fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #5207 ]

[ SECRET POST #5207 ]

⌈ Secret Post #5207 ⌋

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

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[Randy Orton]

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[Rush (2013)]

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 09 secrets from Secret Submission Post #745.
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.

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01. https://i.imgur.com/swOrZ75.png

I'm gonna go with the whole Anne of Cleves incident was just Henry being Henry. That she was just average looking, but he was unstable, entitled, and out of touch with reality, throwing a fit because he couldn't cope with the realization that gorgeous women didn't want him for his looks anymore either.

Yeah, I think it's telling that nothing happened to Hohlbein, who did the painting afterwards. It was probably as close to the actual person as those paintings ever got and he was just pissed that she didn't somehow automatically recognize him in that ~secret first meeting thing he planned without telling her.

I've always liked that portrait of Anne, she looks so serene.

Portraits are 100% impossible to judge real life attractiveness from. Iirc that was intentional half the time, especially amongst the kind of classes who would sail to each other's countries bearing portraits of each other's womenfolk in an attempt to lure people into marriage based on them.

In Anne's case I bet she was pretty or at least average and Henry was just being his usual disgusting himself. Ugh.

“She’s a touch crazy but she sure sits for a mean portrait”

I always thought that the painting of Anne looked really pretty tbh, and ia with the other commenter that it was probably really a case of Henry being cranky about her not swooning over him immediately, as opposed to him legit thinking she was ugly. Elizabeth Woodville looks ok in her portrait, though she would probably look prettier to modern eyes if not for the weird super-high-forehead-plucking thing that was in vogue in that era. Her dress is pretty sweet, I would wear that.

and yeah, in general, I always wonder what "super hot" historical figures really looked like, or if people whose portraits weren't so great actually looked better than that irl. For example, Mary Queen of Scots' husband Darnley was supposed to be the hottest thing on two legs in Scotland at the time, but his portraits do NOT give that impression at all, at least to my eyes.

yeah like absolutely none of Philip the Handsome’s portraits look handsome, so HOW did he get that nickname? Why on earth was Juana of Castille so obsessed with him? Was he really so hot he had women falling all over the place to get to him or was the allure of being the mistress of the future Holy Roman Emperor that strong?

Oh my lord, you weren’t kidding! No, the child in adult drag doesn’t look very tuckahoe to me either

*fuckable

I thought Anne of Cleves was the cutest of Henry’s wives when we studied them in school. I also wondered if it was weird to marry a woman who had the same name as a previous wife.

My aunt is on her third 'Bill.' And although the current one goes by a different name, the first two husbands (both deceased) were called Bill as well as being christened it. I always thought it odd growing up!

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dantesspirit - 2021-04-09 17:06 (UTC) - Expand

Probably not that weird. You see a lot of repeats of a relatively small pool of names back then, so Henry would've known a lot of Annes, Catherines, Elizabeths, Margarets, etc.

Medieval portraits/copies of lost medieval portraits really emphasise the beauty standards of the day so you can never be too sure. That and there’s a weird disconnect for me as they often look not quite right so it’s hard to imagine the real person looking just like one of us.

I still think Elizabeth Woodville wouldn’t have exactly been decidedly average to catch Edward IV’s attention, though I know the other side to this is some would argue about his standards not being much beyond “breathing” considering the numerous mistresses.

There’s a lot of misinformation accepted as fact about the Tudors so I’m never sure if it’s true that poor Anne there was bustier than Henry VIII apparently liked. It’s not my era beyond passing knowledge.

I learned about Anne of Cleves through Hark a Vagrant’s fantastic little crossover “Anne of Cleves Gables”:

http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=348

Anne’s portrait really does give a sense of calm, so it cracks me up to think of that as the potential equivalent of Jessica-Rabbit-outfit with boobs&butt/Instagram angles pose.

I wonder that about Cleopatra. I wonder what people pictured when they imagined Helen of Troy.

I’ve always been very curious about Cleopatra and her siblings and how incest manifests itself so randomly. Like, did any of the Ptolemies go full on Charles II, or did they, in spite of their small gene pool, just get lucky and not have any really damaging recessive genes? Or did they just get lucky like Charles’ sister Margarita who was apparently pretty, intelligent to the point of being precocious, and overall healthy.

Well, she famously wasn't pretty, nor "ugly" but the Romans needed a good propaganda line and Helen of Troy is such a good one for land invasions and erstwhile consuls. "She's really smart and funny" wasn't.

I don't have anything smart or specific to add, but I want to say that I absolutely love this secret. It's something I've often wondered about myself.

Imagine being the hottest woman in the village in a world where like, only twelve people who share a language with you would’ve laid eyes on whoever that time’s Angelina Jolie was.

I’m mostly symmetrical and have no genetic dental issues. It’d been over for you botches.

I wonder what Charles II of Spain actually looked liked since apparently the painter who did his portrait did his best to make him look good.

I mean, he had the Habsburg jaw, probably had some kind of pituitary hormone deficiency, and all kinds of other health problems, and the French ambassador at the time of his wedding said he looked bad enough to inspire fear, so....

I wonder the same thing, as well as how the standards of beauty compared with the reality (and whatever passed for the earthly)common beauty of any poor people, as well as what would have counted as an other worldly beauty as well).

Agreeing, i also like Anne's portrait. She looks nice!

She was, by all accounts, and once Henry got over himself [and importantly, Anne didn't stand in his way] they became something approaching friends.

I do this all the time too, especially because there'll be portrait which IS hot, and was deemed attractive at the time, and I get confused on what the standards were supposed to be.

I've always thought Anne of Cleves was about the luckiest woman in Henry's life, despite the humiliation of the annulment. Dodged a MASSIVE bullet when he decided he didn't want her after all, got a generous settlement. Not a bad result, all told.

Edited 2021-04-09 12:47 (UTC)

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