Sweeney Todd: Hero or Villain? — Page 3

In a weird way, he's sort of a Brecht anti-hero. We're torn between opposing him or sympathising with him.

My drama teacher pointed out that in the whole piece, every character is insane. Think about it: even Anthony and Johanna are terribly impuslive.

I think there is no deffinite villain in the piece because of that. I think the ending suggests that we all have the potential of evil, like Sweeney.

God, I love these kind of shows.

It's a bit like "Vor Sonnenaufgang" (~before sunrise?), dealing with a family of crazies, where everyone's a bit of a villain (some more than others) as well.

"I personally believe Anthony to be the only innocent one at the end of the show. They are all murderers, perverts, blackmailers, corrupt people. Even Johanna is a murderer, no matter how justified or necessary."

I disagree with this assesment, and I'll get to that in a second. I'm not going to get into the whole "IS Sweeney a villain or hero" argument. To classify him in such extreme labels is to completely misunderstand the point of the story. Sweeney Todd is neither a hero, nor a villain. He's the show's protagonist, but one can't classify him as ONE thing. He's a complex human being, in a morally ambiguous world.

Now, as for Anthony. I disagree that he's the only innocent in this play. I admit I'm rather biased towards John Doyle's production, but even when I first saw Sweeney Todd, I believed that the only true innocent in the piece is Tobias.

Anthony is, by appearance's sake, an innocent bystander.But he lives according to an ideal of justice and love that is completely incompatible with the real world. It's all hypocritical. He sees Joanna and falls in love with her, without really knowing who she is. He doesn't, in fact, ever tell her his name, until prompted to do so. See, he doesn't really LOVE. He's not really noble, and brave.Anthony lives only by pretense, by unreachable, unrealistic ideals. This becomes clear whe he swears to shoot down 100 jailers if need be to set Johanna free, and then when the moment comes, chickens out. His failure to kill Tobias Fogg prompts Johanna to do so - and even a "justified" death has consequences on a human being. So, in a sense, Anthony is responsible for turning Johanna into a murderer, because he himself, the supposed "hero" is too cowardly to protect the woman he loves.He's a hypocrite because he speaks of bravery for love, but his actions show otherwise. His actions (or rather, inactions) excempt him from innocence.

Tobias, on the other hand, is an innocent, because he's not responsible for his own actions. He's abused by Pirelli, and forced to con people. He's taken in by Mrs Lovett, and unwillingly becomes an accomplice in Sweeney and Lovett's crimes. And then, he is driven completely mad- and it's through madness that he commits murder. No matter what your beliefs are, you cannot fault an insane person's actions. Tobias' crimes (the con, and the murder of Sweeney) are not the result of his actions, but rather, his abuse by the hands of others.

Think about it: Do we ever really care about Anthony? No, we don't. And we're not meant to. Anthony is pompous and artificial. He's naive, comical, and unrealistic. But Tobias finds a way to creep into our hearts, precisely because he stands out as a pure soul in a world so full of corruption. It is Tobias' innocence that makes "Nothing's Gonna Harm You" so heartwrenching. HE is the play's innocent, and HE is Sweeney Todd's most lasting victim. Because his innocence is completely corrupted by the end of the show, through no fault of his own.

Updated On: 2/5/06 at 10:53 PM

That was perhaps the most intellectual assessment I have ever heard regarding the show perhaps. I love how here there is a chance to overturn a persons words using a new logic and make them see something else from it. I loved reading it, thats very insightful. Thats something new from what has happened thus far on the thread for me

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Hey Chica, I think you just scored an A....lol.

Aw, shucks. Thanks. lol

eta: smartpenguin78, I also really enjoyed your posts. We're of a similar mind on this subject.

Updated On: 2/5/06 at 11:10 PM

I was ready to accept your thoughts on the non-innocence of Anthony, untill I remembered a line that, when I finally made sence of it, took it to be a comment on both him and Johanna.

Bird Seller: We blinds 'em [the birds], sir. That's what we always do, we blinds 'em, an' not knowin' night from day, they sing an' sing without stopping. Pretty creatures.

However, your argument, Chica, is much more compelling than mine.

As for Toby, I do see him as the most innocent. Even when he kills Sweeney, he does so out of insanity. Yes, Sweeney kills out of insanity as well, but he already set out to do some killing before he goes mad, which I believes happens at the exact moment he yells, "FINISHED" during "Epiphiny." Toby knows "you shouldn't harm nobody."

As for Sweeney as a Hero or Villain, he's neither. He is the protagonist, and you are ment to sypothize(sp?) with him, at least at first, but after "Epiphiny," you're kept at not quite arm's lenth from him, but at a bit of a distance to know what he's doing is, in fact wrong, even if it started from a very justified origin.

This is why I LOVE Sweeney Todd. You can discuss it and pick it apart in the same manner and with the same scrutinay(sp?) you could with a Shakespeare, an Ibsen, or a Greek classic. There are VERY few musicals you can do that with (and most of them are Sondheims, let's be honest). Is it just me, or does Sweeney as a peice get more and more brilliant every day?

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The definition of murder is not necessarily purely legal, but it is tied to intent.
Murder:
1. To kill (another human) unlawfully.
The unlawful killing of one human by another, especially with premeditated malice.
2. To kill brutally or inhumanly.
3. To put an end to; destroy: murdered their chances.
4. To spoil by ineptness; mutilate:

5. A flock of crows.

6. Slang. To defeat decisively; trounce.

7. Slang. Something that is very uncomfortable, difficult, or hazardous:

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And you know, one person that everyone is forgetting, what about Lucy? She may have been a little naive when she fell for the Judge's trap, but her rape drives her to attempt suicide, then her failure to kill herself drives her crazy. If anyone in Sweeney is tragic, it's Lucy.

Wow, I'm glad I'm not a member of the Barker family.

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no problem ---C is for company!---

i know how you feel...people on these threads can be brutal. believe me, i just joined yesterday and have already been attacked multiple times for such stupid things that don't matter in the scheme of things. and i'm glad i had a positive influence on your view. it just makes me so upset when people in leading positions, like your old teacher, carelessly say these things without putting any research into it when they don't realize that what they say DOES have a say-so in your beliefs. you're proof of that. argh. haha.
tell your teacher if she believes that, then that means moses is going to hell and if moses is going to hell, then she SURELY is. haha :)
we've got to be carefully taught.
BrightEyedInNYC

BrightEyedInNYC

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I'm so sorry I have to go to bed, this is a great discussion. Why couldn't it have took place last night? Hope it's still going tomorrow at lunch.

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I agree with you about Lucy and Tobias. However, and I've given this some thought, I don't think Johanna falls into the same category. She doesn't strike me as a complete innocent.

Like I've said, I'm biased towards John Doyle's production, in which almost all characters (save Tobias, and possibly Lucy, to a lesser degree) are shown to have a level of corruption. But I truly believe the text itself allows for this interpretation.

See, Johanna, even though she's a "caged bird" is still very capable of deception. Even though Turpin is presented as an abusive father, he's still an authority figure, and Johanna disobeys him. In Doyle's interpretaion, Johanna sweetly deceives him (one could even say she seduces him) in order to steal his key, which she then gives to Anthony. Even in a more traditional version of the musical, Johanna steals this key, lies to her father, and has secret rendezvous with her lover. In Prince's version, there's a strong sexual implication to Johanna and Anthony's encounters. She plots to run away and marry someone whose name she still doesn't know. I'm not implying that these actions are "evil", or corrupt, but they're hardly innocent.

There's also a reason Johanna is the one who kills Fogg. Notice that she doesn't hesitate to do so. I think we're meant to understand that Johanna has a lot of her father in her. She's a killer. It doesn't really matter whether or not this murder is justified (you could argue either way). We have to keep in mind that this is a 17 year old girl, who kills a man without flinching. In Doyle's version, the murder is in cold blood. She takes a life with her own hands, she stabs him, and his blood gushes out. The paralell with Sweeney Todd is clearer, and I think it's a very telling interpretation(and one I really agree with). It shows Johanna's darker side. Unlike Tobias, or Lucy, Johanna hasn't really been driven mad, despite spening months in an insane asylum. She is, therefore, responsible for her actions. Tobias and Lucy are simply victims, who are completely destroyed, because this world has no place for truly innocent, pure souls. Those who are innocent are inveitably corrupted, and destroyed. And those who appear to be innocent (Johanna and Anthony) are actually shown to be guilty of some level of corruption. Johanna is spared, because through her, the Sweeney Todd bloodline (and thus, the metaphorical horrors of "Sweeney Todd") lives on.