7 PICTURES OF THINGS I HATE ABOUT THE CRASTLE: a visual essay/complaint based on the crastle construction experience. screenshots are of my own recreation, though the front face is matched as closely as i can to the in-video textures. also, he totally sent those instructions to cleo in a powerpoint deck, as they discuss shortly before his first death in episode 2. bc he's insane <3
note there are precisely six doubled smooth stone slabs on the front - one craft's worth. so one corner is missing it. this is the first omen of the crastle's decadence: missing the cracked stone bricks on lower sections the blueprints called for, but still double smelting cobble to smooth stone. we'll talk about the fucking windows later but note that the windows from the blueprints have andesite stairs; the tower ones were not originally intended and have spruce insets, if any at all, done hastily later to improve sightlines.
oh my god build that door in your own game and try to open it from the outside. it's actually extremely difficult due to the overlapping fencegate and door hitboxes. there are other signs of cheap decadence that were hard to notice (so why bother!!) like the four total granite stairs, the stone arch. also, etho bullied bdubs into collecting two-tall peonies and lilacs, and then them being "too tall" came up after etho decided he was scorned an invite to the crastle.
this roof makes sense until you remember it's on old lightlevels. also, not annotated, but in the creative design bdubs shows a brick chimney with black glass smoke that is never built. i didn't build the moat because this already took a week but the trapdoor drawbridge WORKS when flipped up.
speaking of machicolations (the wall overhangs), it is INSANEEEE that they're functional and never get used except to peek down because the CRENELLATIONS (the up-and-down pattern) are TWO POINT FIVE BLOCKS TALL crenels with ONE POINT FIVE BLOCK merlons. meaning. you cannot see over them. unless you place blocks. also the floor is all regular stone bc it won't be seen much.
the stupid side support with the gates & brick walls aren't in the blueprint but are in the step 3 screenshot (though that version is a little more intricate than the real crastle is); also it contains the only 2 spruce fence gates in the entire build meaning he was extra in crafting them. & once again we see the fucking spruce stair inset that's so ugly but wasn't part of the original build either! the wall-based arrow slits aren't in the build guide either! why that god damn fencepost!!! it's good but why!!! all these edits drive me NUTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
bunch of extra detailing in the arch, the double-layer entry, the fucking chimney for god knows what reason. not pictured is the nice little barrel and chest setup at the back of the crastle; the opposite wall eventually gets the deadly bubble column. the tower railing sucks & it's so easy to walk off it due to the fucking SLABS. which are inconsistently mixed with stairs in all floors. which was loathsome to decipher btw. and that floor is dirt & gravel & cobble & andesite for some reason - after it's textured, the animals get moved below, a design feature bdubs will repeat for the snow fort. also, note the upper balcony - there is access from the gatehouse via ladder to a floor level with the lowest stair-windows.
yes i skipped the dark oak floor because it also gets destroyed as vaguely outlined in the xray picture. the crastle is so defensible in almost every way but he still picks DARK OAK (FLAMMABLE) stairs & floors for aesthetics + to piss etho off. even before the floors got destroyed it was empty though, purely for function: all the 2nd floor windows are exitable if crouched & do allow bdubs to stop the TNT missiles; the lower floor ones do allow firing arrows out but not really in, exactly like real life medieval arrow slits. the towers are perfect for the floor heights even if hate the stairs. which makes it crazier that the dark oak non-sharing that leads cleo to steal pizza + to the tango-team crastle alliance, which causes etho to build his own Big Castle out of wool (bc it has to be BIGGER, wool is the only thing cheap enough to farm), leads to the need to defend the crastle from etho (who bdubs originally said in ep2 would be "proud" of its defensability) & to its only minor destructions. kind of encapsulates the vision, achievement, and weaknesses of this nearly perfect build all at once.
in short: i loathe the crastle. it's incredible. if you want to go crazy please follow bdubs' official building guide and cross-reference footage from third life itself and think about how he designed and built it between the first episodes releasing and the second episode's filming, because he wasn't thinking of endgame alliance scheming but the moment he saw other people, he decided to make something to protect. and for a total rush job, it's this incredibly historically informed but insanely well-translated to the minecraft medium piece of art that does what no build has really ever done then or since, which is stand the test of time almost unscathed. many of the minor plots and allegiance changes derive from the crastle and its construction. and he tries again for protection in last life, something bdubs never repeats again - but that's another fucking essay i guess.
Took some notes from the Wild Life retrospective episode of the Imp & Skizz podcast featuring Grian because I thought the behind the scenes info was really interesting!
(3:15) The wild cards were all kept totally secret from the players (apart from Grian), with the exception of the superpowers and finale (as they required the players to set keybinds)
(3:45) The players were given files containing the required mods each week, which were named things like "creeper rain" to throw them off
(4:12) Wild cards were a combination of data packs and mods
(4:38) Grian told them not to read the folder name to avoid spoilers (which is kind of impossible), so everyone fully believed there would be creeper rain lol. Grian was saying it in jest but everyone took it seriously and were apologetic about having seen it, to which Grian told them not to worry
(6:58) Grian originally contacted a data pack dev called Brace for help with programming the wild cards. Some, like the shrinking/growing could be achieved with minecraft attributes, but the snails were too janky and unusable. Grian still liked the idea though, so he reached out to mod developers Henkelmax and Breadloaf, who designed the pathfinding/behaviour from scratch
(8:49) They had a debugging mode used to test the pathfinding of the snails, shown in the podcast and in Grian's credits
(10:09) Grian wants most of the credit to go to the development team and artists, as he was mostly in charge of ideas & organization!
(10:39) Grian's only regret with the snails was that they were too fast in session 3, leading to unexpectedly many deaths. They were apparently not so difficult to get away from during testing, but perhaps the testers were more used to them than the players were
(11:44) Grian: "We did develop to the lowest common denominator" ie. prioritizing how players would struggle over how worrying about if players would do too well
(12:56) Oli's voice for the snails was iconic. It cost Impulse a life because he intentionally stayed closer to it to hear the voice lol
(13:42) Danny was in charge of the snail models and animations
(14:11) During testing, the snails just sounded like Oli, which made it feel weird. They pitched up his voice so that it'd be less immediately recognizable
(15:18) The snails' jumping attack was meant to be clearly telegraphed: they would stop, wiggle, make a "ooeee" sound before jumping. Many players had their friendly creatures volume turned very low/off (as cows and other mobs are loud), which made this attack much less obvious for them
(16:57) The growing/shrinking had the least testing done for it, as it was the simplest conceptually and to program. This meant that the falling off of blocks due to the shrinking hitboxes wasn't anticipated
(17:55) Before the 1st session, Grian told them that he didn't think anyone would die to the wild card. Pearl's death made Grian pretty nervous, as he didn't want everyone dying too early in the season
(19:29) 6 lives were given, knowing that many of the death to the wild cards were unexpected/unfair. The intent was for ~3 lives to be allocated for wild cards, and ~3 for PvP.
(21:13) The developers were all fans of the Life Series!
(22:43) The shrinking/growing was intentionally pretty simple to ease players/viewers into the concept and build up toward more dramatic wild cards like the snails
(25:38) In the hunger episode, Grian didn't know which foods would be good
(25:58) Grian thinks that "it's unfair that Grian already knows everything" is valid criticism, but that it's important for him to be involved with the ideas. Having someone else do that is like having someone else record his videos: Life Series is his brainchild
(26:35) Well before the season began, while they were still developing the concept, Grian asked the other players for wild card ideas that would meet a few criteria. All of them ended up being unused for one reason or another. Impulse thinks his ideas were very "inside the box" because he was viewing things through what was possible in vanilla Minecraft. His idea was to have a scavenger hunt where the players would search to find a relic. The first person to find it would get a buff. Skizz's idea was for every player to turn into a random passive mob for every given interval of time. They would have to find every other player of the same mob type as them or else the whole group loses a life.
(29:44) The food qualities were weighted by the rarity of the item, so very common blocks like dirt and cobblestone would never give anything good. The other items were randomly selected
(30:23) Regular blocks/items cannot be made edible normally, so they had to circumvent that and custom code a fix for items not stacking correctly
(32:41) While a lot of players do want to win, the main priority is creating entertainment, which prioritizes playing recklessly
(33:20) The food wild card wasn't included in the finale because it would've felt like "too much". There was a higher risk of technical issues since it changed the data values of items, and Grian didn't want someone's last death to be because they ate their sword. In his mind, it was a good and fun wild card, but didn't need to be repeated in the finale. Impulse points out that they all would have collected more rare items by that point, removing the incentive to search for blocks to eat
(33:46) The wild cards in the finale were nerfed from their original sessions. The shrinking/growing had a smaller height range, the snails moved slower, etc.
(36:21) The personalized snail skins were a late addition by Danny, who made 18 skins very quickly
(36:49) Grian did not anticipate the snails becoming as popular with fans as they were. After the session released, they had the idea to release the snail merchandise, which directly funded the rest of the season
(39:20) Grian spent what "felt like every day" testing with the developers. They'd record the sessions on Tuesdays, meet up with the dev team, talk about what need to be done, testing, bugs, etc, edit and upload on Saturday, and would get a few days grace before starting again
(40:01) After the snail session, Grian was worried that the season would be very short due to all the deaths. They were considering toning down the later wild cards but ultimately didn't change them too much
(40:36) The time wild card was carefully balanced. If it had gone even a little faster, many players likely would have died because they wouldn't have time to react to threats like baby zombies or creepers.
(40:57) While sessions normally run for a variable amount of time, session 4 was hardcoded at 2 hours. Grian ended the session ~10 minutes early, just after they hit max speed, because he felt like things were getting dicey
(42:46) When the wild card first activates, it looks a lot like the server had frozen or crashed. Grian told the players before the session started that it would look like the game was broken, but that it isn't broken. Skizz tabbed out anyway and missed the beginning 😔
(43:30) Having the rain start just as the wild card began was a good visual indicator of time slowing down. This was a suggestion from the dev team (probably Brace)
(44:41) Impulse and Grian "cheesed" the end of the session by going branch mining. Grian wanted players to take advantage of the wild cards (eg. mining quickly, helping to kill someone), and not have them just be an annoyance.
(45:30) Keeping the client and server-side time stay in sync was challenging. The sky's motion was changed to be smoother on client-side. The players were also not as fast as the server (around 2x faster), the server was going faster than that, and the time of day was even faster
(46:56) The sounds were pitched up/down based on the speed to add to the effect
(27:46) In testing, if the players were made 7x faster, it would be basically unplayable, which was why it was capped at 2x speed. This made mobs very dangerous, as they were now faster than players and could catch up to you and kill you easily
(49:01) On several occasions, they had to extend the fuse duration of creepers to make them more fair. In the time session, their speed was only increased by ~10%
(49:39) Usually, Grian was the one to test the wild cards and notice when things like creeper speed would be an issue, since he was the one with experience making videos
(50:50) A challenge with balancing wild cards is accounting for the playstyles of so many players: reckless players like Scar and Skizz, "kind and gentle" players like Bigb who would stay off to the sides, and "the sweat squad" (Scott, Impulse) who play very cautiously
(52:48) Trivia Bot was the only wild card that was not planned in advance. Grian was struggling to come up with a wild card for that episode, and wanted to have a wild card available that could give people lives in case many people died to early wild cards without it feeling cheap.
(53:33) Trivia seemed a little boring on its face, so presentation was essential
(54:34) This one made Grian the most stressed due to all the moving parts involved in making it (coding and pathfinding mostly by Henkelmax, visuals by Hoffen, audio/music, questions)
(55:08) Trivia Bot's design was based on Grumbot and Mettaton from Undertale. Hoffen drew concept art shown in the video
(58:32) They show Trivia Bot's custom animation for becoming a snail and it's really cool
(59:12) The music was the most stressful part of the project. Grian spent 2-3 days looking through Epidemic Sounds for a Trivia Bot theme song and couldn't find anything good. He commissioned Zera @hopepetal for a theme song, which is played in the podcast. However, Grian realized he needed a full audio package, so he commissioned Oli late in development, who created the final soundtrack and many audio variations
(1:01:38) Grian wants to send appreciation for everyone who worked on the project, even if their work ultimately went unused
(1:02:58) Skizz was happy to give back however he could by staying on standby in the final episode as a zombie, as the players were able to "reap all the benefits" of the hard work of the development team
(1:05:21) Grian didn't know any of the trivia questions beforehand, which were done by fans of the series. The goal was for ~50% of the questions to be answered correctly, which was approximately met
(1:07:11) Players couldn't get questions about themselves because it would be too easy. This would encourage players to leave their bot, allowing other players to mess with them
(1:07:57) Grian felt a little left out from the discovery element of the wild cards, and decided to mess with Scar by hiding his bot. He wasn't expecting Scar to die from it, and could tell that he was genuinely a little upset by it. Grian felt bad about it, which led to a genuine in-game alliance between them
(1:12:32) Grian was very close to letting Trivia Bot give lives as rewards, but decided it would feel too cheap
(1:14:38) Mob swap was slightly toned down, with more camels and sniffers spawning
(1:15:07) Evokers didn't drop totems anymore. Instead, there was a minuscule chance a warden or wither would spawn, which would drop a totem if killed. Grian was a little disappointed that the warden got cheesed in the end
(1:17:45) Having the mobs start passive and turn hostile was mostly for the presentation, building anticipation, and so players could predict where mobs would spawn and react accordingly, making things feel less unfair
(1:20:32) There was no superpower made for Skizz (or Mumbo presumably)
(1:20:38) The superpowers were another late addition. There was a large design doc where Grian created all the powers, which were handed over to Henkelmax and completed over 4 days
(1:21:42) Grian avoided superpowers involving strength, that could cause someone to die easily. Most of the powers were social or movement-based, which couldn't be used for offence as easily
(1:22:25) Some powers were randomly assigned, others weren't. Impulse's was random. Cleo's, Bigb's, Lizzie's, Grian's were assigned.
(1:24:25) Grian gave himself the mimic because it could easily backfire (like in Grian's fall damage death), and because it would've been confusing for a player who wasn't aware of the other powers. They likely would've spent the episode just figuring out how everything worked and not actually using the power to its best ability
Lots of discussion about the superpowers and how they interacted in the episode itself, go watch if you're interested :)
(1:33:38) Talk on how the series "standard" rules evolved since 3rd Life. There was no keep inventory, and no restrictions on enchanting levels or potions, which created slow or unbalanced fights
(1:36:23) 3rd Life was designed to be an experimental series, which made Grian eager to improve it. For example, some people just weren't dying in 3L, leading to the boogeyman in LL, and so on
(1:37:17) The goal with the seasons isn't to one-up the previous one, but to create a different experience every time, which keeps things engaging for the creators
(1:38:31) At the end of each session, Grian would ask the group if they had fun and how they felt about the wild cards. According the Skizz, the answer was "a resounding yes"
(1:39:08) Grian had moments throughout the season where he personally felt like things didn't go well for him, and was anxious for the rest of the group's episodes. Things worked out while editing the raw footage, though. His issues were never with the wild cards themselves, but his own actions (traps not working, spending too long branch mining), but would always find funny moments in his footage
(1:43:41) Everyone in the Life Series cast genuinely likes and genuinely respects everybody else in the group. This allows them to make the show and get mad at each other, because they know it's all just in-character
(1:44:50) It'd be hard to top Wild Life in spectacle, and Grian doesn't want to start an arms race with himself. The next season could potentially be closer to 3rd Life, but Grian's not sure yet. For Grian, Wild Life was the most enjoyable
(1:45:20) Grian: "As long as people keep enjoying [the Life Series] then I'd love to keep doing it"
(1:49:35) With the finale, Grian knew how the wild cards played out the previous sessions and was able to adjust them
(1:49:56) Grian's goal was to create safe chaos where everyone knew what was happening and wouldn't die to them, which didn't go entirely to plan. The snails were 60% of their original speed and people still died
(1:51:03) Grian made a precise timeline of when each wild card would start/stop, it wasn't randomized.
(1:54:16) All the superpowers were randomized, with Bdubs' power being removed from circulation because it didn't have much use in a finale setting
(1:56:10) It was important for Grian that in the final moments, the wild cards were removed, so there were no interruptions. The timing worked out well because there were a few people left and it ended within ~10 minutes (this implies that the change wasn't based on # of players alive, as people had speculated based on Gem's death)
(1:58:48) The players all randomly switched to zombie skins throughout the session to mess with people on NameMC. Well-played :)
Both Nigar sneakily eating Sümbül’s dessert and Nigar deciding to skip meals after falling for Ibrahim are qualities that endear her to me.
Hürrem loves food, but she is also a Winner who doesn’t try to change anything about her core characteristics to appeal to Süleyman. Hatice doesn’t eat a lot naturally. (No, this is not a point I am making based on the actresses’ looks, Hürrem is shown to be passionate about food and Hatice is shown to have low appetite within the text of the show). Nigar has an eager appetite, but she feels that she has to restrict herself when she wants to appeal to a man, which is sad, but it is also very human.
To me Nigar’s relationship with food and her actively having violent and sexual wet dreams about Ibrahim are somehow connected: Her characterization takes her bodily needs into account.
Hatice Sultan: the angelic sultana, an analysis. (Part I)
While talking with @mc-critical about Sultan Suleyman’s sisters I kept having so many thoughts and things I wanted to articulate more about Hatice that it prompted me to do this: write my first full on meta. It’s ridiculously large – which is expected of me, I don’t know how to be brief – but while I’m nervous of posting this I’m also quite proud of myself for actually writing it. If anyone ends up reading this please come talk to me because I’ll love to dive deeper into anything I wrote and about Magnificent Century in general.
I do have to warn you all that English is not my first language so forgive me all the mistakes! I tried to read it through very carefully, but you never know. Now, last warning, I can’t say Hatice is one of the characters that I love from the show. On the contrary, on many occasions I actively disliked her, but I did try to be as fair and non-biased as possible while writing this, so do read it with care if you really love Hatice. I swear I mean no harm!
Now, for a little summary of what I want to talk about, unfortunately this has gotten too big so I decided to break it after topic number three, but I hope to soon write the rest. I’ll link everything here when I do! Here we go:
· Hatice’s past, her life before the start of the show
· Hatice and her relationship with her siblings and her mother
· Hatice’s innocence & Hatice’s mental health
· Hatice’s strengths & Hatice’s weaknesses
· Hatice and Ibrahim
· Hatice as a mother
· Hatice and Hürrem
· Hatice and Mustafa and Mahidevran
That’s a lot right? Now you know why this is so big and the rest will go under a ‘read more’ so I don’t take all the space in people’s dashboards.
Hatice’s past
I wanted to do this kind of in order so the first thing I wanted to talk about it’s about Hatice’s past. Her life before the show. Now, we don’t get much of the characters from before the start of the show, but we do get some moments when Hatice and others talk about the past.
At the start of the show, right when Suleyman receives the news that his father died and he is going to be the next Sultan of the Ottoman Empire we know he was in Manisa and that he rushes to the capital. And Mahidevran and Mustafa follow him some time later, but if I remember correctly we get to see Hatice and Hafsa (along with Gulfem) already in the capital when Suleyman is crowned and goes to Hafsa to get her blessings.
That is our first time viewing of Hatice Sultan. She is looking at her beloved brother with so much love that we know from the get go that this is a close and loving relationship. She is dressed in black, in mourning for her father, but she still shines with happiness seeing her brother safe. She is feeling at peace here, and still if looking carefully one can still then see glimpses of a somewhat melancholy in her eyes. Maybe grief for her father? Maybe grief that her life is not how she dreamed it could be as a girl? Grief that her destiny, even at such young age, is already laced with the tragic death of not one, but two husbands? (At least that’s what I remember her telling Hürrem, that she had two husbands previously) And husbands she had no say in marrying, that where chosen by her father and mother. I think, at heart, Hatice was never a character made for happiness and that just about breaks my heart.
But I’m really thinking about her past here. We already know she had a crush on Ibrahim since she was a girl visiting Suleyman in his provincial post in Manisa from the flashback of the poisoned kaftan, if I’m not mistaken - It’s really has been some time since I last rewatched the show so my memory is a little fuzzy in some details - and we can trace her feelings from even her girlhood, much like Mihrimah’s crush on Bali Bey.
I think @mc-critical was dead on right when she says that Hatice likes to fantasize things and wish, almost desperately, for her wanted outcomes. So when she got stuck marrying older men that she most definitely didn’t love or even had time to try and develop feelings for her only escape was clinging to the memory of Ibrahim. Someone younger, that she thought was handsome, someone that was her favourite sibling best friend, who could play beautifully in his violin, no wonder she kept this love close and nurtured it. But, I’m not really talking about that here yet.
In the show Hafsa talks about how Selim made her suffer and from that we get that she had some competition in his affections and that she must have went through a little of what Mahidevran, Gulfem, Hürrem and so many others go through in the harrem.
In the show mothers are shown to rely heavily on their daughters while shielding their sons. The one exception I can think of this is Sah Sultan with her daughter, Esmahan, since we never really see her confiding in her the way Hürrem does to Mihrimah or including Esmahan in her schemes like, again, Hürrem does with Mihrimah and later Fatma does with Huricihan. Even Hafsa herself relies heavily in her daughter(s) to get what she wants, she confides in them, rants to them and is very involved and very proud of her girls. What I mean to say with all of this is that since this is the pattern showed in this universe so it kind of leaves things implied that Hafsa relied on her daughters when her husband was alive, especially in the later years when she needed to keep Suleyman alive at all costs.
That is what I say about Hatice’s naivety and innocence seeming out of place. Because she was already being exposed to that, she was already part of such a dangerous and loaded environment that it really seems to me bad writing when they show Hatice not understading some of the core laws of the harem.
But I actually can think of a kind of explanation to this. Hafsa is very protective of Hatice and everyone is well aware that Hatice’s mental health is really quite fragile. So it could be understandable that Hafsa would shield her as much as she could. That would also be something that could tie Sah’s resentment of Hatice: she gets a dream life with the man she loves, she is close to the capital, her husband is very influent and, in the past, Hafsa protected her the most of her daughters while Sah herself was stuck with a man she pretty much loathed and I’m pretty sure was made to help her mother and her family in general with the tense situation of the time.
So yeah, those are my thoughts about Hatice’s past. I can understand how they kind of build the foundation of some of her future problems because being denied what she wanted and then resigning herself to not having it - when she marries her parents chosen - to later actually getting a chance at her dream life? Yep, I can understand her holding on to that very fiercely.
Hatice and her relationship with her siblings and her mother
Now I talked a little about Hatice relationship with her siblings and her mother when talking about her past, but I wanted to look into it a little more closely.
Hatice is the Sultana we get to see the most out of the Imperial Family. She is there from the get go and we see how much she is loved by her brother and her mother. She is clearly their favourite and she feels safe and very much loved by them. In turn Suleyman is Hatice’s favourite person of her family, she says as much to him - I think after Ibrahim’s death? - she is the one she loved the most.
Hafsa Sultan was mother to all the Sultanas we get to see on the show: Beyhan, Sah, Fatma and Hatice (and that’s the order of birth in my opinion).
Beyhan and Hatice have a very loving relantionship and to me Beyhan acts almost motherly to Hatice? Indicating their age difference and how she sees her, she is her baby sister, the youngest of their family and therefore she must be protected and cared for. Beyhan is quiet and other than her lashing out - rightfully - when her husband is killed she is shown to be very mild and very controlled in her feelings. Honestly the show doesn’t do much with her and Beyhan ends up mostly being a background character that only shows up to support Hatice and be loving and caring to her.
We never get to see Fatma with Hatice as she only shows up after Hatice already died, but we do see glimpses of her anger at her sister death, her grief. And even as much as I dislike the way Fatma pretty much uses Huricihan to weaken Bayezid position in Suleyman’s eyes I have to believe she cares for her niece and nephew and that she wants to protect this little piece of her sister.
Now the most tense and most interesting relationship with her sisters is, for sure, Hatice’s relationship with Sah. There’s a lot unsaid between them, a lot of resentment and a lot of love too. Sah is just as protective of Hatice as she is of her own daughter. She literally had Hatice’s horse killed for hurting her baby sister.
But Sah also hatesweakness. She really does. I think that is because she was always very careful in not show her own fears and doubts, her own weak points, so she doesn’t want her sister to do it either, because that is an opening for their enemies, for those who wish to harm them. Sah, most of all, wants Hatice to think more before she reacts, to actually be more calculating in how her actions will generate consequences. Something that is very much unlike Hatice, because she is one to react first and think later. That in itself would be a great causa of tension between the sisters.
And like I said before, the fact that Hatice is clearly favoured by their mother and by Suleyman can definitely be something that makes Sah feel jealous, feel left out even. She was never asked who she wanted to marry, who she loved, she was never given the choice to get a life she dreamed of. And to see Hatice getting that and to rub salt on the wound, to see Hatice get that with the man she loved first? Yeah, it’s completely understandable that there’s resentment and tension there. How couldn’t it?
But still Sah rises above that and does her best to protect Hatice and give her what she wants: revenge. At least to the point that it doesn’t harm their blood, the dynasty. She would never support Hatice going against Suleyman himself and she is very firm in saying that they need to be more united.
I think of all her siblings Hatice hates the patronizing feeling she gets of her interactions with Sah the most. She doesn’t like that her sister sees her as weak, as less than herself, and she lashes out… Proving exactly what Sah was talking about. They are very opposite of one another and yet there are some big similarities between them that keep the tension alive.
As I said before, Hatice is very possessive of Ibrahim and his love so even the hint that her sister shared a past with Ibrahim is enough to rankle her and to make her distrust Sah and her intentions. It’s no wonder that later on Hatice starts to hide things from Sah and tries to act alone, only to be caught and prove her sister somewhat right once again. I honestly don’t think their relationship could truly resolve itself because there’s too much baggage there, too much pain and suspicion, too much resentment for what the other had.
And still they love each other. It’s really very interesting to watch all that contrast between Hatice and Sah and how well they play each other on scenes.
Now Suleyman and Hatice… I mean those two probably deserve a whole meta just for them if I’m being honest and I don’t think I’m the right person to do this because I never actually analysed Suleyman properly. I kind of want to keep liking him and if I really stop and go beyong his beautiful voice reading love poems I’m pretty sure I’ll hate his guts like he deserves. But speaking very shallowy about this relationship: we can see it’s beginning and we can see the end. Hatice was the sister that Suleyman loved best and was the sister he ended up hating. She was the sister he couldn’t face, that never let him forget his guilt and his part in the death of her dreams. He literally gave her all that she could want to create her dream life and then took it all away and even went as far as forbid her to actually properly grieve her loss. All I can say is that if you like Hatice you can’t really like Suleyman too.
Now, the last relationship of this “Imperial Family” side of things is, of course, Hatice’s relationship with her mother, Ayse Hafsa Sultan.
Just a little something that I always thought about this relationship: I feel like the show took the meaning of Hatice “early born baby girl” as something literal. Now, I may be totally wrong here, but I always felt like Hatice was Hafsa last baby and that maybe it was a difficult pregnancy and that Hatice was born prematurely and maybe she was a weak baby? That her mother feared she would lose?
That would explain the protective streak that Hafsa feels so strongly for Hatice. One might say that she is protective of all her children, but honestly you can see quite clearly that Suleyman and Hatice are the favourites and that’s only emphasized by the writing. Hafsa is very caring, very warm and very physically affectionate with Hatice. She is also a little more willing to bend the rules for her.
She always tries to hide the ugly truths she finds out from her daughter while at the same time needing Hatice by her side as an ally. She shares her burdens with Hatice, but very skillfully tries to hide the cracks in Hatice’s perfect dream life so that her daughter can remain happy and not try anything harmful to herself.
Hafsa is very conscious of duty and of the laws and customs of the Ottoman Empire. She is very strict and she demands that of people around her, that’s one of her things. The only times she goes against the customs is when she is protecting her children. When she asks Suleyman to give Beyhan’s husband a second chance and all the times she interferes in Hatice’s favour asking Suleyman to make concessions that could impact negatively the State in favour of making her daughter happy.
Hafsa love for Hatice is completely undeniable and she even has a stroke after she finds out what Ibrahim is doing with Nigar and that Nigar is pregnant and she simply knows how much this will destroy her daughter. One of my favourite scenes between Hafsa and Hatice is when Hatice is talking to her mother and saying that she knows her children are unlucky because she can’t be as good a mother as Hafsa was to her and that she needs her mother and that is the push that makes Hafsa start recovering.
Overall I feel sad for Hatice most of all when Hafsa dies because that’s when she loses her shield and now there’s no one to really protect her from the harsh truths of her life or whom she can run to, to make things better. The cracks in Hatice’s life and heart only grow bigger after losing Hafsa and it’s quite heartbreaking when you think about it.
Hatice’s innocence and Hatice’s mental health
I want to preface this by saying that I do know and acknowledge Hatice’s many qualities: she is a loving daughter, sister and aunt. She really gives her all to those she loves, she is quite sincere, she – at least at first – doesn’t really get involved in the harem intrigues, she tries to do her duty, she believes in something better, she wants to be happy and want others to be happy. She is, at her core, a good person.
But she is – and that’s my opinion of it – also a person not suited for her environment. She ends up looking weak and too fragile to live in the times she does. She is not good at adapting to her circumstances and she has a penchant to try and kill herself that I find both overused by the writers and kind of a sign of a weakness in her character. I can’t say I find her particularly bright either, to be honest. At least not when we have so many characters that seem to shine by their intellects.
After reading @mc-critical assessment that Hatice uses her “innocence” and naivety to hide from truths she finds too harsh to deal with, that this is kind of her coping mechanism I came to find that I agree with this completely. Maybe that’s another reason why Hatice sometimes rubs me the wrong way and I could never quite articulate it. We can see her doing it at multiple times in her life: she pretends as if her life depends on it, because, well, it does. Whenever Hatice has a big emotional moment that breaks this wall that she puts up her immediate solution is to try and kill herself.
That is, of course, partly the writers, but after a time it’s really something that’s completely up to par with Hatice’s own character. She is always ready to end her life when things don’t seem to go her way and when she can’t really change the circumstances around her. As many things with Hatice (something I discovered by writing this whole thing) this kind of reminds me of some things in my personal life and it ends up with me being less comprehensive of Hatice’s actions than I should, as my own experiences make me somewhat unable to feel much understanding for an action that I find really quite selfish. By the way I do hate that I feel like that and I do understand that Hatice has mental health problems and they are not properly treated or really dealt with in the whole show.
Alright, but let’s go back to the beginning and circle back to Hatice’s innocence. At the beginning of the show Hatice is, at her core, her most innocent. She personally has not had to deal with much of the intrigues of the harem, or at least that’s the impression the show ends up giving us. She is also, in my opinion, in her most realistic. While she is in love with Ibrahim and wishes she could be with him, she also knows that there’s too many obstacles in their way and that it’s most likely that her and his wishes are nothing more than pipe dreams.
Therefore she tries to find contentment and live as happy as she can: she is a devoted and loving aunt to Mustafa, she is as much of a friend to Gulfem as she can be. Her only wish is to see Ibrahim happy, healthy and safe. She wants peace and if she can’t be with him, she wants him to be as happy as he can. Of course her happy quiet life comes crashing down when she overhears her mother talking with Suleyman about arranging a marriage to her, as Hafsa doesn’t want her daughter to wilt behind the harem’s walls.
That’s a moment when I feel like Hatice could have talked to her mother, maybe not told her about Ibrahim as we can see later on how Hafsa responds to that piece of news, but she could have tried to have a voice. Hafsa and Suleyman always seemed ready to accommodate her wishes, it felt unnecessarily dramatic of her not to say anything to them. But, even when I say that I do know that’s hard to break patterns and up to this point Hatice hasn’t really much of a choice in who she is to marry and how she is to live her life, so it’s also understandable that she doesn’t process this change and doesn’t think to talk to her mother about her feelings.
So she accepts the marriage, in part because she doesn’t feel like she can’t and in part because deny it would raise questions and it could put Ibrahim’s life in danger. Which is something Hatice will neverdo. That’s one of the many cracks in whatever Hatice wishes for herself and she deals with it in the best way she knows how: by trying to kill herself.
After that she cries that she wished Gulfem hadn’t saved her, but she does try to accept her circumstances and follow through with the marriage. Of course that doesn’t actually happen and eventually she does get her wish and marries Ibrahim.
That’s when Hatice creates her new dreams and clings to her naivety and innocence once again: she starts believing that they will simply and purely be happy and that nothing will ever spoil that. She wants to marry Ibrahim and have children with him, she wants to build a family with the man she loves. In itself is a sweet and kind desire to aspire to. Technically quite easy to achieve too once the “getting married” part was sorted. But in her dreams Hatice never takes into account that outside (and even inside) forces can maybe interfere with her wishes.
She never stops to think about how Ibrahim’s own ambition can be worrisome and how he can amass enemies left and right that could do damage to them – as it actually happens. She doesn’t think that politics will interfere in her marriage, because really, why should she? She is in a bubble right now and quite happy to remain there. To her Ibrahim is completely perfect and she won’t acknowledge the parts of him that may cause some troubles for their future.
She also hopes, against all logic, especially given the signs so far, that Hürrem and Mahidevran will be able to live peacefully in the harem. Yes, it is understandable why she would think that, but to act as if it’s a given and to mostly ignore the big elephant in the room? That’s another part of Hatice closing her eyes to realities she doesn’t want to deal with. Especially when we have Hafsa Sultan there to rein things in when Hürrem and Mahidevran get too much out of hand so, this way, really, Hatice has no reasons to worry as she knows her mother will deal with things in the best way.
The constant breaks in her reality where something she doesn’t deal it well. Hatice is one of those people that acts before she thinks properly on things and that’s why she sometimes says things she doesn’t truly mean (like when she and Ibrahim have their first big argument and she reminds him of her position and how she could potentially take all he worked for from him in a snap of her wrists. She truly doesn’t mean that, as we know of the Imperial Family there’s a big argument that Hatice is the least classist – at least I think so despite her more arrogant moments.) and that sometimes has a negative impact that she doesn’t always account for.
She, after her outburst with Ibrahim, expects him to live happily with her again. After her first fights with Hürrem and, even with Mahidevran, she just expects them to forget everything and just get along with her. That may be because since she is an Imperial Princess people naturally defer to her and don’t have the luxury of holding grudges, but it’s more that Hatice herself at this point is not keeping scores.
Her happiness seems fated to not last as soon after her marriage she and Ibrahim must endure their first separation and she deals with that rather badly. She wilfully forgets hers and Ibrahim’s positions and questions Suleyman’s decision – something that could have very drastic results in any other time than this early period of his reign. She then finds a glimpse of happiness in her first pregnancy, but, again, ignores the rumbles and the possible dangers that Ibrahim is already amassing with his growing positions and with his growing power and prestige.
When she loses her baby, she obviously breaks down and is heartbroken. It’s another moment of happiness stolen from her and something that fragilizes Hatice even more. I think it’s the first seed of her paranoia later on that nothing will ever go right in her life – sadly something that ends up being true.
Her losses and her broken moments of happiness make her, in my opinion, slowly grow in her need for control. Of her surroundings and of her relationship with Ibrahim. She also grows to be very superstitious of the statues deciding they were the guilty ones for much of her bad luck without actually thinking that it was the fact that Ibrahim, knowing full well what the reaction to them would be, was the main guilty one for having such incendiary items in their home.
Her hope against hope is sometimes difficult to watch because we, as the audience, can see the cracks that she pretends are not there. She feels Ibrahim’s distance after their argument, but she doesn’t really press him and he doesn’t really talk to her. This is where once again I’ll fully agree with @mc-critical: the biggest flaw of their relationship is lack of communication. But I plan to delve deeper into their relationship a little later on. Anyway, as the danger grows she continually refuses to see things around her: she doesn’t notice that Ibrahim and Hürrem really don’t get along, that Ibrahim is growing more and more ambitious and that her brother is someone that doesn’t deal well with threats to himself and his reign.
She doesn’t see, or don’t want to see, the warning signs and then lashes out when they obviously amount to something, blaming other people for actions that were building up right before her eyes all the time.
After her twins are born it seems that she will get everything she could possibly want: her marriage with a man she loves and children that can make them form a family. Except Ibrahim is cheating on her with Nigar - and after being suspicious for a time, she decides not to do anything and pretend, for years, that her family is well and whole and that everything is alright.
Even later on, after the whole mess with the affair is found out and later on in the campaign when Ibrahim names himself “Sultan Ibrahim” she doesn’t seem to see the huge, glaring sign of trouble. She only thinks Hürrem is causing trouble without really allowing herself to ackwoledge that not everything is Hürrem’s own doing – sure, Hürrem does take advantage of many things, but Ibrahim is in no way innocent. And she prefers to pretend that nothing is wrong, that everything can still be like it was in their beginning when everyone was innocent and happy, that we never see her warn Ibrahim during this time (she does it in the past I think) to be more careful.
Until he dies and all her hopes and dreams come crashing down and she is stuck with a harsh reality that doesn’t give her anything and doesn’t leave her with nothing but a desperate need for revenge, something that will make her pain be a little less, something that will avenge for the life she convinced herself she had – or could have if not for Hürrem – and now forever lost.
I see all that and I hurt for her. But I really can’t help but think that if she had maintained her more realistic side from before her relationship with Ibrahim she maybe could have saved herself, at least, a little bit of heartache.
Now this is already quite big and I decided to divide it into, at least, two parts! I hope that if someone read it up until now feel free to comment anything and I also hope I didn’t offend anyone. I did try to be most careful and thoughtful in everything I wrote so far.
