Hi, Sorry To Be A Bother, But I Was Wondering If U Knew Any Alternatives To Philippa Gregory?? I Really

“Where is reading comprehension? Where is nuance?”

Ladies and Gentlemen, we need to make this a meme all Literature teachers and professors can get behind. 

Make it happen!

alicent voice where is reading comprehension where is nuance

A view of Edinburgh in 1560, the year Scotland formally adopted Protestantism as the national religion. 

I get the feeling D&D really didn’t want Bran to be king, but did so because it was in George’s outline. Seeing how little Bran has done to be king (or deserve being king), they made Sansa Queen of the North because that at least makes more sense than King Bran. 

Northern independence, and the people who keep defending it as an outcome on the show, continues to bother me. I like the idea of the breakup of the kingdoms in theory, but it should be a full dissolution. There is no point to the north becoming independent alone. If being part of a united realm is such horrible evil tyranny, then why isn't it horrible and evil for the remaining kingdoms? Why is it okay for them to be forced to kneel not only to a king but a Northern, and therefore foreign, monarch? Especially since at least two of them have a history of rejecting foreign rule.

And if things in the Six Kingdoms are actually going to be good and just and all that, then why is it necessary for the North to secede? They could just stay and be ruled over by the legal heir to House Stark and continue to reap the benefits of easy trade with the more winter-resistant kingdoms. The happiest years of Sansa's life were spent in a united realm, so what does she think this is going to give her? I'm pretty sure King Bran is how the books are supposed to end per GRRM, and my suspicion is that the showrunners wanted to upgrade Warden of the North Sansa to Queen Sansa in an attempt to dodge the accusations of misogyny naturally arising from the treatment of other female characters who aspired to rulership. This is empty pandering if I'm right, and I don't care for it.

“Well. Things didn’t work out.”

Mr. Pokee

Hairy Potter likes his room in the cupboard under the stairs now.

The Serpent Queen Narration

If done right, the first-person-narration addressing the camera in The Serpent Queen could be really effective. 

Imagine, after several episodes of quipping and dark humor, the night of the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre arrives, and Catherine finally addresses the camera and the audience without her usual smirk. As we watch thousands of people dying on essentially her orders, she quietly says: “I was protecting my family. What would YOU have done differently?” 

I am having more fun with this than should be allowed

Some favourite staging moments in productions of Shakespeare plays:

Clarence actually getting drowned in a barrel of wine on stage in Richard III; it was a small barrel, they stuck his head into it as he struggled, pulled him out for an instant as he gasped for air and screamed, his head was wet and sopping, his face all red

Macbeth clutching his empty hands to hold an imaginary child, casting a clawed shadow on the wall

Ophelia ripping out hanks of her hair to give to people during her ‘flowers’ scene (obviously fake hair in real life)

Benedict in Much Ado About Nothing hiding from Claudio, Leonato and Don Pedro, taking a swig from a can of beer that happened to be full of cigarette butts and spit-taking it all over Don Pedro and Leonato

who then awkwardly pretend to check if it’s raining

Angelo in Measure for Measure taking off a bloody cilice belt from around his thigh while saying ‘Blood, thou art blood’ 

Also a really good bit where Angelo shows up in a two way mirror later on when the Duke’s speaking to himself and cursing him; the Duke turns to point at the mirror and there’s Angelo, in the chain of office, pointing back, accusing the Duke as much as the Duke does to him

The moment in Julius Caesar where Brutus asks his servant Strato - who’s been sitting with his back to the audience and wearing a hat with a wide brim - to help him commit suicide; Strato stands while taking off his hat to reveal that he’s played by Caesar’s actor

(a collective gasp went around the theatre; really lent a whole new meaning to ‘Caesar, now be still. I killed not thee with half so good a will’)

After a frantic chase scene in The Comedy of Errors which ends with all the cast collapsed across the stage in exhaustion and the scenery itself falling to bits…a pair of underpants falls from the ceiling, and Dromio of Ephesus (who’d tried in vain to retrieve them at the start of the play) crawls over several other characters, seizes them and screams in triumph 

Josh Radnor or Richard Armitage :)

You are pure evil!! I mean  there’s Josh Radnor looking hot and brooding in a cravat.

And then there’s Richard Armitage, who also looks smoking in a cravat…

So don’t get me wrong, I love me some Josh Radnor as Jed Foster, but… I’m going to have to go with Richard Armitage, because I have been attracted to him in everything I have ever seen him in. I mean  ….

Speaking of which, I should really watch Hannibal, obviously for plot reasons and not for the above picture….