The White Queen
Sep. 20th, 2013 05:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chocolatepotI haven't quite finished yet (taking a break from sewing and watching to make and eat dinner), and I'm glad I waited to write about it because I think it did get better in some of the ways I was annoyed with it.
So, the main issue the series has - apart from Philippa Gregory being terrible - is that it gets completely bogged down in politics and exposition, and all of the characters feel like they've gotten a textbook from the future and know what's going to happen and what's really going on. When it comes to making me understand what it would feel like to live through times of such political turmoil, misinformation flying and loyalties changing at the drop of a hat, GRRM has won.
This is a bold statement, but: TWQ could learn a lot from The Tudors.
The Tudors actually ran into the opposite problem - I think it was the second season, where Henry was trying to get a divorce and they kept trying to be suspenseful about whether or not he would. But there was plenty of stuff going on outside the romance/marriage plot, and it never felt like people were all single-mindedly thinking about "how can I bed her?" or "how can I influence the king?" Whereas in TWQ, all anyone thinks about or wants is ~the crown~, and nothing else ever happens in their lives except the crown shifting around. Dialogue does almost nothing beyond summarize what is going on in a featureless voice, lines that any character could believably say. All the action with the French? Basically handled off-screen.
Which is in the main based in Gregory's problems rather than the adaptation. (I read about half of TWQ and none of the rest of the series, but I've read some other Gregory and I feel safe in assuming that this is basically how it went in the books.) She just does not characterize beyond a few tropes. Women are either Pawns or Players: if they are Pawns they are quiet and thoughtful (if a protagonist), and sad when they are used; if they are Players they may be either good or bad, but are hardened and seriously focused. Anne and Isabelle are pawns - Anne becoming a dark player later on, and Isabelle starting out like a baby player but going back to pawn and veering wildly from sad pawn to cheerful jerk and back again. Pretty much everyone else is a player. Not only are they flattened like this, but nobody's actions make sense outside of "because it happened that way". Edward had to take George back and not expect him to do anything else bad because it's what happened, but George is basically full Juan Borgia all the time and it makes no sense in the story.
I am frankly not sure if the writing is better for Richard and Warwick or if they just seemed like fuller characters because they had better actors.
What I dislike most academically is the way that Gregory has of choosing the stupidest bits of history rumor to go with. Having George drown in a butt of Malmsey was stupid enough (and I can see they're going to go with Perkin Warbeck as well, ugh), but, as with Anne Boleyn, it's like there's no thought going on as to why it might be creepy to validate misogynistic slander. And not only is it stupid to be like "Yes, Elizabeth Woodville was totally a witch!", it's even more stupid to then have other characters accuse her of being a witch and expect me to feel anything over it. She is! She did cause the storm that killed Isabelle and George's baby!
Not to mention that contrasting witchly Elizabeth with pious (only in a bad way) Margaret is an obnoxious cliché. It's not quite as bad as having some ancient churchman stumbling around and talking about hellfire and all sort of things that the Old Ways don't have, but - Elizabeth Woodville was devout enough! Everyone was. I wouldn't have minded her doing ~spells so much if they didn't always work, tbh. (Another thing The Tudors did well - spirituality, religion, seriously believing God is doing things on purpose, etc.)
Arranged marriages always being appalling is another peeve (and of course daughters going but I want to marry someone I love! close behind). We don't know very much about Edward of Westminster, so why does he have to be a rapist with the cold dead eyes of a killer? Why can't he be humanized a bit? Anne/Richard (before Anne becomes awful) hits all my kinks so I'm willing to go with a contrast to Richard's ~gentlemanly ways~ to an extent, but come on.
All that said, I think the text is reasonably sympathetic to all the women, though much, much more to Elizabeth and Jacquetta. So, um, okay.
So, the main issue the series has - apart from Philippa Gregory being terrible - is that it gets completely bogged down in politics and exposition, and all of the characters feel like they've gotten a textbook from the future and know what's going to happen and what's really going on. When it comes to making me understand what it would feel like to live through times of such political turmoil, misinformation flying and loyalties changing at the drop of a hat, GRRM has won.
This is a bold statement, but: TWQ could learn a lot from The Tudors.
The Tudors actually ran into the opposite problem - I think it was the second season, where Henry was trying to get a divorce and they kept trying to be suspenseful about whether or not he would. But there was plenty of stuff going on outside the romance/marriage plot, and it never felt like people were all single-mindedly thinking about "how can I bed her?" or "how can I influence the king?" Whereas in TWQ, all anyone thinks about or wants is ~the crown~, and nothing else ever happens in their lives except the crown shifting around. Dialogue does almost nothing beyond summarize what is going on in a featureless voice, lines that any character could believably say. All the action with the French? Basically handled off-screen.
Which is in the main based in Gregory's problems rather than the adaptation. (I read about half of TWQ and none of the rest of the series, but I've read some other Gregory and I feel safe in assuming that this is basically how it went in the books.) She just does not characterize beyond a few tropes. Women are either Pawns or Players: if they are Pawns they are quiet and thoughtful (if a protagonist), and sad when they are used; if they are Players they may be either good or bad, but are hardened and seriously focused. Anne and Isabelle are pawns - Anne becoming a dark player later on, and Isabelle starting out like a baby player but going back to pawn and veering wildly from sad pawn to cheerful jerk and back again. Pretty much everyone else is a player. Not only are they flattened like this, but nobody's actions make sense outside of "because it happened that way". Edward had to take George back and not expect him to do anything else bad because it's what happened, but George is basically full Juan Borgia all the time and it makes no sense in the story.
I am frankly not sure if the writing is better for Richard and Warwick or if they just seemed like fuller characters because they had better actors.
What I dislike most academically is the way that Gregory has of choosing the stupidest bits of history rumor to go with. Having George drown in a butt of Malmsey was stupid enough (and I can see they're going to go with Perkin Warbeck as well, ugh), but, as with Anne Boleyn, it's like there's no thought going on as to why it might be creepy to validate misogynistic slander. And not only is it stupid to be like "Yes, Elizabeth Woodville was totally a witch!", it's even more stupid to then have other characters accuse her of being a witch and expect me to feel anything over it. She is! She did cause the storm that killed Isabelle and George's baby!
Not to mention that contrasting witchly Elizabeth with pious (only in a bad way) Margaret is an obnoxious cliché. It's not quite as bad as having some ancient churchman stumbling around and talking about hellfire and all sort of things that the Old Ways don't have, but - Elizabeth Woodville was devout enough! Everyone was. I wouldn't have minded her doing ~spells so much if they didn't always work, tbh. (Another thing The Tudors did well - spirituality, religion, seriously believing God is doing things on purpose, etc.)
Arranged marriages always being appalling is another peeve (and of course daughters going but I want to marry someone I love! close behind). We don't know very much about Edward of Westminster, so why does he have to be a rapist with the cold dead eyes of a killer? Why can't he be humanized a bit? Anne/Richard (before Anne becomes awful) hits all my kinks so I'm willing to go with a contrast to Richard's ~gentlemanly ways~ to an extent, but come on.
All that said, I think the text is reasonably sympathetic to all the women, though much, much more to Elizabeth and Jacquetta. So, um, okay.
