for Godot'' Gogo and Didi are stuck in an eternal timeloop of waiting in the middle of seemingly infinite nothingness for Godot, longing for the misery to end. In ''Endgame'' the misery has ended, ie, the world seems to have ended, and the infinite nothingness has become everything. Only for Hamm the nothingness and misery has not ended, and he is still very much alive, and, perhaps, so is Lucky. This could be another reference to the two thieves.
16	* In ''Waiting for Godot'' a boy is sent every day to tell Gogo and Didi that Godot will see them tomorrow. In ''Endgame'' a boy is seen drowning outside.
17
18	[[WMG: Godot was kidnapped by [[Literature/ThursdayNext Acheron Hades]].]]
19	In the first ''Literature/ThursdayNext'' book, Hades kidnaps one character from ''Martin Chuzzlewit'' and threatens to do the same to the main character. One character comments, "Can you imagine the other characters sitting around, waiting for a lead character who never appears?" This is the exact situation found in ''Theatre/WaitingForGodot''; thus, at some point, Godot became one of Hades's victims.
20	* [[spoiler: Not necessarily Hades, but]] someone did. [[spoiler:His head was found as part of a bootleg head-in-a-bag plot device.]]
21	** Moreover, Godot was Acheron's first victim. The play was written in French by an Irish ex-pat in France. Given the Brit-centric nature of the UK, Hades picked his trial victim from a French manuscript by an Irish writer because very few would be likely to notice or care.
22
23	[[WMG: Godot is an Ice Cream Truck...]]
24	This is why Estragon and Vladamir insist on waiting for him, and also why they aren't anything more than disappointed when he doesn't show up.
25	* Is he a [[Series/AlloAllo vibrating ice cream truck]]?
26
27	[[WMG: Godot got lost and ended up in a DS game, instead of a book]]
28	And so, Estragon and Vladimir missed him, but Phoenix found him.
29	* On the one hand, "Godot" [[spoiler:was just an alias for Mia's mentor post-coma,]] on the other the Franchise/AceAttorney series ''is'' a visual novel.
30
31	[[WMG: Godot doesn't exist]]
32	He is a figment of Vladimir and Estragon's vivid imaginations.
33
34	[[WMG: Godot was there all along.]]
35	Either as Vladimir or Estragon.
36	* or the tree
37	* Godot hung himself on the other side of the tree. They just never looked behind it.
38
39	[[WMG: Godot is both Vladimir and Estragon.]]
40	Heinlein got it right. A dash of TimeTravel here, a little plastic surgery there, and there you have it!
41	* There will be a sequel with three bums, one of them female...
42	* ''Anime/TokyoGodfathers''? Godot is a holy baby?
43
44	[[WMG: Vladimir, and Estragon represent the Id, and the Superego.]]
45	This goes along with them combined being Godot. Or Godot is the balanced Ego.
46
47	[[WMG: Godot was planning to murder the two.]]
48	Vladimir and Estragon were lucky that Godot overslept.
49
50	Or maybe...
51
52	[[WMG: Godot is [[TheGrimReaper Death]]. ]]
53	Well, why not? [[FanNickname Dimi and Esty]] exist solely to make some sort of philosophic point about the nature of human life, so why wouldn't the guy they're waiting for, whom they never meet, turn out to be the End of it? They say they wouldn't recognize him if they saw him, but they know that he's coming eventually, and they even seem a little afraid of him.
54
55	[[WMG: Godot = {{God}}]]
56	Similar to the above. Also, notice how Godot appears to be a cutesy French nickname for the Big Man.
57
58	* Beckett went on record as saying "If I had meant 'god', I would have said 'god'." The play ''was'' written in French, but the word Godot is derived from a slang term for "shoe". The play is mostly concerned with duality and symbiosis, secondarily with the question of what one is to do with life, and ''thirdly'' with the existence of God.
59	** You're using WordOfGod, claiming that [[AvertedTrope not]] EveryoneIsJesusInPurgatory (in ''[[MindScrew this]]'' play?), to discount the presence of a god?
60	** Considering that the boy complains that Godot beats him on the first occasion, then says Godot is an awesome dude the second time he shows up, one can assume this is a metaphor for the difference between the God of the [[GodIsEvil Old Testament]] and the benevolent God of the New Testament.
61	*** He doesn't say that Godot is an awesome dude, he says that Godot 'does nothing'. So perhaps it's a metaphor for the interventionist God of ancient times and the silence of God in modern times.
62	* "Godot" doesn't mean shoe, I think. Beckett was Irish, and the phrase "Go Deo" in Irish (pronounced "Gu Dyo") means "forever". I always understood the title of the play to be "Waiting for Eternity"
63	** Beckett didn't speak Irish, and ''go deo'' is not pronounced "gu dyo", more like "gu dyuh".
64
65	[[WMG: Godot is Pozzo]]
66	When he initially shows up, Vladmir and Estragon ask if he is Godot, and he believes his self-importance would fit with a character of Godot's probable stature. He denies it, but given that Lucky used to do his thinking for him and doesn't anymore, it is plausible he forgot, especially since the other characters in the play are also highly forgetful. Also note the similar sounding names (pronounced Pot-so).
67	** In the first act, according to the boy, Godot is active (beating the boy's brother for example). In the second act, he does nothing. This quite clearly parallels Pozzo who is an active performer in the first act, but in the second act is blind, and so of course couldn't do anything.
68	** For that matter, the boy's brother could easily be Lucky.
69	** It's possible that Pozzo/Godot knows who he is and is just testing to see how long they will put up with his shit for. Note how, despite claiming to not know who Godot is and not even being able to remember the name, [[ButHeSoundsHandsome he nevertheless claims that he would certainly be just as committed as Vladimir if he himself had an appointment with "Godet... Godot.. Godin... anyhow you see who I mean".]]
70
71	[[WMG:Lucky wrote Finnegans Wake as a ghost writer for James Joyce]]
72	Lucky could have been an author before coming into Pozzo's service. If you read the text of Finnegans Wake and Lucky's monologue the connection is obvious.
73
74	[[WMG:Godot is love.]]
75	Really think about it for a minute.
76
77	[[WMG: Godot was there the whole time.]]
78	Why not, eh?
79	* (Some of) what follows is from "As Long As He Lies Perfectly Still", the first track on Side B of Soft Machine's second [=LP=]. In this song, instances of "he" refer to Kevin Ayers: Kevin having been a member of Soft Machine but only prior to ''The Soft Machine, Volume 2''. (Does it seem pertinent the song references a person not present? Thank you for paying attention.) The song is crammed with [[ShoutOut elliptical in-jokes]] to be pondered by those familiar with Soft Machine's debut [=LP=], including one line among the following:
80	-->He's Pozzo and Lucky, Estragon and Vladimir \
81	[[WildMassGuessing Waiting for something]] that's [[InaneRepetition already there]]
82	* It helps to imagine a happily-deranged drummer--with a Canterbury accent, in an angelic register--racing through each line as if the words barely fit the meter, which they don't. Uh, I meant "do". Robert Wyatt went on to write and perform his masterpiece, ''Rock Bottom'', while recovering from a [[MoodWhiplash paralyzing spinal injury]]. (Not a joke. Sorry.) ''Rock Bottom'' appears to be [[{{Absurdism}} entirely lacking in meaning]]. The astute reader may detect a pattern.
83
84	[[WMG: Godot just doesn't want to see Didi and Gogo]]
85	and he's making excuses - he may even be actively avoiding them. Or maybe he just can't be bothered with them. All this would eventually have been revealed if Beckett had just got around to writing the PerspectiveFlip version. Or maybe he did, and Godot just appears under a different name in it. Like Hamm. Or Krapp.
86	* Having chosen Beckett for a term paper--senior year in high school--a strait-laced young man ventured, oh-so-delicately, a hypothesis: the name "Krapp" might have been intended as scatological humor. An annotation (in red ink) later affixed, it said...well, it's difficult to recall precisely...something like, "Well, '''duh'''!" Atypical of the instructor's diction, SesquipedalianLoquaciousness being his usual mode.
87	* A play called "Alias Godot" was written by a Canadian playwrite. It shows that Godot wasn't purposely late... he was arrested by two crooked bumbling cops who are extremely similar to Didi and Gogo.
88
89	[[WMG: Vladimir and/or Estragon are in purgatory or hell.]]
90	Godot never arrives, and the other waiter may not exist.
91
92	[[WMG: Godot gets there right after the play ends.]]
93	He overslept by a few minutes, didn't realize his schedule was off, and missed the bus. It was either wait for the next bus or walk, and he chose... poorly.
94
95	[[WMG: Godot was waiting for Vladimir and Estragon.]]
96	PoorCommunicationKills.
97
98	[[WMG: [[MindScrew Godot is a shoe]].]]
99	A private eye as well, and therefore a [[IncrediblyLamePun gumshoe]], but first and foremost a shoe. A brown dress shoe, about four feet tall. With laces.
100
101	[[WMG: Godot is a one-legged man.]]
102	The duality themes, the origin of his name, Vladimir and Estragon (two people) v. Godot (one person).
103
104	[[WMG: Godot is a penis.]]
105	See the guess directly above, but put your mind in the gutter and keep the phrase "[[GagPenis three-legged man]]" in mind.
106	* [[http://community.livejournal.com/fanficrants/1798922.html Can he get on Disney rides by himself?]]
107
108	[[WMG: Waiting for Godot has no meaning. At all.]]
109	Waiting for Godot is a vicious attack on literary circles by providing a play that has a bunch of mysterious language, an odd situation and no visceral enjoyment (clever repartee or sword fights, for example), daring English Majors all over the world to go on and try to give it meaning!
110	** Beckett once said of one of his plays (I think it was ''Endgame'') that it wasn't about anything, but it was the sort of thing something would be about, which seems to be the Existentialist way of admitting that yes, it's meaningless.
111	*** This makes sense. At one point in the action of ''Endgame,'' Hamm [[NoFourthWall nudges the fourth wall]], saying in a panicked manner that he and Clov were starting to mean something, that if someone were to come by and see them, they'd think they meant something.
112
113	[[WMG: The play's "events" (or lack of same) repeat themselves imperfectly]]
114	* In whatever void they inhabit, their memories of the past rapidly degrade. Vladimir thinks he must have seen Pozzo before, and must have seen the boy before, because he ''did''. He and Estragon will see them again, and again, and again, never in quite the same way. There are three questions, though:whether this is Hell, or some sort of GroundhogDayLoop, what lies beyond the boundaries of the area in which they wait, and whether there's any course of action that could break the cycle.
115	** This makes even more sense with respect so as to why the wait never ends - Godot coming is somewhere outside the time loop, on the original timeline.
116
117	[[WMG: Godot is Santa.]]
118	They're waiting for someone who may or may not exist. And also, the tree. At first, it has no leaves. The second day, it suddenly has several. Why? Easy: It's a christmas tree, and it's been decorated accordingly.
119	* Godot is [[SignificantAnagram Satan]]. The tree doesn't burn, because it's the one bearing the fruit which always blows just out of Tantalus' reach.
120
121	[[WMG: Godot is a JustForFun/TimeLord.]]
122	He was there the whole time in his TARDIS, which was the tree.
123
124	[[WMG: Godot is [[Franchise/AceAttorney Godot]].]]
125	His trials running a bit long. He'll make it as soon as he can.
126	* Or maybe [[spoiler: some people already knew Diego Armando by the name of Godot before he went into a coma,and he was going to defend someone Estragon and Vladimir knew.]]
127
128	[[WMG: It's a psychological experiment involving an alternate universe.]]
129	Godot is actually watching Didi and Gogo the whole time, and Pozzo and Lucky are Didi and Gogo from an alternate universe, maybe some kind of mirror universe.
130
131	[[WMG: Godot is a Zany Priest who performs...]]
132	...Gay marriages! Well think about it, everyone loves Waiting for Godot HoYay, and Didi and Gogo have just been together all their life. Now obviously they were very nochalant about the marriage proposal, if you just take a look at how incredibly nonchalant they were about hanging themselves...And then they'll go on that 'honeymoon'
133	Or not, because Godot got, like, stabbed or something. Who knows?
134
135	[[WMG: Godot is a {{Troll}}.]]
136	Who has made these two random men his current victims. Problem?
137	* Or alternatively, and this is a horrible thought, maybe the boy is a troll and is tricking them every day while there is no Godot at all.
138
139	[[WMG: Godot is [[VideoGame/{{Darkstalkers}} Jedah Dohma]].]]
140	His three legs are in fact his wings.
141
142	[[WMG: Estragon and Vladimir are a pair of hippies tripping out in an empty, muddy field after everyone else has already left UsefulNotes/{{Woodstock}}.]]
143	Occasionally, two groundskeepers come by and try to get them to leave, hence the Pozzo/Lucky interludes.
144
145	[[WMG: Godot is a metaphor for ''everything''.]]
146	Yes, even that.
147
148	[[WMG: Godot is a metaphor for life.]]
149	Think of it this way: There is nobody coming to rescue you from stagnation. Feel free to sit around and wait for your fortunes to change, but the world won't care and will hardly even notice. You can sit around and wait for things to happen to you, or you can go out and make things happen.
150
151	[[WMG: You are Godot.]]
152	You never even tried to meet up with Vladimir and Estragon, did you?
153
154	[[WMG: ''Lucky'' is Godot.]]
155	* In Act II, the boy says Godot has a white beard. Lucky has long white hair.
156	* In Act I, the boy says Godot beats his brother. Lucky kicks Gogo in the shin, and according to Pozzo does the same to other people.
157	* In Act II, the boy says Godot doesn't do anything. Lucky is dumb, and unable to think, sing, or recite.
158	* Didi and Gogo think Godot is going to give them some sort of prayer. Lucky's "think" monologue could be it.
159	* Didi theorizes that Godot might give them a meal. Lucky lets Gogo eat the chicken bones.
160
161	[[WMG: Estragon has severe brain damage from routinely getting beaten by 10 men at once.]]
162	It explains a lot.
163
164	[[WMG: The play is an experiment into how we relate to art.]]
165	In the same vein as Marcel Duchamp's urinal or Tracey Emin's bed. The whole point of the play is to challenge conceptions about what a play ''is''. Does it need a plot? Action? A meaning? How far is the meaning there and how far do we project it? The play challenges the viewer to reassess what they consider art to be.
166
167	[[WMG: Godot is a certain [[Series/QuantumLeap Time-Traveling Leaper]]]]
168	Estragon and Vladimir are Al and Gushie. Pozzo is Tina and Lucky is Ziggy. Why hasn't Godot ever shown? Because, as we all know, Dr. Sam Becket never returned home.
169
170	[[WMG: Godot is not real, the boy is just playing a prank on Didi and Gogo.]]
171	Estragon always forgets that they are waiting for Godot, and doesn't know why they are waiting for him in the first place. Why? Because he has never contacted them, never told them anything, but rather, the boy told them to wait for Godot. And Didi waits for Godot because he wants to see who he is. And Gogo waits for Godot because Didi waits for Godot. But the whole time, the boy is just playing a prank on them, and returns every night to check up on them. He messes with Didi by telling him he has never seen him, when he clearly did (Pozzo also doesn't recognise them, but he is blind so he ''can't'')...
172
173	[[WMG: The play is about Maladaptive Passivity.]]
174	The characters are not trapped by anything other than their own preference to keep waiting for something out of their control to happen, rather than think about the situation and take action. Waiting is comfortable; it requires no thought, no risks, no effort. It makes no demands on them other than to stay in one place. As long as they keep showing up day after day, they can fool themselves that they are doing something constructive, while actually they are just wasting their time on meaningless talk and purposeless actions. They half-hope Godot never shows up; if he did, their comfortable time waiting would end. This is why they just wait, rather than seeking Godot out. If he never comes, then no one can fault them for their inaction...after all, they WERE doing something...they were waiting for Godot.

Context WMG / WaitingForGodot