#it's either that they're written as rapists - like edward here; like henry in the 2003 miniseries -

[fideidefenswhore]

Hi curious if you've read this: https://thecreationofanneboleyn.wordpress.com/tag/the-white-queen/

It's an article Susan Bordo wrote in 2013 comparing Anne Boleyn and Elizabeth Woodville to each other when the The White Queen came out in June of that year. Or more precisely how PG imagined both of them to be. Basically, Bordo thinks Gregory wrote her Elizabeth Woodville as an apology to Anne Boleyn. Thoughts?

Hi!

Yeah, this raises some interesting points, but, no, I don't really think PGreg wrote TWQ's heroine as means of apology to how she wrote TOBG's...anti-heroine, whether subconsciously or otherwise.

In the PGregverse, it does seem like the Woodvilles (and it is interesting, I suppose, that she wrote TOBG first) are, actually, much like the Boleyn(-Howard, as she makes clear) 'family firm'; or rather, that the Boleyns are like the Woodvilles, with the soul extracted:

'It is a battle to the death,' she says simply. 'That is what it means to be Queen of England. You are not Melusina, rising from a fountain to easy happiness. You will not be a beautiful woman at court with nothing to do but make magic. The road you have chosen will mean that you have to spend your life scheming and fighting. Our task, as your family, is to make sure you win.”

As an author, the Boleyns are possibly the most straightforward vehicle to craft narrative scandal, drama, and danger. It's not that the Woodvilles' path, forged during the fraught time of the WoTR (particularly, Elizabeth taking sanctuary with her family, several times, harkens to the dire predictions of Chapuys for AB, that there would be an uprising against her specifically that would push her into hiding, himself pushing for her excommunication, hoping that the people of England would make the hoped-for interdict follow her 'wherever she went'); was absent of these things (the several executions of members of their family, the bastardization of Elizabeth's children with Edward IV), but, simply put, there is not as direct of a foil to them as there is COA and Princess Mary, to the Boleyns. Nothing...is really, truly analagous, although similarities can be found (Warwick as advisor versus Wolsey or Cromwell-- JamesFrainification-- I suppose, Margaret of Anjou as 'rightful queen', although she does not seem to have had the immense public sympathy that COA did, nor was she, obviously, Edward IV's wife; on that note, Eleanor Talbot would be...a sensationalistic reach to quantify as a 'parallel', obviously she did not live with Edward as his wife for so many years, nor have his children, nor a coronation, although it is funny that there's that interlink in the Boleyn drama- her being a relation of Mary Talbot, Henry Percy's wife).

I do take her point on paralleling portrayals overall of Anne&Henry vs Edward&Elizabeth, though, not just merely TOBG, but more as a criticism of the sort of...static mold of this genre, I suppose? If the audience were to watch a HVIII that either soon recovered from, or cloaked, his disappointment in his first child by Anne being a daughter (rather than how it's usually written, as she summarizes in Par5, which contradicts, I would argue, evidence that suggests it was otherwise); then there would be suspense in what happens later. There is very minimal effort to subvert audience expectations in this way, however, it is almost like scriptwriters have given up on the element of suspense in storytelling here because the story is so well-known.