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The original play

  • Designated Hero: After learning from the ghost of his father that his father was murdered by Claudius, Hamlet spends the next Act or so mocking and taunting Polonius, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern, while also verbally abusing and Slut-Shaming Ophelia. What do all 4 of these characters have in common? All 4 of them had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the murder of Hamlet's father. When Hamlet finally does something, he murders Polonius because he heard a voice behind some curtains and jumps to the conclusion that it must be Claudius. He then hides the body and jokes that everybody'll smell him soon enough. This murder leads Laertes to mount a popular rebellion against Claudius, and righteously demand vengeance for his father's death, a.k.a. the very crime which Hamlet wants to avenge but has now in turn committed. This murder drives Ophelia to insanity and her death (she may even have been Driven to Suicide). Hamlet then deliberately brings about the deaths of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern despite little to no evidence that they actually did anything wrong. He finally gets around to the one person he was supposed to be killing, Claudius, only after the latter has poisoned Gertrude and gotten Laertes to poison Hamlet who then gets accidentally poisoned by Hamlet. So it could be argued that every death that occurs from the start of the play onward is all Hamlet's fault. The final exchanges between Horatio and Fortinbras about how Hamlet would have made a good king is a major Informed Attribute because it's pretty obvious that a guy as self-absorbed and irresponsible as Hamlet would have made a terrible king.
  • Designated Villain: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Since Claudius killed Hamlet's father all by himself, he'd have no reason to confide in them or anyone else about it. So R&G might not see anything vile about obeying his summons and check out their old friend, Hamlet, and see if they can find out what's wrong with him. When Claudius sends R&G to England with Hamlet, he gives them a sealed envelope for the English which orders Hamlet's immediate execution. Since these orders are sealed, there's nothing to indicate R&G knew what those Sealed Orders were. Yet when Hamlet breaks into their cabin and opens the seal and reads the order, he changes the order making it for R&G's immediate executions. Since Hamlet gets kidnapped by pirates on the way to England, R&G would have no reason to deliver those sealed orders if they already knew what those orders originally were.
  • Diagnosed by the Audience: Whole plays and college courses have been written based on Hamlet's apparent bipolar disorder—Hair-Trigger Temper and over-talkativeness during his manic episodes, anguished soliloquies during his depressed ones.
  • Draco in Leather Pants: Hamlet is often idealized by many fans, and even scholars, because they project themselves onto him. Mostly because he's a character who is an intellectual and waxes eloquent philosophical views about existence and death, making him appealing to scholars and intellectuals. Thus, his negative qualities — his misogyny, his snobbismnote , and his hypocritical idea of violence, i.e. he hates war, but dismisses the crime of killing Polonius — makes him out to be very bad news indeed.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
    • Rosencrantz and Guildenstern due to their spin-off.
    • In the David Tennant version Polonius is the standout—the character is difficult to play due the need to be simultaneously hilarious and boring, but Oliver Ford Davies nails it; he's also the only character other than Hamlet to blatantly break the fourth wall.
    • Ophelia is this for artists, judging by the number of paintings depicting her compared to any other characters except for Hamlet himself, despite the fact that her role in the plot is much smaller than Claudius or even Gertrude. She is more or less the emotional heart of the play, being that her death and funeral scene between Laertes, Gertrude, and Hamlet is one of the few openly emotional moments in an otherwise quite intellectual play. It helps that she's also one of the nicest characters in a play full of morally gray (or worse) characters, who suffers one of the most memorably tragic fates. A few writers have also written stories focused upon her perspective, giving her more characterization and agency; a notable example is the 2018 movie Ophelia, starring Daisy Ridley in the title role.
  • Escapist Character: Amazingly for a tragedy, Hamlet proves to be this. The main reason is that Hamlet doesn't really have a Tragic Flaw in the classical sense (the flaws that we now ascribe to him, indecision, over-introspection, oedipal hang-ups are modern). He's incredibly intelligent, has Ophelia deeply in love with him, has Horatio's support, incredibly witty, able to belt out long soliloquies while chatting up and bantering with his pals and the plebs (the theater company), he's devoted to his father and family, and is more or less an Übermensch aristocratic Prince who dislikes war and fighting, but is quite charismatic and good with a sword. Throwaway comments even imply that he's popular among the people. Until the part in the end, where he and the rest of the cast die, Hamlet more or less comes up on top and wins every contest and situation he is in.
  • Fan-Preferred Couple: Hamlet/Ophelia has its fans, but Hamlet/Horatio is ridiculously popular among modern readers, probably considering that Hamlet's behaviour towards Ophelia can be seen as sexist and abusive.
  • Ho Yay:
    • Hamlet and Horatio.
      • At one point in Act 3 Scene 2, Hamlet delivers a speech elaborating on why he values Horatio so much.
        Hamlet: Horatio, thou art e’en as just a man as e’er my conversation coped withal.
      • This is most notable in Hamlet’s death scene when Horatio attempts to poison himself just because he doesn’t want to live without Hamlet. The scene can also be seen as a parallel to the famous poisoning dilemma of two lovers in another famous Shakespeare work.
      • Just as he tries to poison himself, Horatio comments that he is "more antique Roman than a Dane." Ancient Romans had a much more favorable view of suicide than the Danes... and a much more favorable view of male homosexuality.
    • In the 2008 RSC version, with basically everybody to some degree.
    • Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who are never seen or referenced to without the other.
  • Incest Yay Shipping: Laertes and Ophelia. Laertes even gets into a tussle with Hamlet over who loves her more, and he shows a fascination with her sex life (or lack of).
    • Hamlet and his mother Queen Gertrude.
  • It Was His Sled: Ophelia goes mad, and everyone dies.
  • Jerkass Woobie:
    • Hamlet himself is ultimately this kind of trope.
    • Laertes too. Specifically because of his dead sister.
    • Heck, even Claudius. The same scene that confirms his guilt in killing Hamlet's father also shows he has some remorse over it.
  • Magnificent Bastard: King Claudius, in many productions, is depicted as a more respectable figure than the stereotypical overambitious royal. Taking advantage of his skill at murdering in ways that give him Plausible Deniability, he kills his brother by poisoning him and making it look like a snakebite, then subsequently marries his brother's widow Queen Gertrude and claims the Danish throne. A charming conversationalist with considerable language skills, he manages to secure the support of nearly the entire court. Spying on his nephew Prince Hamlet, he determines he's planning something and arranges for him to be sent to England on a diplomatic assignment, later plotting to have him killed after he determines he's too dangerous to live. When Laertes returns from France and tries to overthrow him, Claudius manages to get him on his side and rope him into another attempt on Hamlet's life. Only being exposed and killed due to Laertes seeking forgiveness before he dies, and still managing to end Hamlet's life, Claudius demonstrates why he's one of Shakespeare's most iconic and enduring villains.
  • Memetic Mutation:
    • "To be or not to be, that is the question..."Explanation 
    • "Alas, poor Yorick!"Explanation 
    • "X, thy name is Y!"Explanation 
    • After a really bad film version was shown on Mystery Science Theater 3000 "Cut his throat in a church!" started to gain popularity.
    • "Good night, sweet prince."
    • "They all yeed their last haw!"
    • "O fuck." (Exit HAMLET.)Explanation 
  • Moe: Ophelia.
  • Narm:
    • At the end of the "Play Within a Play" scene, Claudius has the line, "Bring me some light! Away!" It is very difficult to portray this seriously.
      • In Branagh's version, Derek Jacobi nails it. His achievement is then ruined by the overreaction of his sycophants, who begin to scream "LIGHTS, LIGHTS, LIGHTS!" like they are trapped in a darkened room.
    • Also from Branagh's version, Polonius' face after his death looks more like a mischievous frog than a murder victim, although this may be intentional.
    • Every bit of Claudius' death in the Branagh version. Especially the sword
    • And again from Branagh:
      Polonius: What do you read, my lord?
      Hamlet: Words, words, WOUEUOEOUEUOERRRDS.note 
    • Polonius yelling out "Oh, I am slain!" after being fatally stabbed. Initially required for the audience to understand what was happening in the more bare bones Elizabethan theater, it's often removed from adaptations. Branagh's uncut version wisely changes it to him barely whispering it out in disbelief.
  • Nightmare Fuel: In the Branagh version, the courtier Osric (who has until then been a prissy Comic Relief character) stabs himself in the final scene before announcing that Fortinbras has taken the kingdom, and we see a pretty graphic close-up of his bloodied hand from holding the wound shut. In fact, the whole of Fortinbras' entry into the palace is played more as the chilling arrival of a military dictator and less as the restoration of order that critics have often considered it to be.
  • No Yay: The closeness between Hamlet and his mother Gertrude in the 1990 film adaptation. His obsessing and constant interference with his mother's love life and disgust with her sharing the bed with his uncle. Gertrude doting on Hamlet and shutting her son up by kissing him on the mouth.
  • Once Original, Now Common:
    • The sheer number of lines in the play that have become established expressions in English can make it seem like all Shakespeare has done is just string a bunch of clichés together (a common joke is someone unaware of the play being the origin of the sayings thinking it is just one boring cliché after another). Indeed, the overexposure of this play has often made it difficult, in the views of dramatists, to properly stage it, since the Hamlet of the text is not necessarily the same as the Hamlet that the audience wants or expects.
    • Most people have heard Hamlet praised as "the crowning achievement of Elizabethan drama" so often that it's easy to forget that it was once seen, especially in the 18th century as an avant-garde play. While popular among the public, critics didn't like the play for its violation of Aristotle's Poetics, and the fact that the play very self-consciously delays its obvious conclusion (Hamlet killing Claudius) for reasons entirely due to the hero's character. Later generations saw Hamlet as a groundbreaking play for consciously sliding that far to the "Character" side of the Sliding Scale of Plot Versus Characters, which led to so many more radical tweaks and changes, that today, Hamlet is proverbial for its baroque revenge plot and machinations, when in fact it's a highly character-driven work.
  • One-Scene Wonder: The First Gravedigger. He pops up near the very end of the play, provides a healthy dose of comedic relief, and then establishes himself as Hamlet's intellectual equal, managing to stay one step ahead of him in their conversation in an impressive contrast to all the other supporting players.
  • Padding: It is Shakespeare's longest play, and Hamlet has more lines than any other Shakespeare character, with his runner-up John Falstaff needing three whole plays to even come second. The real problem for critics, audiences, theatre directors and actors, is how much this padding is a defect of the play, or the poor nature of the texts handed down to us, and how much it is an Intended Audience Reaction. The basic plot, Hamlet gaining revenge on Claudius because You Killed My Father could ideally have been wrapped up at most by Act 3, but Hamlet keeps delaying the deed for reasons that are either because he has some serious philosophical qualms or because Shakespeare knows that if he did that the play would just end early and he needed to keep butts in the seat. Some of the plots and subplots (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Ophelia's suicide, Laertes' making a comeback and starting a rebellion and being acclaimed king by the populace, the Gravedigger) don't really have anything to do with the situation of the Old King's death and usurpation.
  • Shipping:
    • Hamlet & Ophelia
    • Alternatively, Hamlet & Horatio
  • Signature Scene:
    • Most people, if they come across a skull, feel moved to pick it up, hold it out dramatically, and start in on "To be or not to be . . . " Only problem being is, that speech comes at a completely different point in the play.
    • Although it actually happens offscreen in the play and we only hear it described by Gertrude, Ophelia's drowning death (possibly suicide), surrounded by flowers, has become iconic, especially because artists have frequently depicted the subject over the years. A lot of filmed adaptations include the scene in some form, as its easier to pull off than on-stage.
  • Squick: The Incest Subtext between the titular Prince Hamlet and his mother Queen Gertrude. The 1990 film adaptation depicts a lot of closeness and open-mouth kissing between mother and son.

The Show Within a Show:

  • Anvilicious: Its entire purpose: to be so blatantly anvilicious that Claudius can't miss its point.
  • Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Depending on the adaptation, the midgets and/or clowns in the prelude.

Other adaptations


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