Macbeth was a carefully orchestrated plot by Banquo...
...Created to put his family in the seat of power without dirtying his hands. What he didn't gamble on was Macbeth going as far as to kill him; but he found that this strengthened his plans rather than ruining them.- Apparently, this isn't too far off from what happened in real life. Banquo was an accomplice in Macbeth's plot but Shakespeare made him a good guy because he was an ancestor of King James.
- Well, in the chronicles Shakespeare was using, yes. Not so much real life, since Banquo probably didn't exist — "Fleance" is based on Flaald of Dol, who was actually a Breton who migrated to Scotland. Flaald's real father almost certainly never met Macbeth.
Macbeth was a carefully orchestrated plot by Malcolm...
...Created to put Malcolm into power. Not only does it get his father out of the way more quickly, but it puts him into power in the most heroic way possible. He bribes three scary-looking old ladies to give a cryptic message to Macbeth and has an agent on the battlefield tell them that the Thane of Cawdor has died.Also, his speech to Macduff about how evil he is? It's actually a Sarcastic Confession, not a Secret Test of Character.
Macbeth was a carefully orchestrated plot by Lady Macbeth...
...who's also one of the 3 witches. Along with her 2 cohorts, Lady Macbeth implanted the thought of becoming king in Macbeth's head, involving him in a plan that was originally her own to steal the crown and vindicate her master, Hecate (or maybe just whatever witch religion-thing she and her other witches are a part of). Why else would she include both of Duncan's guards as the ones to take the blame, when only 1 is necessary? Obviously, that was added so Macbeth would think it's all about him, but the plan was originally independent of Macbeth.Not to mention, at one point, she invokes "spirits/ That tend on mortal thoughts" to fill her "from the crown to the toe topful/ Of direst cruelty!" before Duncan arrives. Now, who do we know who invokes dark spirits?!
Actually, she may be calling for another type of spirits. I.E., whiskey.
Macbeth was a carefully orchestrated plot by Macduff...
...to prevent Macbeth from becoming King of Scotland. Essentially, he kills Macbeth so that Malcolm can be King.- Isn't this canon?
- No? OP's idea seems to be that Macduff tried to manipulate Macbeth and Lady Macbeth from the beginning to kill the king, so that he may appear afterwards as a saviour.
Macbeth was a carefully orchestrated plot by Macbeth himself...
...to become king and get overthrown. He kills Duncan, thus becoming king, but he is overthrown by Macduff because Malcolm is the true heir to the throne. Which he all did on purpose, to have one of the most memorable deaths in history. The part of Macbeth where Hecate appears was added later by another playwright.
That scene sucks compared to the rest of the play. Note that many Shakespeare scholars argue this theory.- The scene's quality is all a matter of opinion. Hecate's importance as classical goddess of Witches would have been better known to the students in Shakespeare's contemporary audience, who found witch scenes very important — and besides, King James, who the play would likely have been written to please, would enjoy the idea of witchcraft having a very visible structure of authority — imagine an author during Bush's Presidency fitting Deimos (Greek God whose name means 'Terror') into a comic book as the leader of a gang of terrorists.
- The scene is usually cut by most modern Shakespeare directors to avoid having to cut other, slightly more important parts of "Macbeth." This has resulted in an unjustified impression that the scene itself is not very good.
- Plus, the scene coupled with Lennox's dialogue afterwards allows a small breather between Macbeth announcing he'll see the Witches and his visiting the Witches, allowing Shakespeare to build up the tension before the meeting.
- The songs mentioned in the scenes are confirmed to have been written by another playwright, for use in the plays he wrote about Hecate. These plays were highly popular, so it's safe to say that, once he got his hands on Macbeth, he inserted Hecate because she was an audience favorite and threw in a few witch songs he'd already written.
- Of course, due to the near absence of copyrights, coupled with Shakespeare borrowing so much from other authors, it is a difficult claim to make that Shakespeare didn't just add in some other author's songs into his original play.
Executive Meddling forced Shakespeare to put Hecate in Macbeth
He used Stylistic Suck in the hopes it would be taken out.- Again, the scene is usually cut by most modern Shakespeare directors to avoid having to cut other, slightly more important parts of "Macbeth." This has resulted in an unjustified impression that the scene itself is not very good.
Lady Macbeth was possessed by the witches and not in control of her actions.
Notice how she seems to swing widly from fear to control. She also has a "spot" which in those days was believed to be a symbol of evil possession by the devil. Near the beginning of the play she asks evil spirits to give her strength. The witches used her to make sure Macbeth would kill Duncan and become evil. Her Sanity Slippage was her after she was released from being possessed and realizing what she had done. Banquo's ghost wasn't really a ghost
Okay, hear me out here. Banquo was murdered by a band of three murderers, right? But what about the mysterious third murderer who just appears out of nowhere? In one of the film adaptations, he kills the other two after Banquo dies. But it wasn't really Banquo, it was a body double that Banquo had hired. He knew that Macbeth was going to try and kill him. Fleance escaped because the third murderer (Banquo) went after him to instruct him to spread word of "Banquo's" demise. Banquo's ghost at the banquet was actually Banquo pretending to be his ghost. The reason for this was that if he could drive MacBeth insane with guilt, he would retire from the throne. However, the rest of the people there (even Lady Macbeth) were in on this. You've noticed how Lady MacBeth seemed like she didn't want any more killing, that's evidence that she doesn't approve of MacBeth anymore and wants him out of power. The reason Banquo's "ghost" only appears once is because there was a large group of people there (it's useless to go "insane" if there's no witnesses), ripe to spread rumors about their insane ruler.Sleep No More is actually a sequel to Macbeth, and their Macbeth is an indirect descendant of the original Macbeth.
Macbeth had an unseen stepson from his marriage to Lady Macbeth. What nobody knew after Macbeth's beheading was that the witches had put a curse on his bloodline during his dealings with them. The curse would eventually cause one of his descendants to relive his ancestor's horrific crimes in some way at random points over the centuries, and the three seemingly eternal witches would always be present to bear witness when the time finally came. This eventually led to Sleep No More and the events at the McKittrick Hotel with Mr. and Mrs. Macbeth. Sleep No More is the cycle of Macbeth's curse repeating itself, and it is destined to repeat itself again in the future...The three witches are Bernkastel, Lambdadelta, and Erika.
They did say they were going to find another story to hang out in, after all. And “Hecate” is just another alias of Featherine, obviously. The Thane of Cawdor position is cursed.
At the beginning of the play, the Thane of Cawdor is the traitor Mac Donwald, a man on whom King Duncan had built “an absolute trust.” He faces his death with honor, and his title passes to Macbeth. Macbeth then betrays Duncan (this time by killing him) and, when the time comes for him to die, he goes out honorably. Both men die by beheading and have their heads presented to the King.
What if Mac Duff is next in line for this curse?
Mac Donwald’s betrayal happened because he, too, met the Three Witches.
The Weird Sisters are Bene Gesserit
Macbeth was a carefully orchestrated plan by them to test Macbeth to root out the Kwisatz Haderach, out of three candidates: Macbeth, Banquo and Macduff. It turned out to be Macduff but he gave up the throne to Malcolm, thereby frustrating their plans and forcing them to try again.