Everyone Drowns

Eight characters die by the final scene, Hamlet among them. His long delay multiplies the violence: his moral caution ends up producing a higher body count than the original murder he set out to avenge — a devastating irony Shakespeare fully intended.

The damage is personal, not abstract. Ophelia's drowning, perhaps the play's most tragic casualty, follows directly from Hamlet's erratic cruelty toward her. The harm of his hesitation lands hardest on the people closest to him.