Niles Crane Is...

Will this ever end? Signs point to no.

FRASIER is…

a Satyricon subtleties from horrid, decadent Roman feasts—a cockatrice stuffed into the legs of a flamingo—the saturnine head of an old toothless lion—the suave torso of a bear...the limbs of a preening peacock—all stitched together with the lust of a satyr; a bloody Knight Templar; a lolling Henry VIII stitching his murdered wives into entremets; Bluebeard feasting in his mad slippery castle; a returning Crusader; the homo sacer who may be killed but never sacrificed, who lives above and outside the law, hallowed and cursed, prohibited and sacred, the man who can never be murdered, the sovereign and the outlaw, the non-person, the wolf’s-head; Cyrano de Bergerac; Caligula gasping for more and unlovelier pleasures; a human centaur; a treacherous cleric; a capering Faustus; the Baroness rejecting the von Trapp children; the site of trauma and the organ of repression; the anti-suffragist; the murderous doctor; an enemy of the state and the state itself; Robespierre in a bath of blood; a dying Odin and a wanton Thor; the notary of damnation; urge; the curfew-caller and the night-warden; the White Ship of William Adeline; the drowned heir; mighty Poseidon brimming with foam and fury; a drunk and a warlord; a butcher from Rouen; the first watchmaker; the Ancient Mariner; the Roman centurion who pierced the side of Christ.

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Niles Crane is…

The Black Swan. Niles Crane is the Black Dahlia. Niles Crane is the eternal femme fatal, the troublesome hysteric, the madwoman in the attic, the wandering womb, the wounded Fisher King, the animal within the animal, the living thing within the living thing, the chaste Joseph fleeing Potiphar’s wife, the unportioned brother. Niles Crane is the cask of Amontillado, the Maltese Falcon, Death in Venice. Wealhþēow in the mead-hall, carrying the cup of peace and leading the shieldmaidens; Grendel's mother without the mead-hall, carrying the grudge of outlaws and leading the scapegoats. Judas in the garden, surrounded by perfume and fragrance, slight of frame and quick to kiss. The limbs of Guy Fawkes, resting unquiet under English soil. Mata Hari dancing and blowing kisses in defiance before a firing squad, Marie Antoinette toiling in the pleasure-gardens with her milkmaids before the blow. The suffering Virgin bearing aloft Christ; the Rondel dagger, Mr. Bojangles, the Man in the Iron Mask, Tiny Tim, the Witch of Blackbird Pond, Ariadne waiting for Theseus, Medea scorned, Congreve’s Mourning Bride, Lucia of Lammermoor, Lady Dedlock, the Church Triumphant.