#melissande

[rubysharkruby]

All the secrets are out and we can live our lives free of them.

[nimbleasaforestcreature]

[calamity-bean]

the forbidden barkskins pilot scripts

So I’ve just read these May 21, 2018, versions of the Barkskins pilot and episode 2, and… assuming they ARE legitimate old scripts... where to begin.

The major beats are mostly the same, and so is much of the dialogue. Some of the dialogue is the same but is spoken by other people. (Reading Yvon’s words come out of Bouchard’s mouth was a bit of a shock.) And some stuff is very very different. It was also still set circa 1690 at this point, like the novel, while we’ve since established that the show is more 1670s.

The supernatural elements are more pronounced in this version, or maybe they just feel that way because there’s a script pointing them out? For example, the necklace Yvon retrieves from the dead Iroquois (dead Huron, in this script) is said to have a “strange black obsidian orb” in the center, which feels significant, especially considering pilot-Hamish later decides to wear himself. Right after the stone “GLOWS.” Okay fashion icon, rock that clearly cursed necklace, I’m sure nothing ill will come of that.

Oh yeah but definitely the most egregiously more pronounced supernatural element has gotta be the uh

CRICKET-HEADED CRAB DEMON

This is from the scene just before they find Renardette, which doesn’t actually happen till the beginning of ep 2. Hamish and Yvon would still just see the wolf, but through Clape’s eyes we’d see… that.

Speaking of Hamish and Yvon...

Yvon was supposed to be in his 30s... and Hamish in his 40s. SCREAM? Okay, just completely flip that dynamic, I guess! Granted, our Hamish is definitely still an old man at heart.

Overall, Hamish’s characterization is pretty much like we know him. Yvon… I’m deeply frustrated by how shallowly Yvon was characterized at this point. He’s got barely ANY lines, he does not have his wit or his levity or his love of poetry… You know the stereotype of the stoic, serious Native warrior? That’s the impression I’m getting. “Large,” with “hard black eyes,” says the script. Besides being stereotypical, think how much less contrast there would be in Hamish and Yvon’s dynamic if they were both so stiff and somber.

Hamish mentions that he helped “clear” Potawatomi and Huron from around “the lakes.” I did not love this. Like… I get that in every version, Hamish is very much an agent of colonialism and imperialism, but he starts out with still such a sense of ethics and honor, and finds it so difficult to believe how ruthless the HBC is willing to be, that I find it hard to imagine him having already participated in the direct, firsthand violence of clearing Native people from their land. And I just prefer not to think of him being directly involved in that.

On a lighter note! Hamish and Cross were still brothers-in-law, but Randall was not married to Hamish’s sister. Oh no. He was married to the sister… of Hamish’s wife.

MARRIED HAMISH… the mind boggles.

I mean, fuck, I’ll volunteer to be his wife, though, where do I apply.

Regarding other characters…

There’s no sign of Renardette till ep 2, because ep 1 cuts off before she’s found, and the pilot’s opening scene is quite different. Instead of Ren fleeing, we see a guy sinking a body in the bog — presumably Cross sinking that body he later wants passed off as his own?

The presence of the filles du roi is MUCH reduced. There is no Mother Sabrine. No mention of Melissande till ep 2, and she’s not actually present; it sounds like she’s still back in France, as Trepagny is negotiating to marry her via letters. We get one brief glimpse of Delphine in the pilot, which, although brief, does reinforce my suspicion that the writing has something planned between her and Duquet:

(We do still see that moment in the actual show, of course, but I feel like this script emphasizes that he’s into her specifically, not just the filles in general, and the mouthing her name… yeah.)

The thing about Melissande is interesting... She’s stated to be the daughter of an aristocrat, but even though we do (in the show) see her claim that she’s upper class, I personally never believed it. I always got the impression that she’s pretending to be of much higher status than she actually is, and that’s still my take on it.

Mari was still Mi’kmaq in this pilot, as she was in the novel. This accounts for a little difference in the scene where she and Duquet discover the marks on the ram; instead of calling them “a sign of Strendu,” she calls them a sign of Chenoo — both of which are, broadly speaking, man-eating giants, but the former is from Wendat culture and the latter Wabanaki. She also tells Duquet that the beast in the woods (which he thinks of as the loup-garou) is Chenoo.

Obviously I’m not going to get into every detail here, this is too long already, but… yeah! Interesting to see how things have changed — very much for the better, imo. I’m so relieved that subsequent development brought a lot more complexity to Yvon, expanded the presence of the female characters, and generally brought more nuance into the writing and characterization, including that of minor/background characters, which I didn’t even get into here.

Kinda wish we could’ve seen that cricket demon, though. I know that on screen, not seeing the monster is often more effective than actually being shown it, but come on… cricket demon… crab demon… cricket-headed crab demon!!

[windsweptlassie]

woman king 📿🌹

Image description: a watercolor painting of the non-binary actor Tallulah Haddon as Melissande in the tv show Barkskins. Melissande is a small woman with pale skin and curly, golden-blonde hair that is pulled back and cascades over her right shoulder. Her eyes are blue and there is a bright blush on her cheeks. She is wearing a luminous green dress with red and dark yellow embroidered trim and yellow cuffs over a bright red skirt. In her right hand she clutches a long strand of pearls to her chest; in her left hand, she is holding a tiny vial of blood. Her left hand is bloodstained. She looks away from the viewer, pensive yet determined, potentially scheming.

[notimidstrokes]

“Blood. Land. What we make and grow from it is what will be left when we’re gone.”

Melissande knew *just* what to say.

[rubysharkruby]

I won’t wait for anything, Delphine. I watched my mother wait her whole life. She’s still there, in her chair in the kitchen, looking out at that dirt yard, watching chickens hunt fleas.

[calamity-bean]

Good morning Barkskins fandom, this was actually so difficult because (1) most of these depend heavily on who they’re speaking to and (2) almost everyone on this show is pretty dang cutthroat, but clearly I wasn't gonna let that stop me from trying

[calamity-bean]

Filles du Roi resources

I’ve been reading a bit about filles du roi this morning, because I wanted to know a bit more beyond what we see of them in Barkskins, and although I’m still working my way through these resources, I wanted to share some of the helpful sources I’ve found so far! 

Daughters of a King and Founders of a Nation: One of the first things I noticed as I started searching for info is that a lot of the sources are in French. (Who’d have thought!) So I was very glad to find this thesis, as it synthesizes a lot of info from these sources that I can’t access and/or can’t read. I’m still reading through this but finding it very interesting.

The Filles du Roi Project: Though I was initially looking for more general info, I was surprised at how much is known about the ~800 actual specific young women who participated in this program. The Filles du Roi Project compiles biographical profiles on these women, their husbands, what ship they arrived on, etc., and, down in the Resources section, links to other genealogical resources as well.

Daughters of the King List: This is a more compact resource just listing the names of known filles. A good, quick resource if you just need realistic period-accurate French names for a fic or something like that.

Some notes about things that have been interesting to me so far:

— As seen in Barkskins, convents did indeed open their doors to house and care for these women upon their arrival. Notable hosts include the Ursuline nuns of Quebec city, led by Marie de l’Incarnation, and the Congrégation de Notre Dame in Montreal, led by Marguerite Bourgeoys, who may have coined the term filles du roi.

— Most of these young women hailed from urban areas rather than rural... which seems to have sometimes been a little irksome to the officials of New France, who requested more rural girls who would be better suited to the work and lifestyle required by the colony. Most — about half, by my calculations based on the data in Runyan’s thesis — came from the regions of Île-de-France and Normandy, with Paris and Rouen being main centers of recruitment, notably including the Salpêtrière orphan hospital in Paris. 

— However, most is not all! The filles included women from all over France and even a handful from outside the country. I was particularly intrigued to learn of Espérance Du Rosaire, who was born in Brazil. People and documents from the time referred to her as a “moor” and a “savage” ( :/ ); I don’t love even quoting someone calling her a savage, but I included it to show that this young woman was clearly othered by her contemporaries, suggesting that not all filles were of the pure European French stock that, say, Trepagny was clearly looking for in a wife. Espérance’s exact parentage appears unknown; it’s speculated that she had been adopted by a French family. 

— I LOVE knowing exact little details about artifacts and objects and how much things cost. According to the Filles du Roi Project, the trousseaux provided to a filles might include: “a coiffe, bonnet, taffeta handkerchief, pair of stockings, pair of gloves, ribbon, four shoelaces, white thread, 100 needles, 1,000 pins, a comb, pair of scissors, two knives and two livres in cash.” 

— Dowries might be bestowed in addition, but this appears to have varied WILDLY. Depending on their own pedigree (most filles were not of high birth, but some were) and on whom they married, some women received 50 livres; others 100; a few as much as 200 or even more. But many appear to have received no dowry whatsoever. The profession of the woman’s father could be a significant factor in what they would receive, which puts me in mind of how, when the girls in the show first meet their prospective husbands, much is made of their fathers’ holdings. Dowries also appear to have been more likely if the girl was from Paris.

— Some of us have previously discussed Barkskin’s exact time period a bit; unlike the 1690s setting of the novel, we've been told the show takes place in the 1670s, and I for one had been leaning toward the latter part of the decade so that the HBC (inc. 1670, first post est. 1668) would have had time to become well established and to have begun looking especially to Orkney for recruits. This is a little out of step, though, with the fact that the final contingent of filles du roi came to New France in only 1673. (The first contingent was in 1663.) That’s earlier than I had imagined for the show, but it’s whatever, really; I think historical fiction is within its rights to be a bit vague about these things, so I’m content to look at the show’s setting as kind of the general 70s rather than a specific year.

Anyway... I hope this is of interest to anyone, Barkskins fans or otherwise! It’s very intense, imo, to think of what these young women — teens and early twenties, often, and seemingly quite alone in the world — must have been thinking and feeling as they made this journey and staked their futures on unknown, faraway men in an unknown, faraway place. I’m gonna keep reading up on it all and thinking about how it informs my understanding/headcanons of Delphine and Melissande.