(no subject)

[iniquiticity]

Anonymous asked
This is late but re: greenhouse; it feels like Hamilton is kind of hiding a lot himself at the moment for George & his image, which i get for the situation, but will there be a moment when George is like, this is my husband & he's awesome like he is?

this is a really big question.

there is a part of the story that’s kind of upcoming where hamilton comes to this conclusion no one else would come to becuase he’s very different from all the other people washington deals with/is friends with. and washington realizes that at the time that it occurs, and sort of knows that what and why hamilton thinks comes from that his upbringing and life, which is radically different from all the other eyes on the problem. maybe that counts, i don’t know.

but the huge issue from washington knowing - sort of the most complete hamilton he can - is that hamilton really doesn’t like… or maybe can’t, i guess, depending on baggage… be vulnerable. it’s REALLY hard to be vulnerable, when you’ve been hurt like alex is (greenhouses alex follows fairly regular aham childhood canon). and it’s not that he doesn’t want to be, or that he doesn’t care, but just - letting his guard down is really hard and he’s so accustomed to not doing it. we get this glimpse of hamilton’s vulnerability right before they kiss and when they’re talking about the thistle and even THEN alex can only do it in this middle of nowhere limimal space and he’s protected himself in this weird way by dressing up.

and i think that there’s also an important part to consider here which is - you can love someone pretty fucking completely and still not like everything about them. maybe this is Too Adult of me, but even though Alex & Washington live nomially happily ever after, there are probably lots of things about each other they don’t like. Alex hates lying and pretending, and Washington hates that Alex can never address his anger in like a rational way, or talk constructively about what upsets him. and i’m sure that even though they always make up, they get into plenty of spats about stupid shit. some relationships are like that. when you’re a pstd-worn general and a childhood-trauma military vet that can’t keep his mouth shut, that’s part of life. i want to be clear that this does NOT in ANYWAY way suggest that there’s abuse in their relationship. you CAN BE in a relationship where sometimes you don’t talk to eachother for a few days because you’re steaming. and in a circumstance where these two are awful communicators - and even if they improve, they don’t magically change into different people - it just is. remember, knox says “if manipulating people has always gotten him what he wants, or he benefits from it - even if he loves you, he has successful ways of dealing with other people.” and that’s kind of shitty, yeah. and washington accidentally uses his power to get what he wants, which is also shitty. so you have these two flawed people in all these ways who care about each other, and they try, and sometimes they fail, because they’re humans, and they both have a huge amount of baggage.

that being said, there are certainly times where alex does things that washington would never think he could do, but because of who he is and how he interacts with the world, he can do them. and washington thinks holy shit, look at this amazing man i married. and they definitely often look at each other and go what does this human see in me? with washington, he’s like i’m a tired old man who never wants to do anything and i don’t like talking to people and i’m a liar and i love my plants more than anything. and with alex he’s like i’m an orphan waistrel nobody, no class, no status, nothing, all i can do is run my mouth and talk shit and work forever and. and despite all the problems and suffering, they always come back to each other.


so the answer to your question, i guess is: i don’t know if washington ever says ‘i love 100% of alexander hamilton and he’s literally amazing just the way he does literally everything.’ but that doesn’t stop him from saying ‘i love so much of this man that the things i don’t like about him don’t matter that much,’ which i think is a lot more realistic (and a lot more like how couples operate, in my experience.)