Do the Plantz and Capets get recognized anywhere? Idk how deep schools in the US go about medieval history as the only mention of them in my country is the crusades (they didn’t even go that deep) I understand that many might not be able to connect the name “Plantz” to the name “Plantagenet” but surely there has to be someone that goes: “Philip Capet? As in the rulers of France from the 10th to 14th century?”.
And how related are they to the historical people?
I think in the US people generally it wouldn’t stand out unless maybe they ran into someone who’s a real history buff. I’d like to think Philip thinks it’s cool factoid and might brag about it a bit but he’d probably quickly realize as a youngster that this is, as Geoff says, “le cringe” and just kind of not draw attention to it. Plantz as a name isn’t especially common in my experience but it’s a real name.
For how they relate to the historical people, my general loose idea is that the story takes place in the Real World, so the Actual Real Historical People Did Exist and affect the past, fictional works were made, etc just like normal. For example, this is a joke doodle but here’s Valérie watching The Lion in Winter . Also just by virtue of being european/white people descent, I think a huge percentage of that population has at least SOME descendancy from that family. i mean all the US presidents do except van buren)
For Plantz family history my idea is that Henry’s paternal family is from Maine (the state) and has some Acadian French heritage, but he’s very Americanized, his mum Matilda is from New England (haha get it) but has lived abroad in Germany and thus has a very un-American cultural approach to life. (My concept for her is that she is very strict and religious, disciplined her children a lot to contrast with grandpa geoff’s permissiveness, but also very butch and independent. Babby Henry getting a lot of strange mixed messages in his rearing lol). Eleanor is from France but moved around a lot when she was younger before settling down. The kids are very cringeburgers but she raises them to know cultural basics.
The Capets are just kind of more ur normal French but live in the US but often travel back and forth. I feel i don’t incorporate it AS much into the story bc most of it just takes place locally and over a short period of time but that’s the background I have for them. (I do feel like my concept of Wasian Adele has been amusingly growing on me but it doesn’t really impact as much I feel lol)
The reason why the families exist and have historical similarities is because of Eternal Return just like in The Unbearable Lightness of Being (am I joking or serious? Who knows.) They are kind of made of the same “substance” of soul in a way, so you could say it’s like reincarnation. If they saw each other across time, they would maybe see a kinship, even if massively weirded out.
