idk idk just. The speed at which Gloucester was ready to believe Edgar was plotting to kill him. The way every argument Edmund makes against it is so reasonable and reassuring but no matter what he says Gloucester still obstinately insists that Edgar must be planning his death.
Edmund makes a hundred reasonable arguments in Edgar’s defense but he knows they’ll all be ignored.
and then the speed at which Edgar believes that Gloucester is furious with him and wants him dead. So furious and so set on killing him that any attempt to approach him personally and sort things out might cost him his own life.
#honestly. says a lot about Gloucester ngl#Why are your sons so convinced that you’re unreasonable and easily angered and ready to believe the worst in people#Why are your sons so scared of you#Why are they so positive that if you even get the slightest idea that someone might be a threat to you. You’d kill them.
king lear is so wild because like. what if you treated your kid(s) like absolute shit. like all the time. constantly. what if you publicly shamed them. what if you expected them to bow before you and treat you like a god and say yes sir you’re so amazing and i’ll do whatever you want. what if you refused to respect them at all.
would you really expect them to respect you? to trust you? to not resent you? to not treat you like shit one day as payback???
like the play opens with edmund standing there in almost complete silence while his father talks shit about him IN FRONT OF HIM for absolutely NO reason. edmund hasn’t done anything even slightly evil yet!!! all he did wrong was be born out of wedlock!!! and then edmund asks “why do i get treated like shit because of circumstances of my birth that i have no control over when i am just as good as my brother in literally every other way? why is it impossible for me to earn respect no matter what i do?” and then gloucester and the play try so so hard to convince you that edmund is just evil by nature because he’s a bastard and that poor poor noble gloucester did not deserve this at all :((((