Titus Andronicus (theatre)/YMMV

• Alternate Character Interpretation: It's possible partially to exonerate Tamora, on the grounds that her child (Alarbus) has been brutally killed after pleading for mercy. Her instructing her sons to rape and dismember Lavinia is tit for tat (see Not So Different, below), and most of the other atrocities are committed by Aaron.
  • For that matter, Aaron himself can be seen as a bitter, lost and unhinged Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds if you squint a bit.
• Non Sequitur Scene: The movie is brimming with them. Some prime examples are the gypsy dance, Lavinia's rape flashback (which involved heavy metal music and gratuitous tigers), most of the orgy scenes, and the bit where Chiron dances on a pool table wearing enough leather to start his own BDSM colony.
• Complete Monster: Depending on how it's played, Aaron The Moor. If he truly does repent all the good things he's done, even his love for his son (his ONE redeeming quality), then he's far gone into this trope.
• Crowning Moment of Awesome Dialogue: After finding out about the abovementioned Chocolate Baby, the following bit of dialogue takes place:

Chiron: Thou hast undone our mother.
Aaron: Villain, I have done thy mother.

• Magnificent Bastard: Aaron, though he does tend to get overlooked amongst Shakespeare's other Magnificent Bastards such as Iago and Richard III.
  • The film really highlights this in Aaron's monologue after betraying Titus with the Life or Limb Decision ("I have done a thousand dreadful things as willingly as one would kill a fly, and nothing grieves me heartily indeed, but that I cannot do ten thousand more" etc., etc.), which is set to a jaunty jazz tune.
  • Titus himself is a boderline case too.
• Nightmare Fuel: Can't sleep. Titus won't eat me. He'll make someone else eat me.
• Squick: If a production doesn't squick someone out, something is very, very, wrong.
• This Is Your Premise on Drugs: The movie is best described as the original on LSD and abusing a time machine.
• Values Dissonance: This was one of Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetime and right afterward but has pretty much had the exact opposite reputation since then.
• What an Idiot!: Really, Saturninus? You think it's a good idea to marry a defeated enemy who has sworn revenge right in front of you and elevate her to empress? And then convict the two sons of the man responsible for her son's death based on one piece of evidence that this revenge-sworn Queen of the Goths gave you?
  • This is justified since Saturninus is potrayed though out the play as an arrogant dumbass.

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