“Ask Not For Whom The Bell Tolls,” Goes The Famous Paraphrasing Of John Donne’s Sermon. “It Tolls

Georgianna and Charlotte’s friendship was my favorite part of season 1, along with Clara and Ester’s back-and-forth. 

I will gladly watch more of both shows just for these four characters. 

Some parallels.

Hercule de Valois

Hercule Valois, aka Francois Duke of Anjou and Alencon, would like to challenge (former) Prince Harry to a literary duel.

If Anjou could write a memoir about his life as the “spare” brother, it would be far more entertaining than Harry’s “Spare.” 

Elizabeth II seems a much nicer grandmother than Catherine de Medici was a mother to her youngest two children. 

{Megan and Harry fans, please disregard this post, this post is for people who know a lot about the Valois family and Catherine de Medici’s children. I don’t know (or care) enough about Megan and Harry to have an opinion on them. I do, however, love to learn about 16th century royal scandals.} 

Warner Bros--just release The Devils on Blu-ray already! Quit taunting us! This is just getting weird!

The weirdest inclusion in the new space jam movie is the cameo of the nun from the devils being part of the crowd

Out of all the movies you could select from the warner bros catalog - you select a character from one of the wildest and offensive movies to exist

All I have to say to that is good show.

Part of what makes Sansa successful in the end is because she tries to learn from other people, regardless of whether she likes them or not. There is a lot to be said for the Ceresi’s and Littlefinger’s of the world. Sure she has setbacks, but she learns.

Compare that to say Jon who is destined to make mistakes, or Daenerys who also makes the same mistake in Westeros that she did in Qarth, in Mereen, and other places. 

I was thinking about that conversation in which Jon asked if Sansa admired Cersei. I guess It’s not exactly admiration, but Sansa understands Cersei. She gets that Cersei was abused and suffered a lot and she knows how it’s like to be blamed for your own abuse. Just like Cersei, I guess Sansa has a lot of anger within her. It doesn’t mean she admires Cersei. Still, it’s funny when antis say Sansa became Cersei 2.0 just because of this scene 😂

how could sansa admire cersei? cersei abused sansa, she held her hostage. jon’s comment was deeply insulting and offensive to sansa.

💛🧡💚

I love this so much

💚🧡💛

Madeleine de Saint-Nectaire and other heroines of the French wars of religion

Between 1562 and 1598, France was torn by civil and religious conflicts between the Catholics and the Protestants. During this period, women distinguished themselves as spies, propagandists, political leaders or negotiators. Some of them even fought weapons in hand.

Agrippa d’Aubigné tells in his Universal history of Marie de Brabançon, widow of Jean de Barres, lord of Neuvy. In October 1569, the lady found herself besieged in her home by the king’s lieutenant who had 2,000 men and two cannons. She personally defended the most dangerous breach with a pike in her hand. Shamed by her example, her soldiers fought bravely. Observers recounts that they saw her defending the breach several times with her weapon. She nonetheless had to surrender in mid-November, but was allowed to walk away freely by the king’s command. Another lady noted for her military acumen was Claude de la Tour, dame de Tournon who defended her city against the protestants in 1567 and 1570. They couldn’t, however, breach her defense and had to leave.

Ordinary women also found themselves on the frontline. The city of La Rochelle was besieged between 1572 and 1573 and the townswomen fought in the defense. Brantôme tells that the besiegers saw a hundred women dressed in white appearing on the walls. Some of them performed support functions while others wielded weapons. Their bravery was confirmed by another account who tells that the women acted as “soldiers or new amazons” and that their courage led a street in La Rochelle to be called the “Ladies’ Boulevard”. Agrippa d’Aubigné similarly shows the women fighting with sword and gun. Brantôme adds that he heard that one of these women kept at home the weapon with which she fought and that she didn’t want to give it to anyone.

Another valiant lady was Madeleine de Saint-Nectaire (c.1528/30-1588) who came from a prestigious military family. She married the lord of Miremont, gave birth to three daughters, but was widowed and had to defend her lands. Agrippa d’Aubigné tells that Madeleine led a troop of 60 cavaliers against her enemy Montal, lieutenant of the king. When she fought, Madeleine charged ahead of all others, with her hair unbound in order to be recognized by both friends and foes. In 1575, Montal lured Madeleine and her troops away from the castle and planned to seize the place. The lady returned, charged at the enemy and routed their cavalry. Montal was wounded in the ensuing fight and died a few days later.

Letters written by Madeleine have been preserved and reveal another aspect of her character. They show a modest, polite woman, who cared for her husband’s illegitimate children and treated them like her own. 

Bibliography:

Arnal J., “Madeleine de Saint-Nectaire”

Bulletin de la Société des lettres, sciences et arts de la Corrèze

D’Aubigné Agrippa, Histoire universelle

Lazard Madeleine, “Femmes combattantes dans l’Histoire universelle d’Agrippad’Aubigné”

Pierre Jean-Baptiste, De Courcelles Julien, Dictionnaire universel de la noblesse de France

Viennot Elianne, “Les femmes dans les « troubles » du XVIe siècle”

I think the book series might work better as a HBO or Showtime or Starz or Netflix mini-series able to go all out in terms of the grittiness, sex, and violence of the book. 

‘Red Sparrow’ Post-Mortem And Why The Sequels Deserve To Be Made

WARNING: This post contains major spoilers for Red Sparrow (original Jason Matthews book, 2015 Eric Warren Singer screenplay draft and Francis Lawrence’s film) as well as minor story details from sequel novels Palace of Treason and The Kremlin’s Candidate. For my thoughts on the film, head to Letterboxd.

I can’t seem to muster up some sort of pretentious intro, so getting right to it:

Keep reading

I’d watch a TV series staring these two actors. I don’t care what the show is about, I’d watch it. Especially if it featured Littlefinger and Varys as Westeros’s odd couple...just saying.

If Martin had finished the books earlier I think we’d all have a different opinion on different plot points, but because he waited so long we’ve just built things up in our heads for years now so that nothing he writes can live up to what we want. He’s essentially screwed himself on so many levels.

i feel like when/if twow comes out(when he’s not distracting himself) it’ll divide so many ppl who made theories thinking its canon and if anything contradicts this in a book that’s been cooking for more than a decade(not to mention grrm kinda went everywhere in his world building and characters) , the fandom is just going to go nuclear

I want to go in the Sanditon tag, but I don’t want to be spoiled.