Little Things

Tom Hiddleston’s hips appreciation [requested by idreaminthestars]

(Source: rachellweisz, via ikidtheenot)

harry-le-roy:

gwenbasil:

This

this is interesting to me

there are weird dimensions of Henry’s feelings about warviolence poking out here

First of all it is right up next to the justprevious scenes where his WARSPEECH was basically to stop some soldiers from fleeing who had just seen a guy get his face scalded off. He basically uses some D&D Bardic Voice magic to replace their actual memories of actual horrors with a patriotic story instead to get them to go back to the fighting. (I love that staging so much basically.)

And so here it is switched - instead of a civil negotiation of surrender with platitudes about safety and governance or whatever, you get vicious, brutal threats

He says it three times, three different ways

“the flesh’d soldier, rough and hard of heart,
In liberty of bloody hand shall range
With conscience wide as hell, mowing like grass
your fresh-fair virgins”

“What is’t to me, when you yourselves are cause,
If your pure maidens fall into the hand
Of hot and forcing violation?
What rein can hold licentious wickedness?”

“If not, why, in a moment look to see
The blind and bloody soldier with foul hand
Defile the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters;”

Yes, MURDER TOO but this is the threat that gets threatened three times.

AND HE GETS EMOTIONAL TOO, at one of the “what is it to me?” lines, and he just gets louder and more vicious to drown it out - I feel like I’m literally watching him cut off a big chunk of his humanity here. He doesn’t love violence, but rapists are a piece on his game board, and he’s gonna make that move.

I feel like this scene is the opposite side of the coin to his interaction with Katherine (another negotiation of surrender) and I swear this is the guy she sees. Vicious murder your family invade your country warlord Henry V. ESPECIALLY with the repetition of soldier, soldier, soldier.

(Will you vouchsafe to teach a soldier terms such as will enter at a lady’s ear?/I speak to thee plain soldier/take me, take a soldier, take a king)

THE BLIND AND BLOODY SOLDIER, THE FLESH’D SOLDIER. God, he’s terrifying. HE DID THIS and all the killing too.

and therefore none of his little calculatedly-adorkable pressures on Catherine can be completely free of the subtext of physical force.

Come, I know thou lovest me.

thou must therefore needs
prove a good soldier-breeder

.

.

.

I am so fucking invested in nobody romanticizing Henry/Kate you don’t even know.

yes oh my god alllllll of thissssssss

okay here’s the thing, when it comes to henry v i am absolutely rabid about harfleur. in terms of characterization i care about harfleur orders of magnitude more than i care about anything else. like, if you’re not going to do harfleur right, then do not fucking apply, do not pass go, do not collect $200, do not do [insert additional contemptuous phrases here].

AND THEY DID IT RIGHT.

you should honestly feel like throwing up after this speech. because it’s terrifying and brutal, and i don’t think hal’s intimate knowledge of how actual people actually live is ever more in evidence than it is here. this kind of speech could only have been made by someone who understands that the people of harfleur don’t give a shit about salic law or tennis balls or anything else the privileged princes of both sides do to flatter their own vanity. they care about their babies, and their elderly parents, and their wives and daughters. they care about the ability to keep living their lives in relative health and security once the latest army has passed by.

henry uses that knowledge in the most vicious manner imaginable. and he does so as a fully conscious moral actor, horrifying even himself and his supporters in the process.

I CANNOT TELL YOU HOW MANY FEELINGS I HAVE ABOUT THIS PRODUCTION. I CAN ONLY TELL YOU THAT THEY’RE ALL GOOD.

AND, YES, THEY DID KATHERINE RIGHT, TOOOOOOOOOO. they played the wooing scene as a negotiation, which i love soooooo much. yes, henry is unbelievable charming but that’s a choice exactly as much as his ~outrage~ at the tennis balls is a choice, as much as his brutality as harfleur and agincourt is a choice (and as much as the way he used/abused the eastcheap crew was a choice…). katherine is a fully conscious person, keenly aware of her own lack of agency, but also protective of whatever power she has (or can take) in this particular negotiation.

(Source: ivyarchive, via butilovefire)

poins:

SO.  Let’s talk about the clergy in The Hollow Crown, because it is incredibly interesting.

I’d like to explain to begin with that a major theme throughout the tetralogy is the divine right of kingship.  Richard II casts himself as Jesus because he believes he is divinely appointed.  Henry IV’s deepest desire is to take a Crusade to the Holy Land in order to convince God that he does, in fact, have the divine right to kingship; the cognitive dissonance he feels from the way he ascended the throne contributes greatly to his decline.  Henry V’s reign is more successful than his father’s because he is seen as having the divine right to the throne, and he’s constantly invoking God’s blessing on his actions.

The three kings’ differing relationships with the concept of divine right is shown through their interactions with the clergymen around them.

In Richard II, the Bishop of Carlisle is entirely and unquestioningly in support of Richard.  It’s almost ludicrous, in fact, how much the Bishop of Carlisle believes that Richard will eventually win this argument with Bolingbroke and retain his status as the rightful king.  ”That Power that made you king/hath power to keep you king in spite of all.”  Richard echoes him: “Not all the water in the rough rude sea/Can wipe the balm off from this anointed king.”  The Bishop is constantly in the backdrop of Richard’s scenes, even when he has no lines (example: the speech Richard gives from the castle).  The Bishop represents Richard’s right to be king.  He, along with the other clerical figure in the play, the Abbot of Westminster, are the architects of the plot to assassinate Bolingbroke at his coronation.

Interestingly, Bolingbroke chooses to imprison the Bishop rather than execute him, and this action is ultimately symbolic for how Henry IV views his ascension to the throne.  Richard’s divine right to the throne still exists, and this makes Henry IV deeply uneasy throughout the course of both plays.

There are no clergymen in 1 Henry IV*, but when we get to 2 Henry IV, we have the Archbishop of York, who leads the rebellion against Henry IV (and does some really excellent side-eyeing of Prince John, His Lord Royal Highness Boss Bitch of Lancaster, in what is really the most underrated scene of the whole production.  But I digress).  It’s very telling that not only is the Archbishop the only clergyman we see in either Henry IV play but also that the King doesn’t even interact directly with him.  He sends his son to deal with him instead.  Said son, defending his father’s claim, arrests and (probably) executes the Archbishop.  The lone religious figure in the play opposes Henry IV’s kingship.  This is a direct reflection of Henry IV’s own uneasiness about the crown: he himself doesn’t believe he has the divine right to the throne (‘God knows, my son/By what by-paths and indirect crook’d ways/I met this crown’). 

Henry V’s relationship with the clergy is, as with all things relating to Henry V, complex.  The Archbishop of Canterbury decides to sneakily use France (and the conquest thereof) to distract him from levying a huge tax on the Church.  Henry V, however, has already decided to invade France** and so cleverly uses the Archbishop’s argument to accomplish his own ends.  Between the two of them, there’s mutual respect and admiration.  Henry V is neither unilaterally supported by the clergy nor at odds with them; he and they are separate entities, both functioning to their own best purpose.  Henry V has struck a balance between Richard II’s overwhelming belief in his divine right and his father’s uncertainty about his ascension to the throne.

——

*OOPS I LIED, there is actually a clergyman in 1 Henry IV, but it’s that same Archbishop of York.  I’m not sure he’s in the adaptation?

**OOH this is a tricky interpretation and doesn’t really come across in the adaptation.  I think it happens like this: Henry IV’s last advice is ‘hey look out for foreign quarrels, then people won’t rebel.’  Henry V takes this advice to heart and when the Archbishop starts urging him to invade France he’s already decided to, so he goes along with it.  The Dauphin’s tennis balls feature nowhere in this equation except for giving Henry an excuse to burn the Dauphin with some truly excellent puns.

(Source: borgevino)

poins:

gwenbasil:

He’s not even looking at his captains. He’s not even looking at his army. He’s looking off in a completely third direction. Look at that face, at “we band of brothers” he is totally inside his head all, “REPUBLICANISM, MERITOCRACY, WHAT PRETTY IDEAS.”

This king.

I want to say something about his … sort of going tangential to circumstances to deal with them. He talks to Poins about loving his father, he talks to his captains about his soldiers, he talks to his soldiers about his crown. He doesn’t cry at Henry IV’s ‘death’ at his bedside but in a different room.

THAT IS SUCH A MODERN THING TO ME - not reacting to a thing but rather to the story you tell yourself about the thing - but maybe it is not. I love it very much anyway. It definitely is related to controlling perceptions. (one’s own and others)

THISSSSSSSSSS

ans of course his first little monologue ‘i know you all’ is relevant to mention at this point as is the harfleur speech

there was something else I had this thought about but I don’t remember what it wasssss, my brain is so exhausted from hollow crowning, I might have to take a break and read a book that is not complex

(Source: getthegirlbuddy, via borgevino)

ambrmerlinus:

poins:

harry-le-roy:

Must I marry your sister?

God send the wench no worse fortune! But I never said so.

OKAY. SO. Let’s talk a little about this scene. Look at Poins. No, not that part of Poins - no, up a little - no, that’s Hal, look back to the right - keeping going - okay, stop. There! See his expression? Yeah. That is pure fear on his face.

Because Poins is not a jolly, drunk, short-sighted sycophant like Falstaff. Poins is Hal’s brother, metaphorically and perhaps even literally! (Hahahaha, Hal never does anything half-heartedly, God love him. He’ll find a new dad and a new brother, too! He’ll die not one death, not a hundred deaths, not a thousand deaths, but a hundred thousand deaths before breaking the smallest parcel of his vow! He won’t just defeat Hotspur, he’ll try fortune with him in a single fight! And so on and so forth…) The reason this scene is set in The Greatest Sauna In This Or Any Other Land (apart from hot, half-naked people being enormously entertaining) is to visually establish the casual, brotherly, locker-room intimacy that the dialogue reflects in the text (where Hal goes on at some length about the state of Ned’s underwear). Poins is smart, witty, proud, and more than a little psychotic - in other words, he’s enough like Hal that he gets that Hal is an ice-cold motherfucker. 

In fact, Poins is probably the only person on the planet who understands what Hal is capable of, who senses what Hal is going to become, because he is the only one Hal ever reveals himself to (out of a weird mix of respect, because Poins is totally his bro, and disdain, because Poins is totally not his bro. Hal, you unutterable shit, I love you so). Which is why his response, when he thinks Hal has perceived him to have crossed that unspoken line, is pants-shitting terror. My favorite thing about this scene is how Poins holds his expression even after Hal laughs the first time, because he knows that Hal’s going to check his response - it’s only after he apparently passes that test, and Hal laughs again, that Poins allows himself an uncomfortable smile.

OH MAN. THIS PRODUCTION IS KILLLLLLING ME.

I think it’s a mistake to anticipate Henry in the performance of Hal - and it’s a temptation Hiddleston resists admirably, imbuing even Hal’s most ~regal~ instances of pride and anger and sorrow with a youthful and unkingly focus on the personal and the immediate - but I think it’s really interesting (and perhaps even necessary, when adapting these plays to be part of a production of the entire tetralogy) for the director to highlight some instances of proto-Henry. No, ~sweet honey lord Hal~ wouldn’t have Poins killed for a bit of hopeful nonsense about his sister, especially not on Falstaff’s unreliable word…but in the not-too-distant future Henry V will hand another dear friend a damning letter, and things don’t go so well for ol’ Scroop (or Cambridge, or Grey, but Scroop’s is the betrayal that really stings). (That scene may not even be in Thea Sharrock’s Henry V, which would make the inclusion of this take on this scene all the better!)

What this reading of the scene ultimately highlights is that Henry’s ruthlessness, his capacity for brutality, his affection for ~the common man~ ever tempered by the fact that he does (and must, as king) ultimately use them like things - those traits didn’t magically spring into existence upon coronation. Hal was always like that. Which is why I love him the very best, and why his Eastcheap brethren would have been well-advised not to.

OMG I LOVE YOUUUUUUUUU

bolded because I DIDN’T CATCH THAT, HOW DID I NOT CATCH THAT, I BASICALLY HAVE THAT SPEECH MEMORIZED

Can we also talk about the speech Falstaff makes saying that Hal and Poins are exactly alike? This is a speech worth mentioning at this point.  ”…and other gambol faculties he has that show a weak mind and a strong body, for the which the prince admits him; for the prince himself is such another.  The weight of a hair will turn the scale between their avoirdupois.” [weights. i had to look that one up.]

I HAVE JUST RE-READ THE THING WITH SCROOP, I absolutely agree with what you have said, Henry does the exact same thing to them as he does to Poins in this scene.  Gives them letters condemning them and then watches their reactions.  I cannot imagine that scene won’t be in Henry V (if it isn’t I will DEFINITELY BE THE SADDEST).  And LOOK AT THE DESCRIPTION OF SCROOP: “That thou didst bear the key of all my counsels,/That thou knew’st the very bottom of my soul,/That almost mightst have coined me into gold,/Wouldst thou have practiced on me for thy use?”  He could have said the exact same thing to Poins.  ”dude. are you just using me to gain some kind of advancement?”

And how many people does Hal actually talk to? about actual things?  without getting yelled at first (a la his dad, Hal, your relationship with your dad is not the best)?  Just Poins.  I think this scene is where Hal and Poins both realize that, even if Poins hasn’t been using Hal to gain advancement or whatever, he totally could.  Hence his immediate suspicion of Falstaff, and the spying expedition and its aftermath, and our later glimpses of Falstaff bragging that he’ll be a very important person under Henry V.

WOAH AND HEY, does the repetition of this scene on its differing scales mean that Henry is a better king because of his wild and splentive youth?

let’s say yes.

The more I read about Henry V, the more I can’t help but think that he is the kind of king Loki tried to be.

(Source: butilovefire, via sirken)

ambrmerlinus:

#WHY HAL AND KATE ARE THE LEAST ROMANTIC #exhibit a #‘yep if you sell me your daughter i’ll leave your country alone’ #‘i’ve already killed like ten thousand of your people with like a thousand guys’ #hal no you are NOT CUTE #you are PRETENDING TO BE CUTE #also I bet you speak french you are just pretending #hal is very complicated #and a good king #an effective king #but he is not my favorite man

^This.

Not gonna lie, King Henry V skeeves me the fuck out.

(Source: ohmyloki, via sirken)