... It is then not only that both protagonists are good-looking, but also that both of their good looks engender nearly identical plot patterns — rises and falls in the confusing world of foreign courts, reversals of expectations amidst outside dangers and inner tensions, and ultimate deliverance from a peril that threatened so intensely. And to shrink from drawing the appropriate conclusion at this point, to hesitate concerning the intentionality of this complex relationship, would fail to deal with the completeness of the linguistic and thematic evidence. The author of the Masoretic Text of Esther knew the Joseph story, and engaged with it throughout the Megillah in sustained and productive dialogue. ...