laceblade | (no subject)

Crossposts: http://mystickeeper.livejournal.com/562603.html

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tv: tudors

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UMM, so I started watching the Tudors again.

Season three is the best so far, northern Catholic rebels FTW!

I keep wanting to read books about TUDORS because TUDORS.

I <3 <3 <3 the actress who plays Mary Tudor. The tiny!Elizabeth from the end of season 2 was great, too.
Does anyone have any book recs about Mary I, Elizabeth I, or all of the wives? I figure there are enough medievally-inclined people on my list that it's worth asking. Anyone know if the Antonia Fraser book is any good?
Thomas Wyatt was my favorite character, but I think he's done with the show now.

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OH OH OH ME ME ME PICK ME!

I have a huge boner for books on Mary Tudor that actually do her justice, that doesn't focus on the fact that oh hey, she burned people at the stake. Which was a very terrible thing to do, don't get me wrong, but it seems myopic to focus on that aspect of her alone. She's really a complex character who went through SO MUCH SHIT, ALL OF THE SHIT, especially religion-wise, and she was the first proper ruling queen of England! She set the precedent for Elizabeth, who returned the favor by painting her sister out to be this Catholic monster.

tldr; I highly recommend Mary Tudor: Princess, Bastard, Queen by Anna Whitelock! It's a good start and very accessible.

One book I have on my to-read/to-buy list is The Six Wives of Henry VII by Alison Weir. I'm a little hesitant to recommend this as I haven't read enough reviews, but as of writing this it is carrying a five star rating and 222 reviews, so... it must be doing something right, I hope.

Oh bother, it's sitting right in front of me, I might as well buy it. I'll let you know how it goes. Living off beans and rice and cabbage isn't so bad :P

Right now Amazon is throwing me in the direction of Alison Weir; she seems pretty solid as far as Tudor bios go. DON'T YOU DARE LIE TO ME, AMAZON

And there you have it!

I would also like to mention that every time I hear about The Tudors or I try to get myself to watch that show (I think I made it through two episodes? and then Doctor Who called to me), I think of The Sexy Tudors.

I THOUGHT OF SEXY TUDORS TOO, TBH.

Oh man! *puts the Whitelock on hold at the library*

I'm interested in the Weir, too! I heard it came out a year before Antonia Fraser's, and hers has the same title. INTERESTINGS.

I have been tempted by The Tudors but have not yet given in to this temptation. SHOULD I GIVE IN??

I haven't read the Frasier, but she is pretty well-regarded and I've had her Marie Antoinette bio on my "to read" list for about a zillion years.

You should maybe consider watching this BBC miniseries Elizabeth R because it's holyshitsogood and also on Netflix instant (if you have that?).

I'm giving you the Arthuriana icon because why bother making any kind of sense at all today and also history? Or something? IDK, MONARCHS.

OMG, GIVE IN! The actress who plays Anne Boelyn is going to be Margaery Tyrell in Game of Thrones, :O

I want to read Fraser's Marie Antoinette, too! I love the Kirsten Dunst movie SO MUCH LIEK WHOA. Rose of Versailles is still my favorite Antoinette!story, though, bwahahaha.

Elizabeth R has been on my Netflix queue forEVER! I do have instant, that's how I've been watching Tudors, ^^
I got rid of instant a few months ago, but reactivated it for post-surgery distractions. AND THEN KEPT IT.

MONARCHS. I HAVE NO MONARCH ICON, SO TJ INSTEAD.

TJ DOES NOT APPROVE. (Probably. Idk, maybe he does. He looks all petulant tho.)

Yeah, the Dunst film was what got that book onto my radar. I thought it was a nicely sympathetic portrayal that really illuminated a lot of the problems around the standard image of Marie Antoinette. (Also it is ~pretty~.)

I have a few other things in my Netflix instant-watch queue that are history-nerd/Tudor related. There's a "Mary Queen of Scots" film with the same actress as E1 from Elizabeth R, and a few other more Hollywood kinds of things that I expect to be less good/sappier/care less about actual history. There's also a series about the history of the British monarchy going all the way back to Alfred the Great or something; I think that one's just called Monarchy but I don't know if it's any good (it seems to be one of those History Channel type things).

Netflix instant is love. (Says the person who watched a bunch of Buffy this weekend for no reason at all other than BUFFY.)

Tudors! That show is such a guilty pleasure for me, although I dropped it half-way its last season (I should fix this one day). Mary Tudor's actress was fantastic, and I also loved James Frain and Natalie Dormer; the latter is now the definitive Anne Boleyn to me.

IT'S SO GOOD! I kept hating Cromwell but then when I felt so bad for him in the end, I realized Frain was just a great actor.

I LOVED THOMAS MORE, TOO!!

Natalie Dormer's going to be in Game of Thrones, SO EXCITED!!!

I cannot watch Jonathan Rhys Meyers in anything since the very 1st thing i saw him in was "Gormenghast" (please enjoy that messed up trailer). He played a bad guy in a movie where Christopher Lee was a good guy. Steerpike, ZOMG, so fucking creepy.

Granted, he probably makes a great Henry VIII!

He does, SO CREEPY SOMETIMES, SO ANGRY, OMG.

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