Saturday, April 14

Titanic, 100 years later

So, you know when you know the ending of an event, but still hope that, in the retelling, the story and/or ending has changed? Like in The Other Boleyn Sister, when you end up hoping that Natalie Portman, as Ann Boleyn, actually doesn't get killed? Or United 93? Or even like Apollo 13, when you know they survive it, but you're all stressed out about their fate anyway?
This night in history, April 14 to April 15, was, 100 years ago, the night Titanic sank. And thanks to the wonder of current technology, I was treated to a tweeted retelling of the sinking. The History Channel put together this Titanic Real Time account, and it followed every aspect of Titanic, from its building and launch, to tonight, when it sank. Each segment of the ship's population posted to the Twitter feed, including the captain, crew, engineering, third class, first class, and band.
So, tonight, we had the tweets about the iceberg; the captain learning about the damage; the passengers getting on, and not getting on, the lifeboats; the other ships in the area making way after hearing the distress signals; and finally, the scary decline in tweets, and lack of tweets entirely from Titanic personnel.
And getting back to the wanting of a different ending: Even knowing what I know, the amount of information about Titanic that I already know, I found myself all kinds of stressed out about all these people, all this activity, and what was going to happen. I kept hoping, and hoping and hoping, that the captain would pay additional attention to the ice warnings, or that they would shift course a little bit, or that they wouldn't assume that their ship could just roll through any ice they encountered. I was hoping that more people would get on the boats, or that someone would say, "HEY!!" at some point along the way. All, sadly, for naught. It ended the same way it did 100 years ago.
I got all stressed out and upset, and was heartbroken at the end.

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