I Heard That A Lot Of People Didn’t Catch It On Their First Listen Of Episode 25, But I Am FASCINATED

I heard that a lot of people didn’t catch it on their first listen of episode 25, but I am FASCINATED by Arthur’s horrified whisper of “I killed him…” after Matthew died, before John reacted.  Less for that reflexive guilt, but more for how as soon as John started accusing Arthur of killing him, Arthur throws up his walls.  John seems to have missed that whisper too, with “Don’t you feel any remorse?” when Arthur’s first reaction was horror at himself.  But as soon as someone ELSE is accusing him, out come the claws and the hissing and spitting.  

I think John’s hitting more of a nerve than he realizes simply because Arthur is already seeing himself as a monster who lost his humanity: that first night with Yellow, drunken and exhausted, he recites the “Invictus” poem and says that “someone far more human than I” wrote it.  During his argument with John while trapped in the walls, he talks about being “lectured on his lost humanity by a god,” stating it as just an observable fact.  And before all that…Faust.   He’s already sure he’s less than human, but hearing it from the only friend he has left in the world?  That’s more painful than he can bear.

“I killed him,” Arthur says, a confession only he hears.  “You killed him,” John says, unknowing that the condemnation was already laid down.