YMMV / The Wild Duck

• The Woobie: It's hard not to feel sorry for the "father and daughter" of the Ekdal family.
  • Hjalmar Ekdal's entire home life is based on a lie. His photography business, his marriage to Gina, his father's modest employment by Old Werle... all manufactured by Old Werle to soothe his own conscience after getting Gina pregnant with Hedvig while his own wife was still alive. When Gregers reveals the truth to Hjalmar, he breaks down completely and, after a night of binge drinking with Relling and Molvik, declares that he is leaving Gina and Hedvig. Gregers tries to salvage the situation, but Hjalmar goes on a rant and inadvertently drives Hedvig to suicide just as he realises that she really does love him, and he loves her. Relling believes he will descend into alcoholic self-pity within a year, and is probably right.
  • Hedvig adores her father, and he adores her in spite of her failing eyesight. However, said failing eyesight is one of Gregers' clues that she is his half-sister, and not Hjalmar's daughter at all; when he reveals the truth to Hjalmar, he recoils in disgust at the mere sight of the child he thought was his, and she is devastated by the rejection. Desperate to win back the love of the man she still sees as her father, she accepts Gregers' suggestion to shoot her beloved wild duck to prove her love to Hjalmar, but when she overhears him rant about how she would rather live a rich life with Werle if offered, and that if he asked her to lay down her life for him, he'd get an immediate answer, she turns the gun on herself instead.

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