What If Ferdinand Didn't Meet Miranda
“Time. Space. Reality. It’s more than a linear path. It’s a prism of endless possibility, where a single choice can branch out into infinite realities, creating alternate worlds from the ones you know. I am the Watcher. I am your guide through these vast new realities. Follow me, and ponder the question... What if?”
... This is familiar isn’t it. From Marvel’s What if, I am going to introduce you to a different dimension of the Tempest to ponder over the topic, “What if, Ferdinand didn’t meet Miranda, what would it be like…”
In our dimension, what we know is a violent storm rages around a small ship at sea. The master of the ship calls for his boatswain to rouse the mariners to action and prevent the ship from being run aground by the tempest. Chaos ensues.
After a while, Prospero tells Miranda to look upon Ferdinand, and Miranda, who has seen no humans in her life other than Prospero and Caliban, immediately falls in love.
But in another dimension, Ariel is imprisoned by Sycorax, but this time with a more powerful spell, even stronger than Prospero's magic. But Sycorax has given the secret trick to only one person. So now, as Ariel is imprisoned and no spell can release him, Ferdinand fails to arrive at Prospero’s place.
Follow me through this dimension of Tempest to see what would have happened in the above scenario.
Now as Prospero and Ferdinand don’t meet each other, Prospero begins to search for a man and finds Sebastian. After Sebastian arrives before Prospero, he uses his magic to make Miranda fall in love with Sebastian.
Miranda also falls in love with Sebastian just as Prospero planned. So once Prospero completes his task of getting Miranda a life partner, he goes back to Milan after burning his magic books and renouncing magic.
But then after reaching Milan, Prospero realizes he had made a mistake. And as he tries to go back to the island, he is put into prison by Antonio, Prospero’s brother due to Antonio’s arrogant, cynical and villainy character. So as Prospero can’t use any magic to free himself, he remains in the prison filled with sorrows.
Now that Sebastian knows both Ariel and Prospero are gone, he tries to rule the island. He makes Miranda his slave and tells her to carry the logs and work for him. As this happens, Ferdinand who has been searching for some life on the island sees Miranda and quickly falls in love with her.
But Miranda who is already in love with Sebastian seems to not be interested in Ferdinand. But Ferdinand wants Miranda by his side. While all this happens on the island, back in Milan, Prospero has been watching from his prison.
He is heartbroken, blaming himself for everything that has happened on the island. Then Sebastian, starts to admire Miranda’s beauty, her character and slowly falls in love with her day by day.
Days pass, Antonio and Alonso who are still in Milan leave Prospero to be looked after by a few prison keepers and are travelling by the island that night, where the others are situated. An unexpected sea storm strikes Antonio, Alonso, and other crew members.
Antonio and Alonso reach the island for safety and decide to camp there, that night. But these two men don’t know that they are on the same island where others are situated, nor do the others know these two have arrived on the island.
Hours pass, it is the next morning and already Alonso and Antonio have come to know about Sebastian’s stories on the island. The two have started to plan the murder of Sebastian. Now that Sebastian is the one living with Miranda in place of Prospero in the cave, the two evil men make a plan to murder Sebastian.
The plan is to murder Sebastian and one takes over the island and one marries Miranda. But then all of a sudden, Caliban spots these two planning their murder. At first, Caliban is confused, as he doesn’t know these two and how they came in.
Then he sees these two planning and plotting murders and quickly understands the situation. Then he also joins in with Antonio and Alonso because like many others, he has a crush on Miranda too. So they begin planning right away thinking they don’t have any time to waste.
Now that Caliban is with the two evil men, Caliban leads Antonio and Alonso to a place where Ariel is imprisoned. Caliban with the company of Antonio and Alonso quickly releases Ariel from the spell. Now that Ariel is free, she becomes part of them to kill Sebastian, but he doesn’t join them wholeheartedly, she knows something is happening.
After days of planning, and days of moving around the island, they are now a group of 5. Antonio, Alonso, Ariel, Caliban and Ferdinand, 4 of them have their reasons to kill Sebastian except for Ariel. But then as the play moves on Ariel becomes more like a messenger and serves Sebastian.
Now that Sebastian knows what has been going on, he takes a few sailors with him and boards the ship with his love, Miranda. He also takes Ariel with him on the ship, and all three travel back to Milan, leaving behind all the others.
(After reaching Milan…)
“Oh, it has been a tiring yet wonderful ride, good to be back to Milan”, sighs Sebastian. They have only reached Milan a few minutes ago and already Miranda got worried about her father. Soon Sebastian sent his sailors to look for Prospero.
As soon as Sebastian saw Prospero, he fell on Prospero’s feet begging for forgiveness. Though Prospero is a bit sympathetic, he thinks for a while. Looking at Miranda grown up and ariel freed, he forgives Sebastian.
He is no less proud for making Sebastian fall in love with Miranda, instead of Ferdinand. He thinks Sebastian has shown a hard-working side in life to Miranda.
And now everyone back to their old businesses, Prospero becomes the Duke of Milan, he makes Ariel his assistant. Sebastian becomes the king of Naples, and as he is the brother of Alonso, the courtiers and the people are more than happy to accept him. Miranda becomes the queen of Naples.
Back on the island, a sad life continues, as the others seem to be exhausted in searching for Sebastian and Co. And that is all from this dimension of the Tempest, will look into other dimensions in the next part…
