Oh, Philippa, why must you torture me so

[akashasheiress]

So, I decided to read The Queen's Fool by Philippa Gregory because I thought it might be good for a laugh. So far, she's doing her usual Madonna/Whore dichotomy with Mary I being sweetness and light and Princess Elizabeth basically being a clone of her mother from The Other Boleyn Girl. Y'know, conniving, malicious, husband-stealy. And the protagonist, Hannah, is basically Mary Boleyn from TOBG: smug, judgmental, hypocritical, Mary Sue-ish etc (but she's not meant to be!).

And this woman calls herself a ''radical feminist''.

I think I just might do a spork of this book at some point.

Comments

[hallowspite]

Wait.

Wasn't that Mary the one that set lots of people on fire?

Sweetness and light indeed!

[akashasheiress]

Yes, about 300 in a five-year time span. Killing people was part of being the ruler back then, of course, and her sister killed her fair share, too. It's not that I'm against portraying Mary sympathetically or criticising Elizabeth, it's just that Gregory takes it way too far IMO. Elizabeth is basically shown as doing everything in her power to make her half-sister miserable, when in reality she didn't have the power to do much of anything (except trying to survive) during that period. Wikipedia sums it up pretty well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Queen%27s_Fool#Criticism