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#helsinore.txt #shakespeare #henriad #prince hal #ned poins #falstaff #henry iv #henry iv part 1 #shakespeare shitpost #poweriad #shakesfic tag

i'm thinking about henry bolingbroke again. i'm thinking about the perspective of a man who just wanted to do it right but everyone pointed the finger at him when it all went so wrong. i'm thinking about how he had to stand up in front of a corrupt judge and be laughed at, and not even be allowed to cut down the man who took his uncle, that it was all foreplay for what richard really wanted to do, which was punish bolingbroke for refusing to keep his mouth shut and his head down and his rights wrongs. they'll treat h4 like cain but no one really ever asks if abel had it coming, let alone if cain hadn't been the one to really wield the weapon. you try to be the hero but heroes only ever get to die. in a crusade, in martyrdom. richard reached jerusalem before bolingbroke ever did, 'cause all he ever had to do was die.

idk where i'm going with all this. in the loose retelling i'm going, i always have a hard time empathizing with the bolingbroke character, because i know she's wrong -- she's trying to protect the values of her kingdom, but her kingdom's values are stupid. henry bolingbroke is some rich land owning lord. i have no stake in rooting for him, especially when i (personally) saw 1h4 first and how he treated hal. but i guess if my adult child acted like the kind of man who my life as i knew it died for, the kind of man who i had to stand up against, the kind of man who'd never fix what i tried to fix and yet broke so badly -- i guess i'd be pissed off, too.

there was a production of r2 i saw where all i could think about the bolingbroke was 'he's so young.' he wasn't really; the actor was nearly 40. but something about his clothes and his face screamed: he's so young. he cries when he hugs his father before he leaves. he's not comfortable with all this arguing before the deposition. he didn't want any of this to happen. it's a nightmare out here. he just tried to do what everyone was fucking thinking, and they couldn't even martyr him because richard stole the spotlight first. the modern equivalent of someone suicidebaiting and then everyone deciding you're the villain because you tried to say something about them hurting others, i guess.

i don't know. my blorbo 4ever will always be my version of r2. but i guess that's because i made her angry, too.

#prudence is forced to be On at all times and aware #in ways that i don't think richard is #or at least everyone i know doesn't think richard is #but prue is mandated to be aware by her very existence #and she's angry. and she has the right to be angry #and she's also not doing whatever the fuck penance is doing lmfaoooo #but i guess from penance's perspective this must all be deeply fucking insane #what did she do she just did what everyone wanted to do #they took her father was she not allowed to mourn her father #(neither was prudence)#helsinore.txt #bolingbroke #i guess #bolingbroke apologia #wow that's a whole ass tag now.#rickyposting #<- sure why not #poweriad

not to sound like harold bloom by glazing falstaff but i have to wonder if falstaff taking credit for killing hotspur was in some way a mercy because on one hand while hotspur’s epicness is a threat to henry iv’s continued royal line (aka if hal gets got like richard) but on the other hand since henry iv seems to kin hotspur and view him as immensely powerful a la mr henry “iv” bolingbroke in his prime era of taking a bad bitch (richard ii) down, then the idea that hal killed hotspur would probably evoke next level anxiety in the (terminally ill and aged) henry iv, even if hal is his rightful heir. (thinking about the way jeremy irons delivers “why did you take away the crown” in hollow crown 2H4 like a whining child almost who can’t understand his turn with the toy is over.)

so falstaff taking the credit cuts the tension there, even if it makes hal look more cringe, and falstaff’s function is to indeed cut the tension so we don’t get too for serious and grim and thus closer to death in here … except by taking the credit for killing thee hotspur, falstaff is kind of a threat to hal when hal becomes king. even if falstaff didn’t actually kill hotspur, it’s the idea that this random fat old dude who is too silly to function in most cases was able to destroy such a Paragon of Manhood. so of course hal has to literally ruin him forever. which is fucking crazy.

#wow this would be very useful for the poweriad (transfem falstaff) if the poweriad in any way dealt with this #it doesnt tho.#helsinore.txt #falstaff #prince hal #henry iv part 1 #henry iv part 2 #hotspur #henry iv #henry bolingbroke #i feel like someone said the first paragraph already so. sorry if i just regurgitated what you said #henriad #shakespeare #poweriad #<- just in case.#shakesfic tag

They put you on the throne at age 10, and you’ve been failing them ever since. Too immature to rule, too overreaching to deserve the power of being mature. A boy who was supposed to already be a man — a different man, your father. You were supposed to be your father. When he died you should have stepped out of time and let him take your place instead, a holy miracle. No one ever stops comparing you to your father. Do they ever let you mourn him without lamenting your failures?

The court tied a sapling to a pike, restrained and suppressed and bent into shape, and then blamed the tree for growing up wrong, for growing up crooked.