Tudors {T.V}

The king is a royal brat, and everybody will let him have his way, on pain of death. I have seen childish MCs' before but he takes the cake for the most selfish and domineering bastard.

SPOILERS - Slight departure from history.

Rule 1 of the complete asshole - Seduce the ladies in waiting, ignore the queen.
Bored of his matronly cultured wife? Say she was already deflowered by his older brother. (And rewrite himself as the Pope of England.) Tired of his younger bold seductress wife? Off with her head, on charges of adultery. (Befriend a staunch Catholic family with a pretty daughter.) Sick of his sweet and seemingly simple virgin wife? Let her die in childbirth. And then he decides to remarry. ( The Duchess of Milan sees his dating history and swipes left, marrying king of Spain.) He does not take it well. Not to mention all the other women he slept with, and did/did not offer titles to their husbands. Weird.

The contradiction of how he handles his daughter's marriage or his sister's marriage versus his own marriages. Some of this drama is deeply offensive through the feminine perspective, but remember this is just a drama. Those days are long past. Now we hold our future in our own hands. Marry with your minds first, then your hearts.

I actually prefer the mad king of Versailles. Or the crazy Khan from Marco Polo.  This guy, for all his pretty eyes, irks me. Whatever he wants,  he must have or he will grant you death. 74 is too small a number, make an example and kill hundreds.

I think his leg wound drives him mad. That swan pie was insane. What was that supposed to mean? I will tear mates apart because i no longer believe in love?

I like the homosexual characters here, they're real people, not caricatures and well written to fit the plot. Even the scorned wife/beard and her revenge is on point. Just discovered trope: Bury your gays.

I can see the allure here, this is a tamer GOT. Nowhere as explicit or violent. Definitely don't expect a happy ending, though, or get too attached to any character.

The fifth wife's fate is a caught red handed version of the second wife, plus also related to Lord Norfolk. Were they sisters? Correction, first cousins. Interesting how that odd rule of affinity does not apply here.

The most interesting takeaway is the depiction of the birth of Protestant religion. How a faction/sect is formed from the ambition of one man. How all religions are subject to the whims and wishes of mankind. Religion is man made.

Poor Cromwell. He did everything right. In spite of non stop plotting against him, he survived it all and won the king's favor when his own mentor was beheaded. And then he got the king an ugly wife and lost everything. What a reason to fall.  A tyrant will one day desire your head.

While visually appealing and containing strong plot, i felt no emotional connect to anyone here. So, i like it but don't love it. The costumes are stunning. I never expected silver on silver on silver to actually look that good.

Interesting philosophy here. The mindset of a king. If he dislikes you ( by your words or deeds) and if his enemy wants you dead, you are forgiven all crimes. ( he hates the enemy and it is amusing to frustrate them). If he dislikes you and if his enemies dislike you and if his allies dislike you and then you stand in his way, you will die. The last point is the trigger. Don't be the obstacle in his path.

Give him what he wants. Put aside all your scruples or moral reasons or ambitions or hopes. Let him trample on everything you value most.

A moment for North Korea. This is fiction to me but everyday existence to them.

Super secret spoiler - The last queen outlived Henry VIII. Wow.

MAOU drama. {T.V}

Not to be confused with Kyou Kara Maou, the anime, that is a whole other review.

This is based on South Korean Drama, "the Devil 2007 ". I will check it out and tell ya. Low down, Maou is emotionally more effective while Devil has more details and a fleshed out backstory, the cards make more sense in Devil. But I prefer Maou hands down, the opponents don't like or trust each other in Devil, but they do in Maou and that brings the angst.

This is a prime sample of what I look for when I watch drama, something to make me question everything. This show has got it all.

Maou is awesome. A beautiful display of diverse morality and evil ingenuity where no one truly wins. Pyrrhic victory. We have a hero with a horrible past. A villain born from that same past. A heroine who gains her psychic powers from that very past. The past is an awfully powerful thing. Does it shackle us or set us free or burn us alive...  we don't get to choose.

PARTIAL SUMMARY -

Start at the crime scene, four bullies ganging up on two friends, one friend Yamano, has had enough and brings a knife to school. The other friend Hideo, convinces him to hold back and takes the knife for safekeeping. The bullies find the knife and their leader mock threatens the brave kid Hideo. They struggle with the knife and fall together. The kid ends up dead and the bullies flee. The mad friend watches it all happen in silence. A basketball bounces and a girl runs to pick it up. This triggers her second sight and she sees it all happen in her head. She testifies as a witness to the crime.

The rich bully walks away with the help of his dad and his dad's assistant, a reporter's lies, his fellow bullies covering up for him, and his own lie that it was justified self defence because the dead kid was holding a knife. At the funeral, the murderer's rich dad's assistant (the asshole arrogance of this move) meets the dead kid's family and offers money. The mother dies on the spot of anger and grief. The brother loses his entire family in one messy accidental knife stab. But murder is murder is murder. When you take a life, you end all possibility for that life, the interactions with other lives it could have had, the meaning it could have had. If all lives have purpose, what did you just destroy? Do you even know?

This is where this drama gets profound with plot. I watched this and I forgot this was fiction. It burnt right down to my heart. This is a WIN.

SPOILERS - may not be in order

The brother does not go mad, that would be a mercy in his case. No, he keeps his kindness and gains a thirst for vengeance that cannot be quenched. Nothing will satisfy him. Nothing.

The rich kid becomes a cop in his quest for atonement but he forgets the past completely. The past does not forget about him.

The running theme is Lucifer, an angel who fell, beautiful and beloved, charming and kind. Naruse Ryou is all that and more, the angelic lawyer who saves lives, the rising star and pride of all who know him. Even the heroic cop is awestruck by him, his beauty and grace. This makes the truth even more painful when it is ultimately revealed. I worship the acting here.

Naruse sensei does not care about anything but our hero. (And that sensei tag is legit, even people older than him call him that, so weird.) He stalks him and watches everything he does. This is super creepy and you want to immediately diagnose this as villain behavior and not care anymore, but he makes you care, because his revenge includes innocent bystanders with a grudge. He manipulates ordinary people and uses them as his weapons to murder his enemies. This is Light Yagami's finest cruelty. And he does all this while being kind, defending justice, saving lives and being an ideal role model for children.

Stereotypical villain, never. The heroine irked me in the beginning, super forgiving and full of kindness, (no human being could ever be her) I thought she would cling to the hero but she fell in love with Naruse sensei. This is a clever detail because he falls in love with her too. When she discovers his true identity and begs him to stop, oh my god. He wants to stop but he can't, he begs the hero to stop him. Kill me, cause you can't catch me. No proof of his crimes.

I keep saying hero and villain but they are not so easily defined here. The roles are laid out but so often interchanged and left behind. I don't like the hero, the moment I know about the past, I love the villain and pity him, yet the plot won't let you forget who they are in the eyes of the law. They won't let each other forget.

Naruse is a monster. Never forget that. A monster aware of his sins but driven by the cause of revenge. He manipulates a young mother into taking a life by faking her daughter's kidnapping. Of course she is blamed as a murderer and she hates him for that.

Lelouch of Code Geass. Hamlet of Shakespeare. Revenge is a road you cannot return from but still you must walk on it until the very end. However it ends, it was not a choice but a compulsion. A necessary step.

Flaws - the tarot cards are a bit flaky, I mean, they don't work for me, I get their meaning but no supernatural edge, I watched Mentalist, so they are more of a con artist's tools to me. The psychic readings that Naruse can control, huh, did he also gain a power from his brother's death, or his best friend's death? Frankly unnecessary. Could have revealed more clues in the letters instead of supernatural hints. Keep the cards if the motif means that much, make the girl an ordinary fortune teller who saw the kid get killed in real time. ( she could point it out as an accident, which it was, surprise!) But then she wouldn't be involved with the criminal investigation. OK, I just debated myself off my point. Yay. Wait, make her the female cop who dabbles in fortune telling? Forget it, this is chasing my own tail.

Minor irritation, her clothes. How are those even clothes. No flattering cut, no pretty color, as if she's a ghost or a non entity. Overabundance of white or bland tones of nude brown. The Devil drama has a better wardrobe for their heroine.

Advance notice / informed murders / forewarned murders. He never bloodies his own hands, but they all blame him for it. If murder was already in their hearts and he just gave them the right opportunity? I'm not the go to book on law so I've no idea about his culpability. Is this aid and abet category?

The strength it takes to pursue revenge. It would be easier to forgive and forget, start life anew, but he clung to revenge and let it shatter all that he was and would be.The tragedy of lost potential. We are not gods so we never see the ifs and maybes that death steals from us. The chances and the choices, all denied to us.

There is so much meaning here, so wicked twisted is the plot. The dialogue is brilliant, full of clever cutting ripostes and cries of mercy and pleas of forgiveness. Brilliant idea to make the villain older, it adds emotional depth with a society that has age based identity ranking. Senpai and kouhai.

I've left a lot of details out because I want you to see it for yourself. This is very good, please don't miss it.