probably screaming

Ooh actually there was one other small meta that I was thinking about writing in the last week and vaguely forgot to to. It’s parallels between Wait For It and World Was Wide Enough.
There’s a lot of genius meta out there about Wait For it, from the “putting Hamilton on the same level as love, life, and death,” or I think I did a thing way back on Hamilton and “he takes and he takes and he takes” but the only thing he’s been taking so far is people’s affection, like. There’s so much about that song that is perfect.
But I don’t think I’ve seen anyone compare Wait For It and The World Was Wide Enough.
Firstly, there’s the fact that The World Was Wide Enough is the answer to the question that Burr has been asking the whole musical: “is there a reason? Is there a reason why everyone who has ever cared about me ends up dead?” He states that he’s willing to wait for it.
Well, The World Was Wide Enough gives that answer: no. There is no reason. Death doesn’t discriminate, there is no reason he could have known that Alexander would aim at the sky, there is no way he could understand, the whole song is about his increasing breakdown at the inevitability of it all–how his voice breaks at “this man will not make an orphan of my daughter”–how the whole song is about him trying to give one reason after another, but none of them are satisfactory, the scream of “WAIT”–that’s the realization that there’s no reason this should have happened.
Aaron Burr waits the whole show for that answer, and the answer is, “there is no reason,” and then he just sort of…fades. Disappears back into his role of narrator, drops out of our history books; no one really cares what happened to Aaron Burr after the duel.
Then there’s the second part of my comparison of the two songs. Take another look at the Hamilton verse of Wait For it.
Hamilton doesn’t hesitate
He exhibits no restraint
He takes and he takes and he takes
And he keeps winning anyway
He changes the game
He plays and he raises the stakes
And if there’s a reason
He seems to thrive when so few survive, then Goddamnit—
Looking at that verse in the context of the duel. The whole setup: Aaron sends a simple letter asking for an apology, Hamilton exhibits no restraint in sending back a scathing insult of a response. The game was supposed to be one of politics; Alexander changes it to one of life and death. Raising the stakes indeed.
But there’s this other underlying theme of at least in the first Act, no matter what Hamilton seems to do, he wins. That’s one of the reasons why Burr is fascinated with him and a bit jealous–he walks in and is hired right on sight when Washington rejects Burr, he snags a Schuyler sister when Angelica literally shoves Burr away, don’t even get me started on Non-Stop, Hamilton always wins. And then the second Act is about when Hamilton starts losing–how he starts to sacrifice his morals for the creation of his political legacy (Room Where It Happens, Cabinet Battle #2), he manages to entirely destroy his family through the affair, and his own political career via his letter against John Adams and The Reynolds Pamphlet, he’s a mess, Act 2 is about his downfall.
But Aaron Burr doesn’t really see it that way. Burr sees Hamilton in The Room Where It Happens and he sees Hamilton as winning still (”you got more than you gave”), he wants that, he wants what Hamilton has, he wants to win like that. He goes after a seat in the Senate, he joins the Democratic Republicans, but he still seems Hamilton as winning. Even when they go and threaten him in We Know, when Hamilton says “How do I know you won’t use this against me the next time we go toe to toe?” Hamilton still fully expects them to go toe to toe, Hamilton still fully expects situations in which he might win against Burr–and, of course, that’s all Burr sees. Someone on his level, someone who’s going to beat him again, not someone who has lost everything and is grasping at straws.
It’s this fundamental misunderstanding of how far Hamilton has fallen–it’s this fundamental respect and awe that Burr has for Hamilton–that ultimately leads to the duel. Burr doesn’t for a moment believe that Hamilton is ever going to lose, because Hamilton isn’t someone who loses at anything. Hamilton can’t lose in his mind. That’s why he becomes increasingly panicked, because he can’t see an outcome of this where Hamilton doesn’t come out on top.
And then he shoots Hamilton.
That’s where the music turns back to Wait For It, that’s where it turns back to Burr asking if there’s a reason. Wait For It is the first time that Burr is completely open and completely vulnerable to the audience, and the shock of Hamilton dying, it puts Burr right back there. It makes him question everything he ever believed about Hamilton, it’s why he re-casts the whole duel in his mind so that Hamilton still wins it:
When Alexander aimed at the sky,
He may have been the first one to die,
But I’m the one who paid for it.
I survived but I paid for it.
Aaron Burr is the only person in the musical who still looks at Alexander with the same awe and respect as he had for him in the first Act. And that’s what kills Alexander, that Aaron never stopped believing in him.