candyumbrella:

Reign: Hard vs. Soft Power [4/???]

#in every fandom i know the setup on the right is greeted with oohs and aahs of look how much power mary has #and i love how seeing the real thing juxtaposed with it highlights the fundamental inherent fallacy #it’s called soft power for a reason

#that’s the thing about scenes where a man ‘grants’ his female love interest ‘equality’ #like they’re always touted as ~empowering for the woman #like when francis told mary that it was better for them to ‘rule as equals’ in this ep #but isn’t there something fucked up about a setup where the man has the power to do that in the first place? #where he gets to decide whether or not a woman is worth treating ’as his equal’? #that’s not equality #and what can be given can also be taken away (ofc when this happens fandom says it’s ooc or bad writing rme ) #as frary demonstrated on multiple occasions

#i’m just saying why do people go so much by what the man in a ship says #when assessing the power balance in the dynamic #without considering what a fundamental flaw it is that it’s up to him in the first place #and all this holds regardless of francis’s personality or intentions #the setup itself is unfair to begin with #no woman would ever say that to her male love interest; because it would be a given; taken for granted #not to mention it wouldn’t be up to her in the first place

ourgraciousqueen:

REX: A show chronicling the House of Tudor from Henry VIII’s coronation, to Elizabeth I’s death. (4/?)

*Season 4 starts with the first Act of Supremacy in 1534, and ends with Henry’s marriage to Anne of Cleves in 1540.

also your opinion on cromwell’s execution scene in the tudors!!!

chilling and terrifying…i cried even tho he’s not my fav.

artistically, i think it did well in that we see the truth, in the same way he does when he’s on the scaffold– that he did beyond what almost any other adviser did to make himself indispensable to henry viii, and that he was being dispensed of anyway…risen farther than anyone could have ever imagined, and fallen even farther than he’d risen.

wish it’d been a bit more accurate, tho (altho they did include his letter which was nice), such as including this:

On the morning of the 28 July 1540, according to Foxe, Cromwell called for his breakfast, and, after ‘cheerfully eating the same’, he set out for the scaffold. On the way he met Lord Hungerford…looking ‘heavy and doleful’. Cromwell, still cheerful, bid him take heart and not fear. ‘For if you repent and be heartily sorry for what you have done, there is for you mercy enough with the Lord, who for Christ’s sake will forgive you; and therefore be not dismayed. And though the breakfast which we are going to be sharp, yet trusting to the mercy of the Lord, we shall have a joyful dinner.’