#analysis

gossip-guy-of-middle-earth:

sylvanprincess:

Canonical Elven Supernatural Abilities:

• Elven musicians “can make the things of which they sing appear before the eyes of those that listen.” (Lord of the Ring)
• Elves can learn to speak the languages of animals (The Silmarillion)
• Elves can speak to trees (Lord of the Rings)
• Elves have the ability to see vast distances, and can count the number of people riding in a close formation, and notice their hair color and height, from a distance of at least seventeen miles (28 km). (Lord of the Rings)
• Elves, particularly their eyes, glow with inner light (Lord of the Rings)
• Elves can walk atop the snow and have remarkable cold tolerance (Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion)
• Elves have the power to influence by magic over another person’s mind, and can puts others to sleep. (The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion)
• Elves can manipulate or influence elements of nature (The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings)
• Elves have the power to forsee possible outcomes of the future (Lord of the Rings)
• Elves can read minds and communicate with each other telepathically, no matter where in Middle-Earth they happen to be (Lord of the Rings, Vinyar Tengwar)
• Elves can duel with song and knock down buildings with song (The Silmarillion, Of The Rings of Power and the Third Age)
• Elves can heal with song (HoME- Lays of Beleriand)
• Elves can conceal/temporarily cause to disappear possessions of theirs which they want to disguise (HoME- Lays of Beleriand)
• Elves can temporarily shapeshift, but their true form can be revealed if someone greater in power strips their disguised form (The Silmarillion)
• Elves can create magical items: rope that unties itself when no longer needed, cloaks that make the wearer nearly invisible, rings that make mortal bearers immortal (though not spiritually and at a spiritual cost), the palantiri, gems that emit light, swords that glow in the presence of enemies and swords which are sentient and can talk.

Note: This reference is probably incomplete. @growingingreenwood (being the goddess of Tolkien lore that she is) and anyone else is free to add if I’ve missed any.

It should be noted that as Galadriel cautions the Hobbits, the supernatural abilities of the elves is not actually magic, as these powers are natural to the elves and can be advanced through practice. I haven’t included anything from the Book of Lost Tales, because that is a mess I don’t want to step into.

It’s unclear if Galadriel’s mirror is a magic item or if she has a magic ability to see distant and future things in it. (Lord of the Rings).

And its implied, but never made explicit that Thranduil used a protective magical barrier like the Girdle of Melian to protect the Northern region of Eryn Galen from Sauron’s influence (Of The Rings of Power and the Third Age, Lord of the Rings).

There’s also an implication that either elves can teleport themselves and objects over a short distance or temporarily conceal themselves from the eyes of possible enemies by turning invisible (The Hobbit).

I’m sensing favouritism on Eru’s end

Um, I’m pretty sure the telepathic communication requires being close to each other. And possibly a ring of power. Otherwise… Yes. But what powers do other races have? I mean, the hobbits slammed doors in the Ringwraiths’ faces, and Men clearly have abilities as well, and Dwarves make moon letters and other such things…

undercat-overdog:

The chief reason I go for dead Elves in the Halls of Mandos not being able to see events aside from their own life in the tapestries, to not know what’s happening in the world of the living: it genuinely horrifies me. My skin crawls at the thought that all the actions of the living are observed; I feel terrible for the characters seen. I recoil at the thought that my dead relatives could see me in private moments, breaking down or having sex or hiding away to escape the world or crying hopelessly or being hurt or laughing with ecstatic joy in a place alone or a place that I share with one other person and one person only. People have the right to private things and I cringe when that’s taken from them without permission.

And yes, the tapestries that Vaire & co. weave may well just show the highlights of what’s going on in the world outside death, but I’m not sure that’s the common interpretation? Or at least not when the subject is examined in detail as a possible thing? It’s not something I see a lot at least in fic set in Mandos. (Often it feels like increasing the angst of the dead relatives at the expense of the privacy of the ones experiencing life? And idk - it’s obviously a personal thing of mine, but in fic or in meta about a particular character it can feel to me like it’s privileging one character or set of characters over another, and in a way that makes the latter - the characters living and being unknowingly observed - accessories to other characters’ angst or pleasure or character growth. Anyways, I’ve never seen a character react to knowing that others have seenall their life and private moments, moments they might not have shared. They often don’t show up as a character, but are instead scenery, if that makes sense? At most I see them accept the (metaphorical) hug and comfort and not ask why others had the right to see them, nor have I ever read about a character who was watched feel violated (which would be a natural thing to feel, even if for a moment!) And me, imagining myself in this situation. It makes my skin crawl. Someone wanting to hug me for pain that I wouldn’t have shown them had I had the choice that was taken from me - I would shrink away. Especially if that person was someone I had not parted well from in life. Like, someone I’m estranged from doesn’t have that right. Even if it’s not the wish of the person watching, even if it’s not their fault: it’s still a boundary being violated.)

There are other reasons I prefer that the dead in Mandos only see their own life - death as a place of the lack of the new and thus no new knowings, a general preference for reborn people not knowing what’s happened in the intervening years (and thus shock, needing to catch up*, the need to relearn and reknow family and loved ones), death as a place that is fundamentally different from life and thus Mandos as a place where there isn’t new information to learn but rather a place to grapple with you learned and experienced in your own life. Like, I prefer death for the Quendi as nothing more and nothing less than grappling with your past life (this includes not interacting with other elven spirits, which is canonical). But mostly other people seeing the private without permission is horror for me. 

Anyways. Never seen this discussed before. Thoughts?

*while I’m in general not terribly interested in Feanor, this is the one area that does fascinate me, a version of him being reborn and not knowing anything that’s happened since his death. A version of him that’s come to a place where he can accept loss and accept that other people have rights too, a version of him that is capable of growing into a better person, a version that’s regained his love and interest in the world - and then he has to confront everything. 

stressedspidergirlsfandomblog:

petermorwood:

illisidifan:

authorkims:

This is why she’s my favorite author.

Check out “Barry Lyndon”, a film whose period interiors were famously shot by period lamp-and-candle lighting (director Stanley Kubrick had to source special lenses with which to do it).

More recently, some scenes in “Wolf Hall” were also shot with period live-flame lighting and IIRC until they got used to it, actors had to be careful how they moved across the sets. However, it’s very atmospheric: there’s one scene where Cromwell is sitting by the fire, brooding about his association with Henry VIII while the candles in the room are put out around him. The effect is more than just visual.

As someone (I think it was Terry Pratchett) once said: “You always need enough light to see how dark it is.”

A demonstration of getting that out of balance happened in later seasons of “Game of Thrones”, most infamously in the complaint-heavy “Battle of Winterfell” episode, whose cinematographer claimed the poor visibility was because “a lot of people don’t know how to tune their TVs properly”.

So it was nothing to do with him at all, oh dear me no. Wottapillock. Needing to retune a TV to watch one programme but not others shows where the fault lies, and it’s not in the TV.

*****

We live in rural West Wicklow, Ireland, and it’s 80% certain that when we have a storm, a branch or even an entire tree will fall onto a power line and our lights will go out.

Usually the engineers have things fixed in an hour or two, but that can be a long dark time in the evenings or nights of October through February, so we always know where the candles and matches are and the oil lamp is always full.

We also know from experience how much reading can be done by candle-light, and it’s more than you’d think, once there’s a candle right behind you with its light falling on the pages.

You get more light than you’d expect from both candles and lamps, because for one thing, eyes adapt to dim light. @dduane​ says she can sometimes hear my irises dilating. Yeah, sure…

For another thing lamps can have accessories. Here’s an example: reflectors to direct light out from the wall into the room. I’ve tried this with a shiny foil pie-dish behind our own Very Modern Swedish Design oil lamp, and it works.

Smooth or parabolic reflectors concentrate their light (for a given value of concentrate, which is a pretty low value at that) while flatter fluted ones like these scatter the light over a wider area, though it’s less bright as a result:

This candle-holder has both a reflector and a magnifying lens, almost certainly to illuminate close or even medical work of some sort rather than light a room.

And then there’s this, which a lot of people saw and didn’t recognise, because it’s often described in tones of librarian horror as a beverage in the rare documents collection.

There IS a beverage, that’s in the beaker, but the spherical bottle is a light magnifier, and Gandalf would arrange a candle behind it for close study.

Here’s one being used - with a lightbulb - by a woodblock carver.

And here’s the effect it produces.

Here’s a four-sphere version used with a candle (all the fittings can be screwed up and down to get the candle and magnifiers properly lined up) and another one in use by a lacemaker.

Finally, here’s something I tried last night in our own kitchen, using a water-filled decanter. It’s not perfectly spherical so didn’t create the full effect, but it certainly impressed me, especially since I’d locked the camera so its automatic settings didn’t change to match light levels.

This is the effect with candles placed “normally”.

But when one candle is behind the sphere, this happens.

 It also threw a long teardrop of concentrated light across the worktop; the photos of the woodcarver show that much better.

Poor-people lighting involved things like rushlights or tallow dips. They were awkward things, because they didn’t last long, needed constant adjustment, didn’t give much light and were smelly. But they were cheap, and that’s what mattered most.

They’re often mentioned in historical and fantasy fiction but seldom explained: a rushlight is a length of spongy pith from inside a rush plant, dried then dipped in tallow (or lard, or mutton-fat), hence both its names.

Here’s Jason Kingsley making one.

@ahh-fxck

I’ve always wondered how people read in libraries.  Isn’t it dangerous to have candles around?  But then again, isn’t it bad for the books to have sunlight?  But the bottle would let you have a much smaller candle that’s less likely to cause a fire.

aragornsrockcollection:

I think I officially have 4 drafts where I start explaining this one headcanon and get my words all twisted up and save it to try to fix later, so fuck it, let’s go direct as possible:

I think Finwe suspected Melkor was going to try to steal the Silmarils and intentionally intercepted him.

That’s why he didn’t go to the festival of reconciliation. He orchestrated matters so he would be the only casualty by sending his grandsons off on a hunt when Melkor was most likely to strike: When the other Valar and Feanor were sure to be occupied in Valmar.

Reasons this makes sense to me:

• Finwe is literally called Noldoran, “king of the smart elves” and this would let him actually be smart in the story.
• The Festival of Reconciliation was the most politically significant thing to happen to the Noldor since his remarriage, it is literally his sons that are reconciling over their place as his successors, there is no other good reason he would not go and let the Valar preside over it on their own. Especially if the reason he followed Feanor to Formenos was to show solidarity against the Valar butting in to his family’s business.
• The fact that everyone else is out is SO convenient.
• He’s in the perfect position to see what is going on, but also not want to make his increasingly unstable son more paranoid by lending his fears legitimacy.
• He couldn’t have known about Ungoliant, the darkening and the unlight, so it’s possible he thought he could delay Melkor long enough that the Valar could catch up to him.
• This would actually be a solid plan, as his sacrifice would be temporary, and events had proven his family could not be safe while Melkor remained unchained. If someone had to face the dark Vala, best it be someone who had actually had to fight for their life before, such as someone who remembered Cuivienen, and had led their people across Endor to Valinor.
• In a theoretical world where Ungoliant did not get involved, this situation may have been possible: The Valar capture and bring to justice Finwe’s murderer immediately, and freely return the Silmarils to Feanor. Either Feanor follows through with his plans to go to Endor, in which case Fingolfin (who has no reason to go with him if their father is already avenged) remains king in Tirion, or Fingolfin freely hands the crown over to his brother, showing Feanor that he has no need to fear his brother usurping him. His paranoia is proved false twice over, and the source of his corruption is removed, and Feanor comes to his senses.
• Look, he couldn’t have known the exact opposite of all of that would happen. ‍♀️

larebelde897:

People who hate abuela from encanto don’t understand the meaning of the film

TW: mentions of dying, death, trauma, and encanto spoilers

Yes she was the main antagonist but she WASN’T the villain, her trauma isn’t a excuse but an explanation of why she reacts, be or think that way.

Because is TRAUMA, the result of being a victim of a civil war in your own country which leads to forcing herself along her husband to move and abandon everything she had, just to give her and her kids a decent life without danger, and then seeing Pedro (her husband) dying and killed with a machete and possibly decapitated in front of her and the kids. It’s something disturbing, scaring and traumatizing.

What’s more now she is responsible to take care of a village that depends on the magic she is in charge along of being a single mother.

She didn’t have time to heal the damaged of all the events, Because she started living and taking care of the others. With the fear that the magic will run out or will loose another opportunity forcing her to restart again.

Yea she was mean to mirabell (even though she really didn’t mean to) and the family.

But undoubtedly it was cause by all the events and her fear.

In the end she realize all the family damage is caused by her, starting the healing

anamariamauricia:

walkwithheroes84:

I’ve been rewatching the BBC’s The Musketeers and I can’t stop thinking about something: 

Was Aramis really in love with Anne? 

I really loved their storyline (I still do), but as I rewatched the first two series, I just couldn’t help but think that Aramis’ feelings for Anne were more along the lines of respect, pity, and the love a person has for the mother of their child.

As I watched, I noticed that Anne makes the first move when they kiss. I also noted that Aramis was always more worried about their son than anything else.

I realize that, because of many things, the two couldn’t be alone in scenes - but aside from him giving her some longing looks. Plus, outside of 1.9 and their moments in "Emilie", the two never interacted.  It does make sense that they wouldn’t be in love - they had a handful of private conversations. When Porthos asks if Aramis loves Anne, Aramis states that he could, not that he does. 

I’m not there yet (I’m on 3.4) but there was an alternate take of their kiss in theh series three finale. I’ve seen the screencaps and Aramis and Anne put their foreheads together, he strokes her check, and then he leans in for the kiss first.I wish they would have used that. Firstly, because the kiss looked better and secondly, because it would have shown (at least to me) that they are equal in their feelings.

I could also make the case that Anne wasn’t in love with Aramis. She just saw him as her protector, the father of her child, and someone who treated her with love and care when she was lonely. That she clung to him when she felt alone or scared.

At the end of the day, while I love the hell out of this couple, during this rewatch, I’m yet to be convinced that they are truly in love with one another. It feels more like he wants to save and protect her (while being near his son) and she wants to care for him and be protected by him. 

Side note: Does he wear the coss in series three? 

Someone feel free to point out scenes, dialogue, etc that prove me wrong. Iwant someone to prove me wrong.

Edit to add: Remember is 1.9 how Louis was upset that Anne was missing? His: “I don’t know what I should do without her.” and then him wanting to rush to Anne, but it not being the proper thing to do. Yeah, during S2 - when he thought the baby was his - he still always worried about the baby instead of/before Anne. 

Conclusion: Anne really was alone the whole time. She had a few friends who loved her. She had Rochefort who was obessed with her.

I think some key things to remember with Annamis is their respective positions, who they are as people, and how dangerous their relationship is. 

Anne is Thee Queen, Aramis is not supposed to even think about acting familiar with her. And so after their flirty “I’ve got you” moment, he pushes her hand away. When they meet for her to give him the crucifix, he starts off very formal and chivalrous with his “Not at all” when she asks if his wound hurt. But then he sees her hand reaching out and quickly changes his answer to “Well, perhaps it is a little sore” so she can touch and fuss over him. He melts under her touch and then turns on The Stare™ and leans in closer. “She’s a very attractive woman” after all, as he says to Porthos after she leaves (and then he smells? the crucifix, which seconds ago had been nestled in her bosom). He definitely finds her attractive, but as Porthos reminds him, “She’s not a woman, she’s the Queen” and he can’t go any further with her.

For their 1x07 interaction, this post does a wonderful job describing it. 

1x09 is all about showing Anne as a woman, not a queen. She spends 99% of the episode in a bathing suit simple dress and without all the trappings of a queen. And instead of complaining about living it rough or demanding that the boys (and later the nuns) tend to her every need while she lounges or cowers somewhere off to the side, she looks to help them all, and this is how Aramis really falls for her (and her for him, because he listens to her and lets her help). She tries to cook despite never having done so before, she fetches baskets for Isabelle, prepares? Aramis’ little gunpowder packets for him, and the following day tells Aramis she wants to stay and help him rather than sit around and with the nuns. He doesn’t pity her, he admires her. Her courage, her endurance, her kindness.

Putting the rest under a read more for length:

Keep reading

terriblenerd:

AKA Lila is the wonderful garbage fire we all deserve, and other quality insights! Plus angsty doodles! Under cut for spoilers.

Keep reading

silicongarden:

Source: https://erikbern.com/2016/04/04/nyc-subway-math.html

The interesting conclusion is that after about five minutes, the longer you wait, the longer you will have to wait. If you waited for 15 min, the medianadditional waiting time is another 8 minutes. But 8 minutes later if the train still hasn’t come, the median additional waiting time is now another 12 minutes.

So when should you give up waiting? One way to think about it is how much time you think it’s worth waiting. The time you already waited is “sunk cost” so it doesn’t really matter. What matters is how much additional time you are willing to wait. Let’s assume you want to optimize for a wait time that’s less than 30 min in 90% of the cases. Then the max time you should wait is about 11 minutes until giving up (this is at the point where the yellow line cuts the 30 min mark).

kit-kat-of-midgard:

luna-rainbow:

moonykat:

luna-rainbow:

Bringing this back because there is still confusion: Bucky is not responsible for the crimes of the Winter Soldier. The analogy is not “if you crashed your car and killed someone you still need to be responsible for what your car caused”. It is not “if you’re a soldier who followed orders you still need to be responsible for the life you took”. Bucky was not distracted or indoctrinated. He was induced into a state where he had no idea who he was, could barely recall what he did, and where “he will do anything you tell him to”.

The correct analogy is “if someone hijacked your car, tied you up and locked you in the trunk, then drove your car into people, you are not held responsible for what happened to the victims because you were as much a victim as they are”. Yes, maybe you will feel guilty for not putting up enough of a fight, or for not killing the hijacker when you thought you had a chance. But you should be told by your good therapist that while your guilt is a natural reaction of a good person, it wasn’t your fault and you should not make contact with the other victims on your own, much less apologise on behalf of the people who hijacked your car.

I hope that’s how you get treated in the real world anyway.

Okay, here I go again. Opening up the wound after I promised I would just let go of my anger over tfatws and what they did to Bucky, and ignore the existence of said show.

Every single thing they did to Bucky in tfatws is an absolute insult to any trauma survivor. It’s victim blaming at its highest and the fact people still think any person that criticizes the show is doing it out of spite because of a ship or because we are babying Bucky, is delusional and have obviously never understood Bucky Barnes.

Eating and smiling at the end of the show doesn’t mean recovery if it wasn’t earned. Bucky was taken from point A to Z while not only skipping the most important part of his recovery and development, but messing with every single one of the things that deserved to be a milestone in his recovery.

No character, no character at all in the show treated him with respect, as the survivor he is, as a person who needs recovery to be healthy again. not. a. single. person. in. the. show.

The writers think of him as a villain who needs to pay for his crimes, his therapist thinks of him as a villain. Every person in that show thinks of him as someone who has to pay for things he did. Make amends?? So if I’m tortured and stripped away of my ability to say no, and I’m used, and people are hurt, that’s on me?

That show mistreated Bucky Barnes in the lowest most disgusting way possible, by blaming him for people Hydra hurt. By making him go face to face with Zemo. By making him go back to be the soldier and imply that all that violence was not a result of hydra’s torture, but a part of him that’s always been there.

Worst of all, they’ve caused other people to think Bucky deserves to pay. Very vocal people, who have no idea how trauma works. What it does to you.

I think the writers and audiences have forgotten that scene in the vault, where they electrocuted him, where even the speech told by Pierce was in order to make him believe he was doing good. People conveniently forget what they want so that they can enjoy a show and be happy because Bucky is eating cake, when no person, after Steve, has done a single thing to let him now he is not to be blamed for things he was forced to do.

You’ve kinda said everything that needed to be said but I’m just in a ranty mood. TFATWS is a piece of terrible writing on many, many aspects, but I’m just going to focus on Bucky.

1. It ignores pre-existing canon that Bucky was tortured into a mindless puppet. Hydra was not “your people”. Bucky did not have a choice in his fights and it makes no sense for him to say to a revenge-blinded Walker “don’t go down this path, believe me, it doesn’t end well” because he had never been in that situation. It did not make sense for him to tell Karli, who is making the choice to mass murder people, “you think it’s worth it but in the end the nightmares just won’t go away”. Bucky’s nightmares were of innocent bystanders the Winter Soldier killed on mission; they had nothing to do with what he believed was worthwhile because he had no say in it.

2. Despite that, they’re aware enough of his lack of consent and lack of capacity to make an off-hand rape reference and never address this with the gravity it deserves.

3. Undoing everything that had contributed to Bucky’s recovery and healing. His relationship with Steve and Sam (yes, the moments were fleeting but he was much softer with Sam in IW and EG than he was in TFATWS). His relationship with Wakanda. Everything he had established in the previous canon was ignored or systematically dismantled. His relationship with Steve is reduced to a piece of metal and an imaginary moon-dweller. His relationship with Wakanda is made antagonistic purely to set up a 3-way fight and to develop Walker. His relationship with Sam is petulant, and neither of them are allowed to discuss the immense grief hanging between them.

4. The complete lack of research or care about veteran trauma, complex PTSD and therapy. The extremely amateur take of healing by “fixing” (amending), of addressing misplaced guilt with “apologising”, of undoing wrong done onto him by calling “bullshit” (for wanting peace after 90 years?) and “doing the work” and “making the victims feel better and not about making yourself feel better”. Bucky’s therapy should focus on him and him alone, because he is not responsible for the other victims. SHIELDRA is. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD HE HAVE BEEN ENCOURAGED TO APPROACH VICTIMS WITHOUT A MEDIATOR PRESENT (AND THEIR CONSENT TO MEET HIM) THAT IS SERIOUSLY FUCKED UP FOR EVERYONE INVOLVED.

5. The completely unearned fairytale ending that might as well just be Bucky drinking a fairy potion of happiness for all I care.

If they want to write about trauma and disability, do the work. How many trauma victims have they talked to? Retired vets with PTSD? Mental health professionals? Upper limb amputees? They didn’t because they didn’t care. Not about trauma, not about disability, and definitely not about Bucky as a character with clear established canon.

This. All of this.

commajade:

View on Twitter

View on Twitter

View on Twitter

View on Twitter

nodutdol’s extremely thorough thread about the political references in squid game

In the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 2013 production of As You Like It, Rosalind, portrayed by Pippa Nixon, when assuming the disguise of Ganymede, takes on a male appearance. With hair cut short and styled with gel to one side and a collared blue shirt, Ganymede looks as though he is a boy, perhaps a preppy boy rather than traditionally masculine, but a boy nonetheless. Because of this, her romantic interactions with Orlando (Alex Waldmann) come across as very homoerotic.

In Act 3 Scene 2, Rosalind/Ganymede sits closely next to Orlando as they converse about Orlando’s poems that he so abuses the trees with, his lovesickness, and Ganymede’s supposed cure. As they do this, they share what is presumably a blunt. This act, particularly in this context, has some undeniable phallic implications. Staged so close to each other as they interact with each other and even touch one another, from the viewpoint of the audience that is far less close to the actors as the camera that has filmed the scene, Orlando and Ganymede appear to be a gay couple. When Rosalind/Ganymede asks Orlando if he is truly in love with Rosalind, he responds “Neither rhyme nor reason could express how much” and despite speaking these things about the woman he is in love with, he looks at Ganymede with a look of such adoration that he might as well be declaring his love to Ganymede rather than Rosalind, though it would happen that he is actually doing both.

While Nixon and Waldmann’s portrayals of these characters have obvious sexual tension, when Rosalind/Ganymede directs Orlando to call her “Rosalind”, this is not only a man imploring another man to call him by the name of a woman, but specifically the woman the two characters have just discussed in great length that Orlando loves. Not only this, but Ganymede suggests Orlando aim to woo him as Rosalind. While it is her under this guise, Orlando does not know this and is agreeing to engage in flirting (more so than he already has been doing) with another man. He is very clearly interested in Ganymede as more than a friend and does little to hide this. During the time in which the play was written, there were no labels to be put on sexualities like heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, or anything else and instead, sexuality was related more to actions in a single moment of time than any identity and who Orlando feels attraction to is demonstrably fluid. When Nixon’s Rosalind asks Orlando to show her where in the forest he lives, the simultaneous hesitancy and eagerness she displays make the interaction almost resemble a contemporary exchanging of cell-phone numbers. Thus, in this RSC production, Orlando and Ganymede are very clearly framed as two boys flirting with one another, clearly interested in one another and clearly queer.

In Act 5 Scene 3 of Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part One, King Henry IV has implemented a battle strategy in which there are numerous decoy kings impersonating him on the battlefield in order to confuse and frustrate his enemy. It works, as Douglas kills Blunt who was disguised as the king and believes he has triumphed, only for Hotspur to tell him “No, I know this face full well/A gallant knight he was; his name was Blunt,/Semblably furnished like the king himself” (Shakespeare 5.3.20-22).  This occurs several more times offstage and in the following scene, Douglas exclaims “Another king! They grow like Hydra’s heads” (Shakespeare 5.4.25). While there is no number of how many King Henrys are in the fray, based on that statement it is likely a lot.

This strategy King Henry executes also connects directly to both the idea of theatre and throne, and while successful on the battlefield, could lead the audience to some potentially questionable notions about royalty and what it truly means to be king. The decision to insert numerous decoy-kings into the battleground is not something that could have been predicted because sumptuary laws were in place during the time in which the play took place as well as the time it was written and being performed. Therefore, doing so was technically illegal. In general, the theatre was the only place in which somebody of a lower station might dress up as though they were from any higher class, much less royalty itself. In the middle of a war though, King Henry has staged his own sort of theatrical production with several other soldiers playing the role of him. If we are to look at words alone, sometimes the place of battle during war is even called a “theater.” Thus, in a meta-fashion, Shakespeare has staged a performance with a man playing King Henry IV, and the king has staged one of his own and cast other soldiers as him, sumptuary laws broken twice over.

While doing this keeps Henry IV safer on the battlefield than he likely would have been otherwise, the idea that anyone could dress in kingly attire and thus in the minds of those around him, become a king, is perhaps the very reason these sumptuary laws existed. This scene demonstrates that when Blunt and numerous others assume the identity of the king and are truly believed to be the king until they are unmasked. Therefore, if somebody in Elizabethan England acquired the attire befitting a member of a higher class, they could become a part of that class with nobody the wiser. This fluidity in something that those of greater affluence and stature would like to be concrete and unchangeable arguably demonstrates the fickleness of being a member of the nobility. While it was often argued at this time that those of wealth and status had such because of divine right by God, this seems to present an alternative. They have these things because the society they have constructed says they should have these things and should somebody ingratiate themselves into said class with those things that qualify those already there, such as clothing, they could contradict this belief entirely. The play demonstrates in other scenes that this only goes one way– at least for royalty. Prince Hal may hang around with tavern folk, but it is rare anybody around him truly forgets he is the prince. Still, were he disguised while doing so rather than making himself known as the prince, perhaps he would be believed to be just another tavern-goer.

William Shakespeare’s Richard III and in TNT’sWill threatricalize English history.  Both the play and television series depict a historical figure, but the way this is done caters more to their contemporary audiences. For Richard III this involves not only affirming his suspected villainy for Elizabethans, but both playing into it and inviting the audience to come along and watch his plots unfold as co-conspirators. Still, there is no question that even if portrayed by an actor or production as sympathetic, in his actions Richard III is evil. It would likely be approved of by his Elizabethan audience that Richard should be portrayed as deformed and immoral and that the Tudor dynasty that ends the War of the Roses should be a happy ending that ushers in better times on account of the fact the audience members were living in that present Tudor dynasty. This also would likely align with the perspective of the Great Chain of Being, a notion many Elizabethans subscribed to and something that is depicted in many of Shakespeare’s other plays. While Edward IV did take the throne for himself, being the oldest York, he was still the person who after conquering was supposed to ascend. If he perished, Edward Prince of Wales, his son, should have been his successor. Richard’s killing of others in line, such as his brother George, Duke of Clarence, and usurping the throne for himself is a flagrant violation of this God-ordained hierarchy and thus when Richmond takes the throne from Richard, order is restored.

Will depicts a London that is wild, raunchy, and likely not entirely true to the real Elizabethan London. Though London likely wasn’t as conservative as some period pieces, particularly older ones, may depict it, this almost punk-rock London is portrayed as intense and bohemian, somewhere not quite safe, but full of art, excitement, and potential. The trailer features modern music with a heavy bass and an encounter between Will and Alice Burbage that undoubtedly leads to sex. The addition of the theory that Shakespeare was a closeted Catholic could also speak to the contemporary audience viewing the show, particularly due to the fact the show came from the United States, not England. In 2017 when the show premiered, the U.S. was and still is facing religious turmoil. Earlier in that year, Trump enacted an executive order that effectively banned those from Muslim dominant countries from coming to the U.S. Even while the show was running its first season, a white supremacist rally occurred in Charlottesville, Virginia, with attendees chanting things like “Jews will not replace us” and one even injuring and killing counter-protesters with his car. A London that is hostile to Shakespeare’s religion is something contemporary Americans could recognize if not personally relate to.

In this way, it can be argued that when one is theatricalizing history, one is taking meaning from it that aligns with the cultural values of the contemporary society in which the author lives, rather than the history itself. This is because history cannot truly be known at all; while it is possible to know basic facts, even ones’ personal account of an event in their own life could vary greatly from another present. Because of this, when theatricalizing history, it often makes sense even to handle it in a way that makes sense to modern audiences of the era in which the dramatizing is taking place.

‘Call of the Netherdeep’ Questions What It Means To Be a Hero

Star Plus’ Imlie and Anupama Represent the Range of Growth

In her newest piece about ITV serials, @chotoranii discusses how #Imlie and #Anupama from @StarPlus successfully adapted Bengali serials and how they show the spectrum of growth available to heroines.