Why Is Diane De Poitiers Always Played By A Young Woman When She Was 17 Years OLDER Than Her Lover, Henri

Jaime knighting Brienne was such a beautiful scene. Being a knight was something she dreamed about ever since she was a little girl, thinking that she would never get to be that. Yet here she is being knighted by someone she loves and respects. She deserves this so much. 

Fun Fact:

I learned this while researching for my Prince Hamid essay. Naturally reading about the Ottoman Empire leads you to learning about the Sultans and then by extension the Harem. I can’t find a place for this fact in my essay, but it left me absolutely hysterical with laughter for some time so here it is…

Prior to 1861, all artist renditions of the harem at the Ottoman palace had been done by men. Now I’m not sure if you’re aware, but the penalty for a man seeing a woman of the sultan’s harem was death. However, all these paintings were created and they resulted in so much romanticizing of the harem all throughout the western world. Beautiful women, dancers, lithe bodies, all generally partially naked just there and hanging out together. It was the college dorm fantasy of the time.

Enter Henriette Browne, a French painter, with royal and diplomatic ties, who travelled to Constantinople (among other places). She would paint there and usually favored eastern subjects. She enjoyed school scenes and scenes with women especially. Anyhow, she’s given access to the harem. Henriette is the first painter who sees the harem because she’s a woman and she was allowed by law to be there. She paints the harem, among other subjects, and returns to Europe.

Cue all of Europe’s collective gasp when she unveils her Une visite, interior de harem, Constantinople to the eagerly awaiting public. Her painting shocked and stunned them because she had actually been inside and painted no partially clothed women.

But where’s all the naked ladies?!

The face of a man who let a million people burn so he could be king

Bran knew that he would be picked to be king.

So when Bran spent the end of season 7 and the first part of season 8 constantly saying how important it was for Jon to know who his parents are… it was so Jon would break up with Daenerys, she would go mad, burn a million people, and Jon would kill her; leaving the throne open for… Bran.

I mean if the show had made Bran an intentional villain or morally grey; acknowledge that he knew a city would be destroyed, and didn’t do anything to stop it, rather did his part to set up the pieces to make it happen, that would be a great twist. But the writers don’t seem to be aware of the implications of Brans psychic abilities and the choices he made ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I feel like if I had to choose which Stark sister would kill Cersei, it would have to be Sansa. Including the relationship they shared, Sansa actually lost something to Cersei and that was Lady when she demanded Lady killed. In contrast Arya killing Cersei for Ned doesn't make sense because that was Joff. (Cersei wanted Ned sent to the NW) Unless people are referring to Robb and Cat which could work. But I would still choose Sansa because I think it would have more of an impact. *shrug*

Sansa would also be killing the person she once admired. It would definitely have a bigger emotion impact if it were Sansa. Arya was absolutely done wrong by Cersei but it wasn’t really a betrayal against Arya since she never had any positive feelings for Cersei. Sansa had the person she hoped to one day be turn out to be her abuser. It’s a more heartbreaking dynamic between Cersei and Sansa.

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.

Margaret was born in Westminster Palace on November 28th, 1489, she was the second child and first daughter of Henry VII and his queen Elizabeth of York. She was named in honor of her grandmother, Margaret Beaufort. Margaret was betrothed to James IV, King of Scots in 1502 when Margaret was 12, her mother and grandmother insisted that her marriage wait until she was older and so Margaret was married by proxy on 25 January 1503. Her younger brother Henry succeeded their father in 1509 and tensions between England and Scotland began to rise which came to a head with the battle of Flodden in 1513, where Margaret’s husband James would be killed in battle leaving Margaret a young widow and their young son James as king.

Margaret was made regent to her son, but Margaret would make an ill fated marriage with Archibald Douglas the earl of Angus which would make Margaret flee to England in 1515 where she gave birth to her daughter and only other surviving child, Margaret Douglas. Margaret returned to Scotland in 1517, she would marry for the third time in 1528 to Henry Stewart, Lord Methven. Margaret was never able to achieve peace between England and Scotland, her brother and her son James would never be true allies and the relationship between her two countries would remain tense.

Margaret died in 1541, her son would outlive her for only a year and Margaret’s granddaughter, Mary, become queen at only a week old. Margaret’s great grandson through both her son and daughter, James VI, would follow her nice Elizabeth as the next king of England in 1603, uniting the crowns of England and Scotland, Margaret is the ancestress of every British monarch since.

You can appreciate BookSansa and ShowSansa at the same time too. 

you had an anon a while back who said that sansa was antagonistic at the end of the show, and i agree that she was at least unrecognizable compared to her book counterpart. she's sapped of the kindness and courtesy that defined her in the books. an example is how she tells edmure to sit down in the finale. book sansa would never humiliate her uncle like that.

That's kind of an unfair comparison because show!Sansa's story is also very different. The show veered away from her actual arc early on (nice!Hound, nice!Tyrion, no Vale arc, Ramsay... etc) and utterly de-emphasized her thematic connection to storytelling and idealism and romance.

Show!Sansa is consistent within the story the show chose to tell, more so than many other characters. She makes sense at the end, the stupid Edmure moment notwithstanding.

But she is very much a different character entirely from book!Sansa.

America wants a second season too! Cozy British period dramas are the highlight of my week over here. 

Hello dear Miss Lori! Do you know of any news regarding Sanditon's chances to a season 2? I was sure everything will be fine until I read on twitter that Andrew Davies said that ITV was disappointed with the ratings. And that, if he had known that it would be only one season, he would end it very differently. My heart broke when I read that. If yoz have any consolation, it would be greatly appreciated.

Hey, Miss Nonnie. :)

Honestly I haven’t seen this particular Andrew Davies interview since I don’t spend that much time on twitter. I did have a look on Google and I couldn’t find anything aside from Davies saying that he’d love to do another season. 

However, I think the clear indication now is that ITV is waiting on the American market’s reception of the show to announce a second season so that’s my best guess. We are entirely in our American brethrens hands. 

I did suffer a bit of a blow in my confidence about the certainty of a 2nd season which was based on the idea that they had built the entire Sanditon town for the show. I felt that kind of investment wouldn’t have been done if they weren’t planning on a 2nd season. 

Since then, though, I’ve come to find out a new Pride and Prejudice adaptation is in the works on ITV (why?!?!?) by the creators of Poldark (a dark retelling because … WHY?!??!?!) and I assume they will be using the set for that as well. 

However, seeing as there isn’t any news of cast, filming schedule or anything on that yet, it’s still in pre-production so hopefully ITV will give Sanditon another season to fill in the spot in 2020 and prepare the audience for their P&P regency extravaganza. 

Thanks for the ask!

Set dressing makes all the difference in the world.