History YMMV / TwelfthNight

* LesYay: Viola and Olivia. Granted, Olivia doesn't know Viola's a woman, but ''still''. A few of Viola's lines could imply she has feelings for Olivia as well -- and she, unlike Olivia, knows perfectly well that they're both women.

* HoYay: Some more Freudian interpretations of the play suggest it's actually intended to be a major theme. Orsino freely admits he loves 'Cesario' even as he's planning to kill 'him' as punishment for betraying 'his' master with Olivia, and as soon as he learns Viola's true identity he almost immediately proposes marriage. It's particularly ''blazing'' between Antonio and Sebastian, to the point it's near impossible for modern audiences to see Antonio as anything other than gay.

* ValuesDissonance: Malvolio is described as being a Puritan. At the time, Puritanism hadn't yet been strictly defined (it was used as an insult for a number of extreme Protestant sects) but they were firmly against TheWickedStage and condemned it as akin to prostitution (during Oliver Cromwell's rule, theatre was outlawed entirely and the Globe pulled down). When Maria calls Malvolio that, Shakespeare's audience would have heard "the enemy of our company's way of life, and you our audience for choosing to come here." That subtext is absent today, so modern audiences perceive him as an uptight but harmless buffoon who doesn't deserve what they do to him.

* HoYay: Some more Freudian interpretations of the play suggest it's actually intended to be a major theme. It's particularly ''blazing'' between Antonio and Sebastian, to the point it's near impossible for modern audiences to see Antonio as anything other than gay.

** Olivia's married to Sebastian simply because she mistook him for his sister, who's the one she ''actually'' fell in love with. Plus it can be argued that he wed her under false pretences since he knew that she believed him to be someone else, but went along with it anyway -- not a great foundation on which to build a life together.

** We're never told what's going to happen to Antonio, who only got caught because he loved Sebastian so much (in the 1996 version Orsino frees him, but he goes away on his own, bereft)

*** The 2017/2018 production at the Royal Shakespeare Company particularly highlighted this, with ''no one'' in the two main couples really happy; Olivia clearly still loves Viola, Viola is uncertain about Orsino's feelings for her (given that he mistook Sebastian for her when making his proposal) and Sebastian is mourning the loss of Antonio and apprehensive about this relationship he's suddenly found himself in. Additionally, it's implied that Feste was in love with Olivia too and is distraught at seeing her marry someone else, even if he knew a relationship with her could never possibly happen.

** Directing a production of ''Twelfth Night'' takes on an extra dimension if you're familiar with Alan Gordon's excellent ''Fools' Guild'' mysteries, to wit: Feste is [[spoiler:a secret agent, engineered the twins' "shipwreck" in order to stabalise the political situation in Illyria, and falls in love with Viola to the extent that after his assignment's success, he spends a lot of the rest of his life trying to drink away the heartache]]. Oh, and Malvolio is apparently [[spoiler:working for Saladin]]. Introducing these concepts to the actors playing these roles doesn't remotely translate to the audience, but is a hell of a lot of fun.

** Many productions imply that Feste knows Viola is actually a girl, and uses lines such as - "Now Jove, in his next commodity of hair, send thee a beard" - in order to tease and bait her. (They did this in the 1996 film, although Feste had an unfair advantage there, since he saw the survivors of the shipwreck getting washed up on the shore.)

** Viola could also be seen is this. The poor girl ends up shipwrecked, her beloved brother presumed dead, and ends up going undercover just to get a job. Then she falls in love with her employer, who thinks she's a man, and is in love with someone else. Still, she helps him woo his beloved, [[IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy because she wants him to be happy, even if it's not with her]]. Then his beloved falls in love with ''her'', and because of all the MistakenIdentity nonsense, he ends up thinking Viola deliberately stole her away. [[EarnYourHappyEnding Luckily, this is a comedy, not a tragedy, so everything turns out okay for her]]; she winds up marrying the guy she loves and her brother turns out to be alright. But she had a hell of a time before the curtain falls!

** Malvolio is traumatized, utterly humiliated and storms out swearing revenge on everybody,

* ValuesDissonance: Malvolio is described as being a Puritan. At the time, Puritanism hadn't yet been strictly defined (it was used as an insult for a number of extreme Protestant sects) but they were firmly against TheWickedStage and condemned it as akin to prostitution (during Oliver Cromwell's rule, theatre was outlawed entirely and the Globe pulled down). Although ''puritan'' is still an insult, it doesn't immediately cast Mavolio as "the enemy of what we're doing right now tonight" the way it did when Shakespeare wrote it, with the result that he's seen as a harmless buffoon who doesn't deserve his ill-treatment.

* ValuesDissonance: Malvolio is described as being a Puritan. At the time, Puritanism hadn't yet been strictly defined (it was used as an insult for a number of extreme Protestant sects) but they were firmly against TheWickedStage and condemned it as akin to prostitution (during Oliver Cromwell's rule, theatre was outlawed entirely and the Globe pulled down). Although ''puritan'' is still an insult, it doesn't immediately cast him as "the enemy of what we're doing right now tonight" the way it did when Shakespeare wrote it, with the result that he's seen as a harmless buffoon who doesn't deserve his ill-treatment.

* MemeticMutation: This is widely known as the play [[MindScrew where a young boy plays a girl who dresses up as a man, falls in love with her master but the master's adored falls in love with "him" instead, who is also played by a man]].

** Olivia's married to Sebastian simply because she mistook him for his sister, who's the one she ''actually'' fell in love with; and what's more it can be argued that he married her under false pretences since he knew that she believed him to be someone else, but went along with it anyway.

** Olivia's married to Sebastian simply because she mistook him for his sister, who's the one she ''actually'' fell in love with.