Random Curiosity

Summary:

On the night after Cordelia’s wedding, Tybalt finds Juliet and declares that he’ll kill Montague before Juliet and her allies will. Feeling that hatred will only hurt his opponent and himself, Juliet starts telling Tybalt about how she has to give up her life and about the current situation with Escalus. Showing him the symbol on her chest, she then questions why she’s revealing this to him since she hasn’t told anyone else about it, and she thinks that it might be because he’s Romeo’s older brother. When Juliet asks Tybalt to support Romeo, he wonders if it’s really necessary for her to give up her life, and she explains that she’s decided to do this for the sake of everyone in this world. After Juliet thanks him and leaves, Tybalt wonders to himself if there’s another way for her. At the convent early the next morning, Portia is checking up on the refugees when she hears a noise outside her window. In the courtyard is Romeo, and he asks for his mother’s forgiveness since he’s going to the castle to attack his father. As Romeo turns to leave, his mother apologizes to him for having him and Juliet shoulder the burden of their two families, but she questions if this is really the path leading to love.

Back at the Capulet’s place, Juliet has donned her armor and listens to Cordelia and Emilia talk about what she should do after this is all over. Antonio interrupts them to inform Juliet that it’s time, so she takes her sword and heads outside to make a speech to rally her troops. While they’re still heading towards the castle, Tybalt meanwhile has already infiltrated it and enters the throne room. As he approaches the throne, Tybalt reveals that he had wondered why he was born and cursed, and he says that he realized the answer was so that he could kill Montague. Since Montague still doesn’t know who he is, Tybalt reminds Montague of his mother and says that the same blood runs through their veins. Tybalt then attacks Montague, but he stops short of cutting into Montague’s neck so that he can ask about Escalus. Montague is shocked to hear Tybalt asking him why Juliet has to sacrifice life, and he recalls how he had seen Juliet in the pool of water underneath Escalus with Ophelia standing over her. Before Montague can answer Tybalt though, Romeo bursts through the doors to the throne room and charges at his father.

By now, Juliet and the other Capulet forces have arrived at the gate to the castle and are allowed through by Tubal after Juliet makes a plea for them to join her in creating a new Neo Verona. They arrive in the throne room to find Romeo and Tybalt both trying to get at Montague while the Duke himself is realizing that it’s Capulet blood that will restore Escalus. To everyone’s surprise, Juliet walks up to Montague and drops her sword on the ground because she feels that she doesn’t need it anymore. She explains that she doesn’t hold a grudge anymore for what happened fourteen years ago, so she has no intention of getting violent with him. All she wants is to return Neo Verona to the people, so she asks him to leave the castle and Neo Verona. In response, Montague admits that he thought if he had power, then he could subdue fate. He then draws his sword and seems to take a swing at her, but he brings it back down into the ground without hitting her. Montague now talks about how glory is like a drop of water falling into water and continuing to spread until it fades into nothingness.

Shortly thereafter though, Montague gets stabbed from behind by Mercutio who starts laughing crazily over how he killed the Duke. Mercutio thinks he’s a hero, and he stumbles away laughing after Tybalt says that he’s not worth killing. Collapsing into Juliet’s arms, Montague then wonders why everyone doesn’t love him, but his final words say that he wanted to be more feared than anyone in this world. With his father dead, Romeo covers him with his cloak and talks about how Montague believed in power over love, and power is what destroyed him. Juliet suggests that Montague was probably afraid of love - that’s why he looked to his sword for help. Turning away from Romeo, Juliet says that if you love too strongly, then the sadness when you lose that person is unbearable. In her mind, she then apologizes to Romeo again for having to break their promise.

Preview

When Montague raised his sword against Juliet and everyone started to react in slow motion, I thought that someone like Tybalt would stop him and maybe kill him. However, he let her live, and in the end, Montague actually got a lot more honorable a death than I thought he would. That’s partially aided by how Romeo and Juliet portray him in such a tragic light after he’s dead, but it’s also because I half-expected him to act crazy until the end - kind of like Mercutio is at the moment. Speaking of which, I wonder if they’re gonna give Mercutio an ending (aka. death) or if they’re just going to quietly forget about him (like they seemed to have with Hermione).
As for Romeo and Juliet, I’d be surprised if both of them didn’t sacrifice themselves. Everything still seems to point in that direction anyway, whether it be the two original trees, the fact that there’s two people who know about them (Ophelia and the old man), and how both the Capulet and Montague family crests are carved on Escalus’ door. The preview shows Romeo and Juliet going their separate paths, but perhaps that’s more indicative of how far apart they grow before the sacrifice than anything else. In other words, a lack of communication could lead to the double death, just like in the original play.