It puzzles me when people cite LOTR as the standard of “simple” or “predictable” or “black and white” fantasy. Because in my copy, the hero fails. Frodo chooses the Ring, and it’s only Gollum’s own desperation for it that inadvertently saves the day. The fate of the world, this whole blood-soaked war, all the millennia-old machinations of elves and gods, comes down to two addicts squabbling over their Precious, and that is precisely and powerfully Tolkien’s point.
And then the hero goes home, and finds home a smoking desolation, his neighbors turned on one another, that secondary villain no one finished off having destroyed Frodo’s last oasis not even out of evil so much as spite, and then that villain dies pointlessly, and then his killer dies pointlessly. The hero is left not with a cathartic homecoming, the story come full circle in another party; he is left to pick up the pieces of what was and what shall never be again.
And it’s not enough. The hero cannot heal, and so departs for the fabled western shores in what remains a blunt and bracing metaphor for death (especially given his aged companions). When Sam tells his family, “Well, I’m back” at the very end, it is an earned triumph, but the very fact that someone making it back qualifies as a triumph tells you what kind of story this is: one that is too honest to allow its characters to claim a clean victory over entropy, let alone evil.
“I can’t recall the taste of food, nor the sound of water, nor the touch of grass. I’m naked in the dark. There’s nothing–no veil between me and the wheel of fire. I can see him with my waking eyes.”
So where’s this silly shallow hippie fever-dream I’ve heard so much about? It sounds like a much lesser story than the one that actually exists.
I have seen people say that one of the tragedies of “The World Was Wide Enough” is that Hamilton and Burr both break with their natures–Burr doesn’t wait and Hamilton throws away his shot. This is perfectly, literally true, as well as excellent wordplay in the second instance, but I’ve been thinking that one of the really beautiful things about the musical is that it’s not completely true.
Hamilton throws away his (gun)shot, but that’s never–in his own mind or in the play itself–been what the metaphorical shot really is, at least not consistently. “Not throwing away your shot” is about not wasting your opportunities; it’s about making the deliberate choice. Hamilton throws away his more active military career when he signs on as Washington’s aide, but he views this–at least in the moment–as seizing his shot, because Washington has persuaded him that it’s harder and more honorable to try to live. He and his men take the bullets out of their guns at Yorktown to better secure their victory.
And it’s not only Hamilton who wins by losing, or at least by forfeiting the showier and more conventional route to victory: it’s Washington, too. LMM is explicit about this in the notes on “One Last Time”: that the song highlights Washington’s “most radical act/lasting legacy,” which is his decision to walk away from power and not seek it again. He throws away the most obvious form of power, but he doesn’t throw away his chance for meaningful action: he just redefines what meaningful action looks like. Even though Hamilton says it will make him look weak, Washington pushes through, because “they will see we’re strong.” He turns down one shot for another: he teaches a country, and a succession of presidents, and Hamilton himself, to say goodbye.
And that’s what Hamilton learns from him, and from Eliza, who chooses–consciously and actively–to forgive. He says, “If I throw away my shot, is this how you’ll remember me? What if this bullet is my legacy?” And it is, and he knows that, and he chooses this chance, this idea of meaningful action: to aim at the sky. To not kill, or even feign to kill, “[his] first friend, [his] enemy.” And we don’t say he’s weak for that; we see he’s strong.
Because kindness, in Hamilton, is always deserving of our awe and respect. Hamilton’s “non-stop” series of accomplishments is wonderful to behold, but the one thing we’re really asked if we can even imagine is Eliza offering him forgiveness. When Hamilton chooses to aim for the sky, he doesn’t throw away his shot, he takes stock of everyone he’s loved, and everyone he’s lost, and everything he’s done, and seizes the opportunity–to be kind. To make peace.
And for us, at least, that’s a substantial part of his legacy. So part of what makes Hamilton so awesome, for me, is that it recognizes that sometimes deliberately refraining from action is the most powerful action you can take, and it defines its characters by those active refusals, those conscious choices to not go after more. Hamilton throws away his shot, Eliza throws away her anger, Angelica throws away her chance, Washington throws away his reelection. Principle is sometimes most meaningfully expressed by where we draw the line and what we refuse to do, which is why Hamilton cannot back Burr after hearing that there’s “nothing [he] wouldn’t do.”
Hamilton never really gives up. As Burr says in “Wait for It,” all he does is “change the game.”
These things, too, are part of taking your shot: you take the opportunity to be better, smarter, kinder. Hey, sometimes you “take the bullets out your gun” and that’s part of how you win the war.
Aw Yiss 