If The Secret History Ever Does Become A Movie Or Tv Series, I Ask That Francis Be Wearing A Different

If The Secret History ever does become a movie or tv series, I ask that Francis be wearing a different outfit in every scene he is in.

Today I discovered that a couple of TSH characters were based on actual people Donna Tartt knew at Bennington College- amongst them were students Todd O'Neal and Matt Jacobsen, who were the inspiration for Henry and Bunny respectively.

AND JUST—

There's even their own comments about it and it's so funny wait:

Here's the source

Can I maybe contribute to this and also propose:

Bunny: Unknown/nth (being let down and hurt by someone you trusted?? Literally him "and there are some people who are better unknown")

Julian: Eat Your Young (the whole theme of the older generation exploiting the young fits him I think)

I want everyone to know which Hozier Unreal Unearth songs go with each tsh character because I’ve listened to it enough it’s basically the unofficial soundtrack of the visual novel (feel free to throw punches in tags or comments)

Richard: First Time

Francis: Francesca (teehee)

Charles: I, Carrion

Camilla: Abstract (Psychopomp)

Henry: Who We Are

Bunny: All Things End

Julian: Butchered Tongue

(Bonus) Judy Poovey: Damage Gets Done

I’m going to be real. Is there anyone who actually doesn’t realize that The Secret History is criticizing the romanticizing of things? I periodically see posts like “So many people misread this book and don’t get that it’s really saying we shouldn’t romanticize—” Like come on, people get it. But the book has some intentionally pretty, vivid imagery. And the author clearly enjoys classics. And its very possible to be in awe of the style this book has without being oblivious to the message.

Besides, I think it’s a jump to say this novel is saying “academia bad.” It’s not the classics that are bad. What’s bad is trying to view what you love without any regard for morality so that you can bury yourself in it. I think knowledge and ambition and wanting to look nice are good things. And it’s very obvious to me that suit-wearing, classics-studying author Donna Tartt thinks so too. Beauty is a good thing. It’s pretentiousness, elitism, cultishness, and “the picturesque at all costs” which are bad.

He is a 10 and his life, for the most part, has been very stale and colorless. Dead, he means. The world has always been an empty place to him. He was incapable of enjoying even the simplest things. He felt dead in everything he did.

Camilla isn’t a “not like other girls” character. She’s a lot more “like” other girls in some ways than one may think. RICHARD believes she is not. RICHARD believes that men inherently more intelligent, interesting, authentic and deep than women are, so he thinks that Camilla being an intelligent, interesting person who is engaged in intellectual pursuits as well as the inherent seclusion from her peers that comes with being in the Greek class MAKES her separate from other women. I think the fandom fails to consider that and makes Camilla out to be more gender non-conforming than she is. The “she was still a girl” paragraph is very telling and I think often overlooked because it doesn’t validate that narrative. Camilla is not a Donna Tartt expy. Camilla’s ending fate being complete solitude is a cosmic punishment because Camilla has lived her entire life finding strength in her connections to others. Her and Charles are twins but the role she plays in their dynamic is of the caretaker, and a part of his breakdown is caused by his loss of stability when they divide. She spends the last years of her grandmother’s life as her grandmother’s caretaker. She is not going to ever finish her degree or go on adventures or be a strong independent career woman. She’s going to wilt in solitude. The only reason she ever gives for refusing Richard’s marriage proposal isn’t that she doesn’t want to be tied down or that she wants to go and branch out and see the world, it’s that she doesn’t love him, she loves Henry. She would have said yes if it was Henry. She would have rather been Henry Winter’s wife than a classicist or scholar in her own right. This is not convenient for The Secret History’s fandom discourse and it is not very “feminist”, but it is true.