Who really pushed Captain Sawyer down? I mean, it could have been either Archie or Hornblower, because when Hornblower asked Pellew later, he said , "Do you think he was telling the truth?" Pellew said, "I think he was a loyal man."
Does that mean he was loyal to Hornblwoer and lied or that he was loyal to the law and told the truth?
Loyal to Horatio to the end. Horatio pushed Captain Sawyer - there I said it!
shareI have to disagree with this entire thread. I believe it is deliberately unclear and never revealed who, if anyone, pushed Captain Sawyer. The idea here is that it could have been Horatio, or Archie, or the young midshipman, or no one at all. The notion that it could have been any one of these is a stronger conceit, developing the idea that all people have something to hide and guilty secrets. The notion is played further because the idea here is that, even the non-pushers are harboring a guilty secret because they know who did push him.
The fact that Sawyer sees Horatio's shadow does not necessarily mean that Horatio in fact pushed him. If anything, it just adds to Sawyer's paranoia and delusions. My personal view is that no one pushed him, but rather, he fell back while stepping away from Archie, also in a paranoid state.
I think this also plays on the idea of needing a "fall guy" (no pun intended). I really think no one pushed him, but there is a strong need to believe that someone did, particularly by the end of the episode.
To be honest, I don't know why so many people insisted he was pushed anyway. He was backing up towards the open hatch so anyone could easily assume that he fell (I think open hatches are probably very dangerous on ships - any sailors out there wish to verify that?). After all, Horatio did say "it would appear he fell" (or was that Archie?) On the other hand, maybe it was that exact phrasing that allowed everyone's suspicions. Maybe he was pushed, maybe he wasn't, but if he was, I still believe it was Horatio.
shareMy reading of the book has always been that he was pushed by Midshipman Wellard. In particular, the way Hornblower reacts to hearing that Wellard has been killed in a later battle and does not really seem to regret it.
shareI've changed my mind - though 'Retribution' doesn't provide any clearer view of who did what, I think that Horatio did push him after all. In a sense, it doesn't matter - whether he did or not, it's clear that he was going to be convicted of doing so, and that's why Archie took the blame, in order to save him. Theoretically, it's possible that Archie could have pushed him - he was one of the 3 suspects down there with the Captain - but I'm sure he didn't. The photography tells it all - when Buckland is drinking at the end, the red wine pouring over the table looks like blood - *innocent* blood that he's responsible for. He knows that Archie gave up his life to save his friend. It's left ambiguous whether Archie believed that Horatio did it; what's beyond doubt is that he knew that if nothing was done, Horatio would hang for it, guilty or no.
The other thing that makes me think Horatio did it is that I think he's the only one who never asks any of the others what happened, or if they did it. I believe he knows what happened, and is too honest to play games about it.
Flat, drab passion meanders across the screen!
One thing I'm sure of is that unlike in the book where it's certainly Wellard who pushed him, it's *not* Wellard in the movie. He's so obviously set up as the supposed culprit, with him pointing the guns at Sawyer's heads and Hobbs making all these nasty comments, that it has got to be a red herring.
shareAnyone else read the book? It sounds like in the book it's ambiguous. As for the movie, I rented one by one from Blockbuster Online, so I couldn't go back to "Mutiny" to watch the sequence again, but there are quite enough flashbacks in "Retribution."
I think it's meant to stay ambiguous, but I think there are several clear elements to consider. (Warning: this is a long, nerdy post attempting to get a definitive answer to the question!):
1) In the sequence, it does indeed look as though the Captain merely falls back. As it's been pointed out, there's no reason for him to have been pushed when he was backing away from Archie, who was unarmed.
2) In the flashbacks, the others on the scene did in fact have their arms out when the Captain fell, but it very much looked as though they were putting their arms out to try to keep him from falling.
3) For the Captain to have fallen backward from having been pushed, the guilty party would have had to push him from the front, face-to-face. The only person directly in front of him was Archie. This could mean that Archie did, in fact, push him, but the sequence doesn't seem to imply that he lunged forward at all--plus, the Captain, based on his range of memories, should have easily been able to remember Archie lunging at him--and he didn't.
4) After the fall, Horatio said to Bush (I think--or it could have been Buckland he was speaking with) something to the effect of "Yes, we were discussing some sort of mutiny, but then events played themselves out so that we thankfully didn't have to do anything." I don't think Horatio would have lied at that point; if he really did push the Captain, I don't think he would have said that.
These elements seem to point out that no one pushed him; he fell.
But then there are these more sketchy elements:
5) Wellard, when he comes in with the gun and says to the Captain "I can't have you remember, I will not see them hang," is clearly signing his own death warrant. He's young and somewhat inexperienced, but he's certainly not dumb, as seen in the last two episodes. He knows very well that he's probably going down: if he shoots the Captain, there's a slight chance others will think a Spaniard did it, but he could well be caught, and that's certain hanging. His statement sounds on the surface to mean that he's trying to protect the others in that he thinks Hornblower pushed him and he doesn't want the Captain to remember that. But it could also mean that he thinks the Captain's instability could cause him to 'remember' being pushed by whomever he wants to indict, Hornblower being his biggest perceived nemesis. Wellard could also mean that he is the one who pushed the Captain, and he'd rather get it over with now and die in battle knowing the the Captain is gone than go through a messy court-martial of the lieutenants and possibly get them hanged with him.
6) The most interesting element is Hobbs' testimony in court. He says that he can't tell them who pushed the captain. Why? Well, Hobbs seems to hate Hornblower and the others out of his blind loyalty to the Captain, and throughout the episodes is determined to find someone to blame for the fall. So, when he finds Wellard and the Captain dying on the floor of the quarters, he tells Wellard to tell him who did it, to "get it off your chest." Wellard does seem to whisper in his ear, and Hobbs looks startled. Then Horatio comes onto the scene. Now, at that point, if Wellard had said that Horatio did it, wouldn't Hobbs have said the usual vitriol to Horatio's face, e.g. "You hypocrite, I know now that you're the one who did it, and by God, I'll see you hang!" He would have at least glowered, but he says nothing. One could argue that maybe he was afraid Horatio would kill him, but that's highly doubtable. By then, he knows Horatio and has fought side-by-side with him and been treated as an equal; he knows HH is not that kind of guy. So there are a few possibilities here:
a) Wellard told Hobbs that HH did it, and Hobbs is now protecting HH because he's come to respect him.
b) Wellard told Hobbs that he was actually the one who pushed the Captain, and Hobbs is protecting Wellard's name as he was with the young man as he died with the Captain as though protecting the Captain, and had changed his feelings toward him because of that.
c) Wellard told Hobbs that he doesn't know who pushed the Captain, or that the Captain merely fell. Hobbs is disappointed to have no proof against HH, and thus says nothing when HH comes in; rather than tell the court that Wellard actually told him that the Captain wasn't pushed or that he didn't know who did it, he says that he can't tell, hoping that his silence (while staring at HH) will just further indicate Horatio's guilt rather than contradict the accusation of Buckland.
7) The Captain being "pushed" or not pushed is actually not the only matter at hand; prior to the fall, the 4 officers were basically discussing possible mutiny. It's established early on that even saying words that sound like mutiny is enough for a man to get hanged. I think this is an important element in the story, because the fact that they were almost caught making plans by the paranoid Captain is the big deal; if caught, he would have certainly made sure they'd all hang. They had made no plans; they were running away/hiding to avoid having been seen conferring together rather than being on watch. It's highly improbable that they would have quickly thought, "Aha, we can get him in front of that hole and then push him!" Archie comes out from hiding (at his own risk) to attempt to show that they aren't hiding anything. Improbable that they would risk pushing him in front of others who were behind him who might see. This would explain everyone's hesitancy to say anything about the incident; even if no one was guilty of pushing the Captain (which, at this point, I'm arguing), they were guilty of making plans for mutiny and almost being caught in the act.
8) Wellard plays a huge role in the story, and is established early on. If we're to argue that he's the one who pushed the Captain, he's given plenty of motive in advance to make it plausible. Not only has the Captain basically scapegoated him and virtually terrorized him; he has great loyalty to Horatio. He was the only one who knew that at least the 3 officers were making plans, and was on watch to try to cover for them. When Hobbs started after him, he's the one who came down to warn the 4 officers. He wasn't actually hiding with them, so he didn't know if they'd planned anything yet. When Archie comes out of hiding and the paranoid, semi-deranged Captain is pointing two guns at him, Wellard could have impulsively sought to defuse the situation and turn attention off Archie and Horatio by 'helping' the Captain step backwards since he was on his side and not seen directly. Also interesting/cryptic was his little episode on the canon when he has a flashback and says to Horatio something like, "Have you ever done something and then forgotten it?" It's possible that he thinks he did it, whether or not he actually did.
9) Based on Horatio and Archie's last conversation, it seems that Archie didn't push the Captain and didn't know who did, if anyone. He may think Horatio did it--and even if he doesn't think HH did it, he realizes that the evidence is stacked against Horatio and the judges are for sure going to find someone to blame. He makes his decision to take the blame because he knows someone has to, and blaming Wellard isn't going to go anywhere as the young man is already dead. It's interesting to note that Hobbs doesn't protest Archie's declaration. That seems to imply that he might not actually know if anyone in particular did it. Also, Horatio may worry that perhaps Archie actually did it, which was why he rushed down to the holding cells to try to keep Archie from testifying. He seems to care a great deal about his comrades' "good names" and thus would never testify against them.
10) If Horatio actually DID do it, I don't see AT ALL how he possibly could have accepted his promotion and carried on without being totally eaten away by guilt, due to his totally over-introspective personality. I'm under the impression from the books that his character is given to being overly hard on himself to a fault. If he did push the Captain, wouldn't that have followed him to his grave throughout the remaining books? Someone else (on an earlier Who Pushed Him thread--much better than this one, actually! it's titled 'SPOILERS!!!') has also pointed out astutely that due to his guilt-complex-prone nature, it's possible that he is so reticent on the matter because he didn't try harder to keep the Captain from falling. It may be that he feels guilty by omission, somehow, and thus feels like he can't vehemently deny guilt (thus, his reply to Archie's point blank question: "I'll answer that in court").
So--it's still ambiguous, but given all these elements, I would argue that either a) no one pushed the Captain; he fell, or b) Wellard pushed him, but none of the officers saw this; he alone knew. I think more clues point to the former, but either way, I think it's safe to assume that Horatio didn't push the Captain.
My strongest sense was that nobody pushed him - that he was backing away in paranoia from Kennedy and fell. However, given that he claimed to have been pushed, there had to be a fall guy (the testimony of a lieutenant could not be seen to trump that of even a looney captain), and Kennedy decided to sacrifice his honor (his life was lost anyway) to save Hornblower.
The alternate theory is that it WAS Hornblower, and this is what Welland told Hobbs while dying - certainly, something gave the court the idea that Hobbs KNEW it was Hornblower - but when it came to the point, Hobbs' respect for Hornblower overcame his stubborn loyalty to his late captain, so he testified as he did. (If you pay close attention to Hobbs, his emotional journey is one of the finer points of this story.)
He wasn't pushed. He just backed up when he saw Archie and Hornblower moving towards him and he fell.
share[deleted]
That's what I thought, too, after seeing 'Mutiny' last week. He was backing away, and fell through the hatch on his own. And he didn't cut a very heroic figure, either - he was holding TWO loaded pistols, and yet was still backing away from an unarmed man!
Flat, drab passion meanders across the screen!
Horatio pushed him. The commodore says in the end that "Mr. Kennedy took a calculated risk when he pushed Captain Sawyer down the hold for the good of the ship and in all likelihood was right to do so."
He is tactfully saying HORATIO took a calculated risk. And that he was probably right. He also then pauses before saying "Godspeed" and instead says "I wish you... a safe voyage Mr. Hornblower."
In other words, he's saying only God can judge what you did and whether it was right or wrong.
The competing forces of authority on the ship were not going to meet resolution and they were ALL were doing to die. Horatio saw he had two choices:
Let everyone die.
Push the captain.
It's in Horatio's character that he is willing to make hard choices. Most people would say "I had no choice" even though they mean there was "no RIGHT choice."
Horatio did what he felt was best, but it was not a choice most people would make.
Everyone believes he was pushed, so of course someone had to have pushed him. Of course, no one wants to believe one of Nelson's own would be clumsy or careless enough to fall into the hold on his own. But watching Mutiny, no one was near Sawyer when he fell. Horatio and Wellard ran to save him.
Note, Sawyer keeps saying he felt someone's hands on his BACK. The way he fell, he would have had to feel hands on his front to be pushed. The only reason he would feel hands on his back is if someone was trying to catch him.
The idea of foul play is introduced very early on, and never let up on, especially by Hobbs. No one even suggests the idea that Sawyer fell on his own, and it would be a crime of duty at the very least to suggest such a thing of a captain. Hence they need someone to take the blame, regardless that it never happened.
No - I can't agree. When he is finally sane again at the end, he does say that he now remembered who pushed him. IMHO, this is explicitly stating he was pushed. (I have also thought about the comment of "one of you has had a dirty hand in my back"; this is not an inconsistency because at the time he can't remember how he fell and just assumed that he was pushed from behind.) You can see shots of Wellard standing at the side so we know it was not Wellard. I will have to re-watch but I seem to remmeber a shot where it was clear Kenndy could not have and there was an 'ominous' Hornblower shadow on the wall.
However it is no explicitly stated and I think that we are just supposed to infer that it was Hornblower. If memory serves, this is (n a way) like the book which makes it equally clear that it is Wellard but without any actual clear stating of the facts.
Horatio pushed him. In one of the final chapters of "Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies", Hornblower indicates that he did, in fact, push Captain Sawyer.
shareI agree with you .I think it's Horatio who pushed sawyer.it couldn't be Archie nor wellard.
shareI've watched this ep again since my last post and i've thought about the question.first I thought it was Horatio ,he could do it, and when hobbs testify he's looking at horatio .in the other hand , nobody pushed captain Sawyer , he just fell; but the admiralty needed a scapegoat . Archie knew very well Horatio and his sense of duty that's why he gave his good name and save horatio's life confessing something he didn't do.
shareSome interesting arguments... I'm a big fan - I've read all the books and seen the films and in my opinion, Horatio pushed him...
shareHoratio pushed him, thats why Archie says how Horatio has saved them (the crew) thousands of times over, and can horatio not let him do this one thing for him?
shareOkay, my take? No one pushed him. The flashbacks point at Horatio because of the shadow the captain sees in his memories; it's clearly Horatio's hair. But if you watch the scene, Horatio stepped in front of the hatch AFTER the captain fell...it's when the captain looks up after Horatio moves that he sees him. That's a critical part of the story, becuase that shadowy outline of Horatio's distinctive sillouhette is the main reason Sawyer thought he pushed him. The shots we see of arms outstretched weren't of someone pushing him (indeed, if they were, it would mean all of them pushed him)...they were trying to catch him.
I think he just backed into the hole, but everyone BELIEVED Horatio pushed him, Wellard and Kennedy included. Kennedy had no problems with it, believing that Horatio had done the right thing; so, since he was dying anyway, he took the blame to let Horatio off for something he didn't really do.
What's interesting to me is Hobb's change of heart. At first he wanted to see whoever did it hanged, but I think as the story unfolded he started to have some respect for Horatio. The big turning point was Horatio's speech to Captain Sawyer about how he'd been such a great and brave man, but was now paying for that bravery with his breakdown. That, and Horatio's actions at the fort I think led Hobbs to understand him a little better, and to realize he wasn't just a weak, whiny officer after all. It helps that he had Buckland nearby for comparison, who WAS a weak officer. Hobbs, I think, had judged Horatio by that standard, and began to realize that Horatio and Buckland were totally different, especially during the trial when it was repeatedly shown that Horatio was far more capable than Buckland in every way.
So, in the end, I really don't think he was pushed; I think he fell, looked up in time to see Horatio's shadow after he moved to the head of the hatch, and thought he'd been pushed.
I completely agree. I'll only add that Captain Sawyer disliked Horatio and was threatened by him; combined with Sawyer's paranoia, it's easy to see why he would be convinced that one of his officers had pushed him.
shareA late entry to this thread!
Although in the book it is heavily implied that Wellard is the one to push Sawyer, in the film it seems from the slow motion sequences that Sawyer tripped backwards and into the open hatch.
The point is that in the film, everyone including Sawyer believes that he had been pushed and that it must have been Hornblower who did so. Although I don't think Kennedy actually believed that, merely that he was dying and saw the opportunity to save his friend from being hung because clearly someone was going to be scapegoated for it.
I think Hobbs was told by Wellard that Sawyer believed it was Hornblower and he chose not to say so in the court martial because he believed that Hornblower had acted throughout with the best intentions for the ship and the crew, that he had not done it simply to make his life easier or out of malicious intent etc.
It was telling that Hornblower was the one who almost convinced Hobbs to release them from the hold when they were under attack from the Spanish fort but Hobbs changed his mind when the others interfered.
Hobbs realised that Hornblower respected Sawyer for his achievements and his comments about not seeing Sawyer harmed or the crew seeing how into madness he had fallen rang true to Hobbs and he understood how his hero was lost. Hornblower tried to ensure Sawyer still was remembered with dignity, which meant a lot to Hobbs.
I just watched this movie, and I haven't read the books, but when Captain Sawyer fell, I had no thought that he had been pushed. Because Hornblower, Kennedy, and Wellerd were all standing on the upper deck, and because of the whole atmosphere of paranoia, of course they were going to get blamed. I expected that Hornblower's integrity and the testimony of his friends would see him through.
As the movie went on, the notion that someone did push the captain just wouldn't go away, and all the little odd comments about it, Wellerd's breakdown, and the fact that Hornblower never flat out denied pushing Sawyer made it conceivable that it had not been an accident.
Hornblower's character is such that I think he would have felt terribly guilty had he pushed the captain, and I didn't get any sense of that during the film. I don't really understand why, if we are to conclude at the end that Hornblower did push Sawyer and let Kennedy take the blame, it wasn't made a little clearer in the key scene when Sawyer fell that it hadn't been an accident.
OK I've just watched Mutiny and Retribution and have come to these conclusions
1) The captain fell down the hatch and wasn't pushed
2) Just before the captain died, he did not tell Wellard who pushed him - we saw the entire scene, he said he knew who pushed him but never said who it was. Wellard was willing to risk his own life for Archie and Horatio, so it's most likely he whispered "It was me" in Hobb's ear.
3) Hobb looked shocked by the answer. In my opinion, he knew it wasn't Wellard, but surprised that he was willing to name himself as the one who did it to get Archie and Horatio off the hook. In fact I seem to remember Commodore Pellew mentioning that other people were willing to sacrifice their own lives for Hornblower.
4) Hobb could have named Hornblower as the one who pushed the captain, but realizing that he had great respect for the captain, and that so many people were willing to sacrifice their own lives for him, he decided to be honest and tell them the truth, that he didn't know.
In reality, no one pushed Captain Sawyer. If you look at the clips of him falling closely, you'll see that he tripped and fell. The hands of Willard and Archie came out just to try and catch Capt. Sawyer. At least, that's my opinion. I also think Pellew was talking about Archie being loyal to Hornblower. He knew Hornblower was in danger of being executed, so he took the blame, seeing that he was close to death anyway.
shareIn the movie its explicitly shown that no one pushed him. This might be an error in the way its filmed but you can clearly see Sawyer back into the hatch and fall, then Horatio, Archie and Wellard all three try to catch him and miss.
Now the way the films play out it seems its supposed to be more ambiguous, so each viewer can decide for themselves if any of the 3 pushed him, but the way its filmed shows that no one did.
In the book its just Horatio and Wellard there, and its also left ambiguous although its heavily implied that Wellard pushed him, as at the end of the novel Bush finds out that Wellard is dead and asks Horatio what happened and Horatio says he doesn't know. This woudl indicate he's protecting Wellard even after he's dead, a theme echoed in the movie by Hornblower wanting Archie's good name unspoiled even though he is dead.
The Captain fell. Plain and simple. Not to mention he had 2 pistols in his hand. Archie was in front of him, if it was anyone it would've been Archie. But don't you think that the Captain could've gotten off at least one shot before Archie closed the gap between himself and the Captain - especially when you consider the Captain was paranoid and had both fingers on the triggers of his pistols.