[ SECRET POST #3789 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3789 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.
[The White Princess]



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02.


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03.


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04. [SPOILERS for Guardians of the Galaxy 2]



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05. [SPOILERS for The Sexy Brutale]



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06. [SPOILERS for Samurai Jack]



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07. [SPOILERS for Bates Motel]



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08. [WARNING for acrotomophilia, bestiality]


















Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #542.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[philstar22]

I haven't been able to read any of her other books since the Other Boleyn girl completely assassinated Anne's character. I'm pretty fond of Anne. Maybe I should try some of her other books, though. I don't necessarily mind historical inaccurate when acknowledged. Just, that particular change bugged me.

[sarillia]

How do you feel about Henry's first wife? I liked The Constant Princess. It's about Katherine's marriage to Arthur before later marrying Henry.

I actually liked Anne in The Other Boleyn Girl, but that's because I have a big soft spot for characters who keep pushing themselves to keep up an image. I felt for Anne when she was exhausted but couldn't show it because she wanted to keep playing the ideal queen.

[philstar22]

I like Katherine quite a bit too. Honestly, all or at least most of his wives were decent. He was the asshole. But Anne and Katherine are the ones I'm most fond of.

[(Anonymous)]

The problem with The Constant Princess is that it straight up portrays Katherine as a liar... which seems like no big deal to modern readers because she's doing it for a good cause, i.e. fulfilling her late husband's plans for England, right? Except that in real life, Katherine was incredibly religious. Famous for it, in fact. If she'd truly consummated her marriage with Arthur, then not only did she lie about it in her trial in front of the whole court, but that would've meant she and Henry were in a forbidden degree of consanguinity and their marriage wasn't valid... meaning that her only beloved daughter Mary was a bastard.

Catherine was uber religious in a time when people legit thought they could burn in hell for their sins. It's doubtful she would've lied about the consummation of her first marriage and jeopardized the validity of her marriage to Henry just to further an idealistic plan. It's even less likely she would've done so knowing that if she had, ALL her children would be secretly illegitimate. It's even LESS less likely that she would've gone to her deathbed insisting the consummation with Arthur had never happened, and died with that lie putting her soul in peril.

Similarly, I have issues with The Other Boleyn Girl, which portrays Anne as spiteful and vindictive (compared to the saintly Mary) and worse yet, as the type of person who'd coerce her own brother to commit incest! Mind you, there's no evidence that incest happened, and plenty of evidence that the incest charges (much like the ridiculous witchcraft charges) were trumped up in court solely because Henry was determined to get rid of Anne and was willing to slander her reputation to do it. Gregory's portrayal not only acts as though the false charges were true, it completely minimizes what Anne really was - a young woman who started off as a pawn but rose through her own intelligence and ambition at playing the political game on her own behalf as well as her family's, until she was brought down by her enemies and the king.

It's also not a coincidence that Gregory's version of Mary Boleyn is a sexual innocent and the heroine of the novel, while the real life Mary Boleyn was very sexually experienced, one of King Francis I's mistresses and had a reputation in the French court for being "loose". This doesn't make her a bad person, of course, but it's telling that in fact it was ANNE who held out sexually, not Mary. I'm guessing Gregory had a hard time wrapping her head around a heroine who wasn't an innocent virgin and a villainness who guarded her maidenhood and reputation and held out for marriage.

Now I realize Gregory is writing fiction, not non-fiction. But she claims to be a historian, and a feminist one at that! I don't deny she's a good storyteller. But I dislike her liberties with history and I find her claims of "feminism" to be distasteful at best.

[sarillia]

I'm aware of all of this but I still enjoyed the books, which is why they're guilty pleasures. Plus I like a lot of characters that Gregory clearly didn't despite the flaws that she portrayed them with.

[(Anonymous)]

I found this really interesting, thank you!

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for posting this - it's really interesting, and something I had no expectation of learning today. :)

[ceebeegee]

I REALLY had a problem with that. With the crazy, vicious character assassination, and with Gregory's smug assurance that she had sekrit sources, she couldn't reveal them but She Was Right.

The one other book of hers I've read was The Constant Princess and I remember walking away thinking wow, I've never read a book that made me dislike Catherine of Aragon quite so much.