Waterfalls and Twelfth Night

When you pull the bottom tab of the waterfall card each flap opens up to finally reveal a single bigger piece of paper. This is like the final act of Twelfth Night. 

Each flap corresponds to each conflict that became solved. Generally, there are four flaps in a waterfall card which can correspond to four conflicts that were resolved in the play. One conflict is Viola and Sebastian not knowing that they are both alive; once they saw each other and started talking to each other they figured out who they were. Once this was resolved, the others followed quickly after; just like once the tab is pulled and the first flap is raised the others follow after. The second conflict that was resolved was that Viola and Orsino could get married because it was revealed that Viola is actually a woman. The third was Olivia and Sebastian getting married because Sebastian looks like Cesario and the fourth conflict that was resolved was Malvolio realizing that it was Maria that wrote the letter and not Olivia. Finally, the large paper is all the marriages and how all the knots smoothed out in the end.

The marriages that are occurring at the end of Act V are Viola and Orsino, Olivia and Sebastian, and Sir Toby and Maria. However, are any of these marriages based on love? Viola loved Orsino, but Orsino never loved Viola. He didn’t know that she was a woman until Act V. He still calls her Cesario and she never changes back into her own clothing at the end of the act. Olivia loved Cesario, but married Sebastian thinking that he was Cesario. Sebastian didn’t know who Olivia was until Act III and he said how great is his luck and then agreed to marry her. Finally, Sir Toby marries Maria because of her clever trick on Malvolio. All of these marriages occurred very casually. Sebastian just accepted that Olivia wanted to marry him without questioning anything, and because they were married and Viola is actually a woman, it feels like Orsino had no other option than to marry Viola, not because he actually loves her. Therefore, I don’t think that any of these characters can be described as actually in love.