History YMMV / TitusAndronicus

* OlderThanTheyThink: A character getting revenge on a hated enemy by tricking them into eating their own children. While that idea may be most closely associated with ''Titus Andronicus'', it's also a major plot point in the saga of the House of Atreus in [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Greek Mythology]], in which Atreus gets revenge on [[CainAndAbel his brother Thyestes]] by killing his sons and serving them up as the main course in a banquet. Considering how much Shakespeare loved the Classics, the ending of ''Titus'' is almost certainly a deliberate ShoutOut to this.

* Titus chooses Saturninus as emperor solely on the basis of primogeniture, and the latter's corrupt and weak-willed reign facilitated the horrible chain of events that occurred over the course of the play; these would likely have been averted had either Bassianus, or the popular Titus, been emperor instead. In this light, the work may be seen as a precautionary tale advocating for rulers to be democratically elected rather than installed on the basis of aristocratic descent.

* AlternateAesopInterpretation: Titus chooses Saturninus as emperor solely on the basis of primogeniture, and the latter's corrupt and weak-willed reign facilitated the horrible chain of events that occured over the course of the play; these would likely have been averted had either Bassianus, or the popular Titus, been emperor instead. In this light, the work may be seen as a precautionary tale advocating for rulers to be elected by the people rather than selected by aristocratic descent.

* AlternateAesopInterpretation: Titus chooses Saturninus as emperor solely on the basis of primogeniture, and the latter's corrupt and weak-willed reign facilitated the horrible chain of events that occured over the course of the play; these would likely have been averted had either Bassianus, or the publicly beloved Titus, been emperor instead. In this light, the work may be seen as a precautionary tale advocating for rulers to be elected by the people rather than selected by aristocratic descent.

* AlternateAesopInterpretation: Titus chooses Saturninus as emperor solely on the basis of primogeniture, and the latter's corrupt and weak-willed reign facilitated the horrible chain of events that occured over the course of the play; these would likely have been averted had either Bassianus, or the publicly beloved Titus, been emperor instead. In this light, the work may be seen as a precautionary tale advocating for rulers to be elected by the people rather than installed by descent.

* AlternativeAesopInterpretation: Titus chooses Saturninus as emperor solely on the basis of primogeniture, and the latter's corrupt and weak-willed reign facilitated the horrible chain of events that occured over the course of the play; these would likely have been averted had either Bassianus, or the publicly beloved Titus, been emperor instead. In this light, the work may be seen as a precautionary tale advocating for rulers to be elected by the people rather than installed by descent.

** Speaking of, why did it take everybody so damn long to give Lavinia a stick so she could scratch the names of her rapists out in the sand? Hell, why didn't she just use her ''feet?'' All her toes are still intact.
** Why didn't she go and point them out to the guard? They aren't exactly hard to find, being the sons of the empress.

* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: Between the extreme violence (including multiple murder, dismemberment, rape, and cannibalism) and pretty much the whole plot being EvilVsEvil in a CycleOfRevenge, it’s fair to see why ''Titus'' has never made it among Shakespeare’s most popular plays.

* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: Between the extreme violence (including multiple murder, dismemberment, rape, and cannibalism) and pretty much the whole plot being EvilVsEvilConflict in a CycleOfRevenge, it’s fair to see why ''Titus'' has never made it among Shakespeare’s most popular plays.

* CommonKnowledge:
** Titus Andronicus is ''not'' Shakespeare's most violent play in terms of body-count, nor is it the most excessive play of the Elizabethan-Jacobean era. That would be ''Theatre/TheRevengersTragedy, The White Devil, The Duchess of Malfi'' and among Marlowe's works, ''Theatre/EdwardII'' has a death scene and fate more degrading than Lavinia and Tamora's sons (one scandalous because it happens to a King). Jan Kott, the Polish Shakespeare scholar who revived the play's reputation pointed out that more people die in ''Theatre/RichardIII'' and ''Theatre/KingLear'' is even more cruel and shocking for its ending (so much so that it's ending was censored on the English stage for 200 years).
** The violence of ''Titus Andronicus'' was neither excessive nor atypical of that time, nor was it an example of lowbrow prurient sex and violence fixation that later critics and modern audiences assume. It was based on the works of Roman tragedian and stoic philosopher Seneca, whose works also had much the same violence and bloodshed, and Seneca was a major influence on Elizabethan tragedians, and Shakespeare's use of Senecan motifs, and the Roman setting, is far more likely an attempt by him to do a work of high art than any StealthParody (especially when he was just starting out and as an outsider from Stratford to London would not have gotten far by making jabs at playwrights who were of a higher social class and better connected than he was). Titus Andronicus was certainly seen as a serious tragedy and regarded as such by his contemporaries, albeit their ideas of serious tragedy and that of the public is not entirely in synch with ours.

* MagnificentBastard: Aaron, though he does tend to get overlooked amongst Shakespeare's other Magnificent Bastards such as [[Theatre/{{Othello}} Iago]] and Theatre/RichardIII. Unlike the latter two, he goes out of the play like a boss, getting an awesome final line where he defiantly announces IRegretNothing and showing VillainousValour and EvilVirtues (i.e. risking everything for his baby boy).
--> '''Aaron the Moor''': "I am no baby, I, [[BlasphemousBoast that with base prayers]]\\
I should repent the evils I have done:\\
Ten thousand worse than ever yet I did\\
Would I perform, if I might have my will:\\
If one good deed in all my life I did,\\
I do repent it from my very soul."

* RootingForTheEmpire: Titus Andronicus was the general of an invading army into the Gothic Kingdom, and Tamora is a subjugated woman brought in triumph to Rome, and whose pleas for mercy for her son Alarbus is denied for the sake of revenge for Titus' sons (whose death is Titus' responsibility since he started the war). Likewise, for all the evil Tamora and her children do, neither of them are willing to murder their own children, and in the case of Demetrius and Chiron, even they agree to spare and hide their step-brother even if it was a ChocolateBaby and potentially compromising their lifestyle, where Titus kills two. And in the end, Titus is two-faced and hypocritical enough to bring the Goths to invade Rome for his own revenge.

* PopularityPolynomial: In Shakespeare's lifetime, ''Titus Andronicus'' was one of his most popular works, indeed a 1614 comment by Ben Jonson in his introduction to the printed edition of ''Bartholomew's Fair'' places it in the same breadth as ''The Spanish Tragedy'' by Thomas Kyd (i.e. the BreakthroughHit of Elizabethan Tragedy) in terms of popularity and critical esteem. Yet its reputation declined in the centuries that followed. Then it revived again after UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, where a landmark production by Peter Brook and Creator/LaurenceOlivier became unexpectedly popular and successful commercially, and Polish critic Jan Kott praised it as one of Shakespeare's most undervalued plays, and since then its critical reputation is slowly rising (albeit it's still dismissed and derided by the likes of Harold Bloom and other Shakespeare scholars).

** Why didn't she go and point them to the guard they aren't exactly hard to find being the sons of the empress.

* PacingProblems: The unusual opening act of the play (which shuffles in setting and has no scene breakdowns and which some argue was co-written by George Peele) introduces a huge cast, underdeveloped subplots (i.e. the rivalry between Bassianus and Saturninus) and scenes that are clearly supposed to be dramatically heavy (Titus killing his son Mutius) but is unusually soft-pedalled, while Tamora goes too fast from captive to empress. The action is paced much better after that, and from the third act to the finale, the scenes become pretty dense, full of sharp characterization and wonderful use of the ensemble cast so much so that they all stand out).

* MoralEventHorizon: Demetrius, Chiron, Tamora and Aaron all cross with Lavinia's rape and mutilation. The latter two didn't actively participate, but Aaron was the mastermind behind it, and Tamora fully encouraged it, perhaps at this point perversely relinquishing her womanhood in condoning such horrific and misogynistic abuse of another woman. And what's worse, Demetrius and Chiron ''taunt her about it afterwards,'' mockingly daring her to try and tell anyone who abused her so thoroughly.

** Speaking of, why did it take everybody so damn long to give Lavinia a stick so she could scratch the names of her rapists out in the sand? Hell, why didn't she just use her ''feet?''

* PopularityPolynomial: In Shakespeare's lifetime, ''Titus Andronicus'' was one of his most popular works, indeed a 1614 comment by Ben Jonson in his introduction to the printed edition of ''Bartholomew's Fair'' places it in the same breadth as ''The Spanish Tragedy'' by Thomas Kyd (i.e. the BreakthroughHit of Elizabethan Tragedy) in terms of popularity and critical esteem. Yet it's reputation declined in the centuries that followed. Then it revived again after UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, where a landmark production by Peter Brook and Creator/LaurenceOlivier became unexpectedly popular and successful commercially, and Polish critic Jan Kott praised it as one of Shakespeare's most undervalued plays, and since then it's critical reputation is slowly rising (albeit it's still dismissed and derided by the likes of Harold Bloom and other Shakespeare scholars).

* IdiotPlot: A HUGE criticism of the play is how the problems presented had pretty simple, logical solutions but aren't brought up in order to drag out the misery. Then again, some scholars have argued that the play is a possible parody of the tragedies of the time and shows how the characters in tragedies can in fact be completely stupid.

* NightmareFuel: Can't sleep. Titus won't eat me. He'll make someone else eat me. This is mitigated by the fact that Titus only did this to violent rapists and murderers who had it coming, in an extreme fit of vengeful rage. His victims, Demetrius and Chiron, are probably even more nightmarish, with the unspeakable things they do to the innocent Lavinia, without an iota of empathy or remorse. Don't go walking in the woods.

* {{Squick}}: If a production doesn't squick someone out, something is very, ''very'', wrong. People were fainting or throwing up while watching the 2014 Globe production, particularly during Lavinia's emergence after her rape and dismemberment.
* ValuesDissonance: If you're baffled by the level of violence in this play, try to remember that it was written in a time when dueling, cockfighting and bear-baiting were all considered perfectly normal forms of entertainment (several London bear-baiting pits were just a short walk from the theaters where Shakespeare's plays were performed, in fact). Any level of staged violence--no matter how gruesome--probably seemed pretty tame to people who frequently entertained themselves with ''real'' violence.
* ValuesResonance: In the darkest way possible; Julie Taymor choose to adapt the play to film because she regards it as the [[WorldHalfEmpty closest to our current times.]]

%%Do NOT add Complete Monster entries without going to the cleanup thread first.

* MagnificentBastard: Aaron, though he does tend to get overlooked amongst Shakespeare's other Magnificent Bastards such as [[Theatre/{{Othello}} Iago]] and Theatre/RichardIII.

* NightmareFuel: Can't sleep. Titus won't eat me. He'll make someone else eat me. This is mitigated by the fact that Titus only did this to violent rapists and murderers who had it coming, in an extreme of vengeful rage. His victims, Demetrius and Chiron, are probably even more nightmarish, with the unspeakable things they do to the innocent Lavinia, without an iota of empathy or remorse. Don't go walking in the woods.

* ValuesDissonance: This was one of Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetime and right afterward but has had the exact opposite reputation since then.

** Speaking of, why did it take everybody so damn long to give Lavinia a stick so she could scratch the names of her rapists out in the sand? Hell, why didn't she just use her ''feet?''

%%Do NOT add CompleteMonster entries without going to the cleanup thread first.

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: It's possible partially to exonerate Tamora, on the grounds that her child (Alarbus) has been brutally killed and her pleas for mercy have been ignored. Her having Bassianus killed is tit for tat (''see'' NotSoDifferent, ''below''), and most of the other atrocities are committed by Aaron.

* NightmareFuel: Can't sleep. Titus won't eat me. He'll make someone else eat me.
** Mitigated by the fact that Titus only did this to violent rapists and murderers who had it coming, in an extreme of vengeful rage. His victims, Demetrius and Chiron, are probably even more nightmarish, with the unspeakable things they do to the innocent Lavinia, without an iota of empathy or remorse. Don't go walking in the woods.

** ValuesResonance: In the darkest way possible; Julie Taymor choose to adapt the play to film because she regards it as the [[WorldHalfEmpty closest to our current times.]]