Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are minor fictional characters from William Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet. They are also major characters in Tom Stoppard's Waiting for Godot/Hamlet pastiche, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead.

As the protagonists of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, they often stumble upon deep philosophical truths through their nonsensical ramblings, however, they depart from these ideas as quickly as they come to them. At times one appears to be more enlightened than the other; however this light is traded off throughout the course of the drama. Because of Dead's similarity with Waiting for Godot, Rosencrantz is sometimes compared with Estragon (one of the tramps who are "waiting" for Godot), who shares his dim perception of reality, while Guildenstern is compared with Vladimir, who shares his analytical perception.

In Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern attempt to place themselves in the confidence of the title character, a childhood friend. In reality, however, they are serving as informants for the corrupt King Claudius, Hamlet's uncle, who usurped the throne and constantly attempts to check his nephew. Both meet their end in England, where a scheme of Hamlet's results in the English court's execution of both.

Other uses

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Keiji Inafune, creator of the popular Capcom-based Onimusha series, routinely adopts the names of Shakespeare's fictional characters, particularly the villianous ones, as both main and sub-villains in all his works (e.g. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern). A character named Guildenstern in the Onimusha games as a mad genma/demon scientist who tries to obliterate humans. Rosencrantz from the same series appears as a giant Genma fly scientist who possesses Luis Frois.

Both names are also used as characters in videogames such as Vagrant Story, where Guildenstern is the primary villain.

Shakespearean characters