#nigar kalfa

[awkward-sultana]

Magnificent Century + Hair Moments in 1x06: Bitter Sweetness

[velnat004]

WIP wednesday

Trying a different painting style with Nigar Kalfa and I rlly love how it's coming out ♡♡♡

Tagging @nicolajpg @oh-no-who-took-my-sushi @southernreaches @miseryscrowned @fuzzyhairedfreak @brother-genitivi uWu

[dyingroses]

Magnificent Century + text posts and stuff

[lightfed]

made some magnificent century characters moodboards so here they are

hurrem sultan

nurbanu sultan

mahidevran sultan

hatice sultan

mihrimah sultan

nigar kalfa

[elizabeth-halime]

[does-he-know-he-is-my-sun]

Nigar and Esmanur are Ibrahim’s “Return”

1) Ibrahim’s arc is defined by a word play on the Turkish verb “dönmek” which means both “to convert” and “to return”. This is his dilemma. Which should he do?

2) This is showcased in his famous monologue in Episode 1 (which is on the Spotify soundtrack):

Nigar-Ibrahim relationship is defined by this monologue.

3) “Will the sea you crossed, the port you arrived at, the home you found remember you?”

Nigar’s hometown Sulina, is a port town and every mention of it by her is related to water and ships (it also had a Greek-majority and most of its population made their living by fishing):

And towards the end of her life, Nigar returns to Sulina but feels alienated and returns to Istanbul to die.

She returned but the home she found didn’t remember her:

(Ibrahim and Nigar are the only characters in the show who briefly return to their hometown only to come back to Istanbul and to die there).

4) “Will she take you into her bosom and protect you?”

This line of Ibrahim’s monologue is blatantly a reference to both motherhood and sex. It is slightly grossly Freudian but Meral Okay clearly liked this kind of stuff.

And Nigar and his mother are somehow linked in Ibrahim’s mind. When Nigar’s tear drops on his forehead, he dreams a dream of his mother in which she tells her to “return to his home” which wakes him up from his coma. He takes Nigar as his mistress at the end of the same episode. This is a possible reference to both Nigar’s healing powers on him and to baptism/rebirth.

(For the sake of fairness I will point out that his relationship with Hatice also has this Freudian angle. The violin is Hatice/Ibrahim’s motif and relates to his mother).

5) “Is there any way to go back?”

The only time Ibrahim says he loves Nigar is when he is fantasizing about returning to Parga:

6) “Or does fate only show the way forward?”

This is Ibrahim’s speech the first time he sees Esmanur, his daughter with Nigar:

"Do not forget this face, İbrahim. These almond-shaped eyes, this shapely nose, these silk hands... Do not forget. She is yours. She is of your blood. She belongs only to you. She is not the daughter of the Ottoman Dynasty, not of the Grand Vizier İbrahim Pasha, but of the son of the fisherman Manolis, the Pargalı convert Theodoris."

Esmanur’s original name was “Kader” - “fate, destiny”. Ibrahim changed it to “Esmanur”, “the one who illuminates” (interestingly Süleyman is “sun” to Ibrahim and Hatice is “stars”):

7) Ships and Mothers:

Ibrahim’s last scene relating to Nigar and Esmanur:

8) “Is the place you came from and returned to waiting?”

The show’s answer is unfortunately no. Ibrahim returns to Parga but his mother is already dead. Nigar returns to Sulina but she feels like a stranger there now. In their relationship to each other they play the roles assigned to them by the Ottoman Slave System: They are “My Pasha” and “Nigar Kalfa” rather than Theo and whatever Nigar’s original name was. Ibrahim’s relationship with Nigar even sometimes mirrors Süleyman’s with women like Sadıka or Gülnihal! And we don’t know if Esmanur could “return” either.

But an attempt was made in the Nigar/Ibrahim relationship. An attempt to “return”, to be human and uncorrupted again. It miserably failed, but it was still noteworthy and poignant.

Conclusion: I primarily love the Nigar/Ibrahim relationship because it is sexy and I never hid that. But it also is interesting and deep.

@ohhmichelettoohh @desmoonl @redxluna @zeldaxxi @redrosecut @minetteskvareninova @hurremsultanns @burningdreambanana @lightfed @julyzaa @mariuspompom

[tianmicons]

[burningdreambanana]

You know something I really loved about Nigar and Hurrem's friendship is that Nigar wasn't afraid to call her out when she did something wrong. When Hurrem burnt Gulnihal's face, Nigar really put her foot down and properly scolded her, and that was after Hurrem became a sultana

She was really disappointed that someone she cared about would do such a thing. And something I also find really interesting and love about Nigar is that she was also angry that Hurrem made her part of it, even if Nigar was unaware she is disgusted by the fact that she helped hurt someone, which speaks volume about her character

And she later reconciles with her because she notes Hurrem's distress at being separated from Mehmet

(look how happy she is for Hurrem when she's reunited with Mehmet)

And that's real friendship for me, not enabling their bad behaviors but calling them out instead, setting boundaries, but at the the end of the day being there to support them at their lowest point

[malachitezmeyka]

Two years ago I said that the identical glances were proof these two were mother and daughter and I stand by that statement

Also, Daye!!!!

[awkward-sultana]

Magnificent Century + Parallels: Ibrahim Pasha & Hürrem Sultan

[hurremsultanns]

Daye cradling Nigar Happy birthday @thesonofthefisherman-deactivate

[magnificentlyreused]

This headband was first worn by Hürrem Sultan in the sixteenth episode of the first season of Magnificent Century. It appeared three times in the second season, first on Nilüfer Hatun in the fourteenth episode, then on Nigar Kalfa in the twenty-first episode and lastly on Aybige Hatun in the twenty-second episode. The headband was also worn by Huricihan Sultan in the seventh episode of the third season. The piece also very briefly appears on Ayşe Hümaşah Sultan in the thirteenth episode of the fourth season.

[dyingroses]

Magnificent Century + AO3 tags

[lightfed]

an au where nigar lived, moved in with ibrahim's brother as per his wishes, esmanur is happy with her mom and it isn't perfect but they're slowly getting there(a gift for @thevampiricnihal)

He is not Ibrahim. There are certain times when she forgets—they share the same face after all, it's easy to be trapped into false hopes and dreams she knows will never come true, dreams she knows cannot come true no matter how much she wants it because Ibrahim will never be hers.

At certain times, she absolutely despises the very idea of another man wearing the face of the man she loved. She cannot stomach when her daughter calls him dad and they both let her because it's better than her knowing the truth and the very moment they met, when she sees the pity in his eyes because he knows the reality of her situation better than anyone except for Ibrahim and herself.

And at other times, she wishes he was. At other times, like when he takes her angel-faced girl to the sea and they play and his eyes reflect the shine of the sun in the water, when he laughs and it reaches his eyes in the way Ibrahim's never truly could and they radiate life and joy, when he greets her and his face is filled with warmth Ibrahim's did back when she was in his arms and they were trapped in what was, essentially both their paradise and hell, when she watches him roast fishes, listens to the fire crackling and they talk for hours as the moon glows above them.

She refuses to acknowledge these feelings because she had let herself be consumed by her feelings once upon a time. She was willing to burn for those feelings, to lose everything all for false haven, a false sense of peace and passion a woman like her apparently did not deserve to feel because Gods decided her fate for her and she was in the land that is not her own and forced to raise her daughter with no one but herself to rely upon.

This was not news to her because she had been forced to rely on no one but herself even since she was taken away from her home, away from her grandmother and forced into learning to live in a place where she was never allowed to let her guard down.

The lessons she learned at the Topkapi Palace never left her, not even when she was at peace and apparently safe from danger, from being used like a puppet on a string however the royal family saw fit from ploys and from betrayals her mind was always racing, always prepared for the worst.

That's how she's lived for as long as she's known herself and she's fine with it. She will focus on raising her daughter and being present in her life, on being absolutely perfect at the role of a mother to the point where Esmanur doesn't notice one of her parents is missing.

When she came to this decision, she was completely fine with it so why is it that, when another woman(a woman younger than her, a woman with golden hair and eyes as blue as the sea, a woman who was delicate and soft and perfect, a woman not yet forced to face the cruelties of life) shows interest in Nico an ugly feeling swallows her whole, a feeling she is entirely too knowledgeable of because she had experienced it before, when she had to serve Hatice Sultana and watch the man she loved entirely devote himself to her.

Nico refuses her advances quite clearly but this doesn't stop her from showing up with whatever excuse she can come up with to visit either way until Nigar's body acted before she could comprehend her own actions and she wraps her arm around his tightly, informing him that Esmanur must be lonely and that they should go back home.

Nico offers her a knowing look she pointedly ignores, not letting go all the way back home even though the woman is nowhere in their sight and she doesn't have to hold onto him any longer.

He is not Ibrahim.

Perhaps, she thinks to herself, as she watches him carry her daughter on his back and rush into a grass field and their laughter echoes in her ears while the wind is playing with her hair on a perfect spring day, it's not the worst thing.

[sic-k]

(I don't think this scene needs translation, the body language speaks for itself)

I LOVE MC's secondary characters, kalfas and harem hatuns are much more important than we realize. The friendship and bond between Nigar and Daye makes my eyes shine... at Nigar's wedding, when Valide fired Daye....

Daye refused to defend herself in such a humiliating task for his age but didn't think twice to defend Nigar (who she treats her like a daughter).

I watched again and again, not just because they gave us DAYE SLAPPING GÜLSHA IN SLOWMOTION, it was the greatest proof of the bond between nigar and daye (for now, EP48) and daye's genuine demonstration of justice, a quality applied in a purer form than the sultans, not as a rule, but you understand what I meant. ABSOLUTE CINEMA.

I love daye, and daye's hair after the return of mahidrevan to the main palace (she problaly gonna die tho, so i'm trying not to get attached, i'm not in the mood for crying and sobbing)

[does-he-know-he-is-my-sun]

MC Episode 1 - Part 4

11) (Nigar)

And here we have the famous speech (my observations are below the screenshots):

1) Here we see the main difference between Daye and Nigar: Daye brags about Valide having not come to the palace as a slave and immediately after that Nigar starts her famous speech to Hürrem with “We all came here as slaves.” I see a subtle passive-aggression on Nigar’s part here.

Daye is content to see her masters’ status as something elevating her own status as well, she is devoted to them. Nigar on the other hand never forgets that she herself is a slave and doesn’t identify with her masters, even if she seemingly plays by the rules.

2) Some people (usually the fans who want to dismiss Nigar’s contribution to Hürrem’s rise) say “Nigar tells these things to every girl who arrives at the Harem”. This is wrong. Nigar clearly takes Hürrem away from the other girls to deliver this speech. Nigar chose Hürrem because she saw potential in her fiery and determined personality and because she felt a kinship with her due to her Ruthenian origin. This speech, or at least the way it was worded, was for Hürrem only.