ignorethisrandom
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Latest Posts by ignorethisrandom
I decided to read Washington Square, and now Catherine Sloper will haunt me all the rest of my born days.
She's the anti-Fanny Price and the anti-Anne Elliot, in that she's in a similar situation (so similar that I almost have to believe it was intentional) but makes all the wrong decisions because she happens to be stuck with horrible men. But her story's still worth telling because she still matters. She manages to maintain her dignity even in her small, pathetic story. She gets broken and it's sad, because she deserved better, yet the fact that she recognizes she deserved better is what keeps her strong in the end.
I should hate it but I don't, because instead of pure cynicism or mockery, there's compassion there, a recognition that even flawed, unremarkable people deserve our care. Almost nothing happens, yet in the week and a half since I read it, I keep thinking about it. I'm slotting it alongside Eugene Onegin as an anti-Austen story that fascinates me because of the sad ending. (And then I'm going to imagine that Catherine moves to Cranford and gets to experience sunshine and comedy and friendship).
“Oppenheimer should at least represent Japanese voices” actual Japanese filmmakers have made dozens of movies about the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, including at least two anime films off the top of my head, that you would’ve bothered to watch if you actually cared about this beyond winning discourse points. Not to mention all the Japanese science fiction that is obviously inspired in some way by trauma over the bombing, including the entire genre of kaiju films. Do you really think there's anything those works haven't said that Christopher Nolan would add? Or maybe, in fact, the lack of focus there in Oppenheimer is The Point, since the real-life Manhattan Project (which the film is critical of) certainly wasn't consulting "Japanese voices"? Anyway, In This Corner of the World is a great film about the life of a young woman from Hiroshima in the waning days of WWII that you can currently rent for $1.99 on Amazon Prime. It's animated by the same studio that did Yuri!!! on Ice and it's based on a 3-volume manga that is also terrific and available both physically and digitally in English. If you actually want fiction that depicts "Japanese voices on the atomic bomb" I would start there. If you actually care about diverse perspectives in media you'd also care about the people making that media and look to what actual Japanese people are saying about this rather than expecting American and British creators to spoon-feed it to you.
My obsession with Catherine Cookson miniseries has evolved to its next logical phase: Catherine Cookson books.
Could this cover (carbon dated 1970) be any more amazing?
Since it was released, cover design isn't the only thing that has changed about books. Check out this marketing copy: "Catherine cookson transforms the simple plot of riches-to-rags and back again into a vivid, textured, and highly romantic novel that is not altogether unlike Jane Eyre in its impact."
"Not all together unlike Jane Eyre in its impact." Does praise get any more backhanded than that?
Fanny practicing her dance moves:
...and was actually practising her steps about the drawing-room as long as she could be safe from the notice of her aunt Norris...
Mansfield Park Memes, Ch 28
Edmund: My only....sister. Yep, that’s right... [Starts to sweat]
I love Mansfield Park—there's a reason it's so important to my dissertation—and it's not only for the things that seem appropriate enough, but also the ones that kind of break my brain a little.
For me, the Peak WTF has to go to Edmund (surprise), after his sisters have separately run off with two fairly shitty men. He greets Fanny in a burst of emotion:
she found herself pressed to his heart with only these words, just articulate, “My Fanny, my only sister; my only comfort now!” She could say nothing; nor for some minutes could he say more.
I always think ... well, having Edmund refer to Fanny as his sister that late in the book, while simultaneously disowning his actual sisters, is certainly a choice. I don't actually mind it because I don't read MP for Fanny/Edmund, lol, but I find it interestingly bizarre.
(It reminds me distantly of Lord Orville presenting himself as a brother figure to Evelina in Evelina, but iirc that pretty obviously falls apart further from the end and it's clear that he doesn't really see her that way.)
“Wait, there are people blaming the writers?”
Are you surprised? Fandoms have become notorious anti-writer spaces. Studios love you guys. They can cut the budgets, cut the number of writers, cut the wages of the writers, and you guys always blame the writers. “The writers ruined the show!” It’s never “the studios ruined the show.”
I hate to break it to you: more than half the shows you complain were “ruined by the writers”, were ruined by the studios. Studios cut the scenes and arcs you were excited for. Studios cut the budget of the show, or even raise the budget of the show and force a “bigger, louder, bolder” tone on shows that were unexpected hits (this is where we get “the Netflix look” on every show post-Stranger Things and Queen’s Gambit).
You guys do not do your research. Half your fanfics are tagged with bad faith digs at the writers, when a few searches would reveal how strapped that show was and how poorly the writers were treated. Writers are being given a single week to write each episode—I’m not kidding, one-week-per-episode is one of the reasons for the strike. How are good arcs and scenes supposed to happen under that time limit, with a max of only four writers?
Tumblr, the self-proclaimed “pro-union, pro-worker, pro-artist” site is also a major fandom site. You guys rarely practice good faith consumer etiquette for television and film writers, because your fandom salt always turns you against writers. And studios love you for it.
Yeah, individual writers do create bad writing from time to time. But so do painters, chefs, and musicians. Directors and actors sometimes refuse to film certain scenes or follow a show’s projected style and arc, and the writers always get the crap for a bad performance or a poorly directed episode. This isn’t to blame actors or directors; it’s to point out that you guys have one villain, and it’s always the writers. You guys never give writers the same grace you give animators, designers, directors, actors, composers, and editors.
Studios love you every time you say “the writers ruined the show.” Every single popular fandom is guilty of this. View any of the “why did the writers cut this scene, they hate my characters” talk when leaked scenes hit the internet. Writers barely get paid for what they do write. You think they’re writing scenes and then happily throwing them in the shredder? You guys just eat the talk that studios put out. Always have.
D*NY stans think battle of bells will be between cersei & joncon. I've seen ppl theorising that KL will be ashes when Dny arrives in Westeros because cersei will blow it up with wildfire ("as KL is her city" 🤭). Dny stans substitute cersei in every theory that is negative for dny (they call cersei as Aerys 2.0 🤭)
*GRRM over the years talking about aunty, her pets and burning cities to the ground*:
A Dance With Dragons spends quite a lot of time in Essos, which is kind of the analog to Asia and the Middle East in the world the story takes place in, as opposed to Westeros, which seems to owe a lot to Western Europe. When I was reading about Dany, who has become a light-skinned, foreign ruler of an exotic land, it reminded me of The Man Who Would Be King, the Sean Connery and Michael Caine movie that is based on a Rudyard Kipling story. Do you think about these parallels — colonialism, the “white man’s burden” — when you’re writing? I’ve said many times I don’t like thinly disguised allegory, but certain scenes do resonate over time. Other people have made the argument, which is more more contemporary, that it might have resonances with our current misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. I’m aware of the parallels, but I’m not trying to slap a coat of paint on the Iraq War and call it fantasy. When civilizations clash in your books, instead of Guns, Germs, and Steel, maybe it’s more like Dragons, Magic, and Steel (and also Germs). There is magic in my universe, but it’s pretty low magic compared to other fantasies. Dragons are the nuclear deterrent, and only Dany has them, which in some ways makes her the most powerful person in the world. But is that sufficient? These are the kind of issues I’m trying to explore. The United States right now has the ability to destroy the world with our nuclear arsenal, but that doesn’t mean we can achieve specific geopolitical goals. Power is more subtle than that. You can have the power to destroy, but it doesn’t give you the power to reform, or improve, or build.
—GRRM - Vulture - 2011
“I mean battles and wars interest me too - and medieval feasts interest me. And you know I’m creating a whole world here and every facet of it. As I get to it I try to approach it as realistically as I can, but ultimately as I said before, it’s it’s the human heart in conflict with itself. It’s what makes Cersei Lannister the way she is, and is she capable of learning and changing? What drives Dany? With Dany I’m particularly looking at the… what effect great power has upon a person. She’s the mother of dragons, and she controls what is in effect the only three nuclear weapons in the entire world that I’ve created. What does it do to you when you control the only three nuclear weapons in the world and you can destroy entire cities or cultures if you choose to? Should you choose to, should you not choose to? These are the issues that fascinate me. I don’t necessarily claim to have answers to these. I think exploring the questions is far more interesting than just me giving an answer and saying to the reader, here’s the answer, here’s the truth. Now think about it for yourself, look at the dilemmas, look at the contradictions, look at the problems, and the unintended consequences. That’s what fascinates me.”
—“Interview exclusive de George R R Martin, l'auteur de Game Of Thrones” de -Le Mouv’- 2014 - [Transcription]
How do you analyze this question of power? I think I was struck by the reading of the Lord of the Rings. I find that Tolkien is a little simplistic on the subject: at the end of the book, Aragorn becomes king, and we learn that he ruled in a wise and just way for a century, for he was a good man. But I read history books, I'm contemporary news, and I'm convinced that being a good man is not enough to make you a great leader. Because governing is a delicate exercise that makes you constantly make difficult decisions, solve problems where there is no good solution, that would solve everything by magic. Those are profound questions for the human race. And then there is the war, another subject that is close to my heart, I was a conscientious objector at the time of the Vietnam War, and this question still concerns me. I look at what is happening in the Middle East, with the Islamic State, and I can not help wondering: who are these monsters, these modern orcs? Who can be sympathetic to them? And yet, fighters say thousands to join them. More seriously, what motivates them? And how should we fight them? If I were Daenerys Targaryen. I could ride on my dragons and eliminate them in the flames. But is death the only solution we have to offer? How react to another who is so radically alien to us? These questions are very difficult - and I do not pretend to have the answers. Because there is no simple answer to these questions.
—Lire Magazine - April 2015
He was asked to comment about the differences between the book and show characters, particularly Daenerys. GRRM ignored all the other characters and talked only about Daenerys - he said that the show one is older because there are laws in USA that prevent minors from having sex scenes so the decision was made to age Daenerys. Otherwise, book Daenerys and show Daenerys “are very similar” and “Emilia Clarke did a fantastic job”. (I guess he can’t really say negative things about the show, can he?)
—GRRM Q&A - St. Petersburg, August 2017
GRRM: “People read fantasy to see the colours again,” he says. “We live our lives and I think there’s something in us that yearns for something more, more intense experiences. There are men and women out there who live their lives seeking those intense experiences, who go to the bottom of the sea and climb the highest mountains or get shot into space. Only a few people are privileged to live those experiences but I think all of us want to, somewhere in our heart of hearts we don’t want to live the lives of quiet desperation Thoreau spoke about, and fantasy allows us to do those things. Fantasy takes us to amazing places and shows us wonders, and that fulfils a need in the human heart.”
The Guardian: And the dragons?
GRRM: “Oh sure, dragons are cool too,” he chuckles. “But maybe not on our doorstep”.
—The Guardian - November 2018
Esquire: How will Fire & Blood deepen our understanding of Daenerys and her dragons?
GRRM: This is a book that Daenerys might actually benefit from reading, but she has no access to Archermaester Gyldayn’s crumbling manuscripts. So she’s operating on her own there. Maybe if she understood a few things more about dragons and her own history in Essos, things would have gone a little differently.
—Esquire - November 2018
Sitting down with news.com.au in New York City, Martin dropped dark hints to the suffering awaiting the war-torn world of Westeros as the battle for the Iron Throne reaches its peak.
“I have tried to make it explicit in the novels that the dragons are destructive forces, and Dany (Daenerys Targaryen) has found that out as she tried to rule the city of Meereen and be queen there.
‘THE POWER TO DESTROY’
“She has the power to destroy, she can wipe out entire cities, and we certainly see that in ‘Fire and Blood,’ we see the dragons wiping out entire armies, wiping out towns and cities, destroying them, but that doesn’t necessarily enable you to rule — it just enables you to destroy.”
—GRRM - Fox News Channel - November 2018
John Howe: Can I ask you why Dany is a princess and not a prince?
GRRM: I made this choice a long time ago, I think I wanted to play a little with the genres and reversed things a little, and of course in my head the expression "mother of dragons" is much better than "father of dragons". There is also this link with the woman who gives life, who transmits lives, carrying a gigantic power of death, of fire, of destruction. There are very powerful metaphors in there.
—Dragons! (2/4) Dragons d'Occident, la figure du mal [2018] - Video - Translation (last quote).
WELT: Again: We know what will happen to the Mother of Dragons. How do you want to surpass that in a novel – with an alternative literary version?
GRRM: Counter question: How many children did Scarlett O'Hara have? In Margaret Mitchell’s novel “Gone with the Wind” she had three children. But in the cinema version of the novels she only had one child. Which version is the only one valid - the one with one or the other with three children? The answer is: neither. Because Scarlett O'Hara never existed, she is a fictional character, not a real person, who would have had real children. Or take “The Little Mermaid”. We know her from the fairytale of the same name by Hans Christian Andersen and from the Disney movie. Which one is the true mermaid? Well, mermaids do not exist. So you can chose the version that you personally like the best. Changes are inevitable in this process. Even if the adaption is as faithful to the literary source material as it was the case with “Game of Thrones”.
—GEORGE R. R. MARTIN (“Die Leute kennen ein Ende – nicht das Ende” - WELT 2020) - Translation.
[…] The role of Daenerys is a difficult role, particularly in the pilot, because Daenerys begins as a frightened little girl. She’s thoroughly dominated by her brother, who humiliates her and sexually assaults her. He’s selling her to this fierce guy and she’s frightened but during the course of that comes into her own power. She suddenly grows from a girl to a woman and starts to realize that she does have power and authority. There’s a transformation that’s incredible the entire course of the show. You have to find an actress who can do both parts, who can be very convincing as the scared little girl in the beginning, but also very convincing as the “I’m gonna kick your ass and burn your city to cinders” woman that she becomes by the end. It’s challenging and it was a hard part to cast.
—GRRM - Tinderbox: HBO’s Ruthless Pursuit of New Frontiers by James Andrew Miller (NOVEMBER 23, 2021). Full quote here.
The Targaryens are also an ancient house but they're not an ancient Westerosi house. They knew that destruction was coming to Valyria and went far away from the capital city and the settled on the volcanic island of Dragonstone. They were dragon lords in Valyria. Now dragons are really formidable and they can turn the tide of a battle. It flies, it's difficult to hit, it breathes fire, against which most knights and men at arms have little or no protection. So if you have dragons, that's were the nuclear option analogy comes in. You're hard to mess around with. So the dragons and fear of dragons was one of the things that made the Targaryens very secure in their power.
—Before the Dance: An Illustrated History with George R.R. Martin | House of the Dragon (HBO) - August - 2022
*aunty stans*: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Read more here:
Chronicle of a Death Foretold
Queen of Ashes
“I’ve also known what you’ve lost” - Damn Mrs. Wheatley
The Pride of Dijon by William John Hennessey, 1879 / "cowboy like me" by Taylor Swift
If Martin had finished the books earlier I think we’d all have a different opinion on different plot points, but because he waited so long we’ve just built things up in our heads for years now so that nothing he writes can live up to what we want. He’s essentially screwed himself on so many levels.
i feel like when/if twow comes out(when he’s not distracting himself) it’ll divide so many ppl who made theories thinking its canon and if anything contradicts this in a book that’s been cooking for more than a decade(not to mention grrm kinda went everywhere in his world building and characters) , the fandom is just going to go nuclear
Hercule de Valois
Hercule Valois, aka Francois Duke of Anjou and Alencon, would like to challenge (former) Prince Harry to a literary duel.
If Anjou could write a memoir about his life as the “spare” brother, it would be far more entertaining than Harry’s “Spare.”
Elizabeth II seems a much nicer grandmother than Catherine de Medici was a mother to her youngest two children.
{Megan and Harry fans, please disregard this post, this post is for people who know a lot about the Valois family and Catherine de Medici’s children. I don’t know (or care) enough about Megan and Harry to have an opinion on them. I do, however, love to learn about 16th century royal scandals.}
Oh no!
finding out that the woman I was just telling about frances burney’s mastectomy and how awful and traumatic it must’ve been for her is actually currently in treatment for breast cancer
My Favorite Evelina Quotes + Marie Antoinette Screencaps
The Pale Blue Eye Review, Brief
Oh movie you were doing so well...up until the last third.
The ending is...an acquired taste.
But still, Harry Melling’s take on a young Edgar Allen Poe is very compelling and watchable. I’d watch an entire movie with him playing Poe again.
After watching House of the Dragon, I’m not sure I’d want ANY of these characters on the throne.
Rhaenerya - I know we’re supposed to sympathize with her, but she keeps making terrible choices.
Aegon II - Nope. Just nope.
Daemon - He’s all about getting power, not about using it. Clearly not trustworthy. (Is he going to steal someone’s dragon? Is that why he sang to one of the dragons in the finale?)
Alicent & Otto - If these two worked as a team to support a better claimant than Aegon (ugh) I’d like them more, but they chose Aegon...clearly not a smart move.
rereading act 5 of measure for measure to see how i could hypothetically make it a tragedy and i completely forgot isabella cries "And given me justice, justice, justice, justice!" I can literally not recall any other time in a shakespeare work where a single word has been successively repeated four times like that god wow. The escalation the desperation.. to me there is no way to do that line without turning out to the audience and screaming/begging THEM for justice, a call to action from a heartbroken woman grieving a brother who betrayed her
Some favourite staging moments in productions of Shakespeare plays:
Clarence actually getting drowned in a barrel of wine on stage in Richard III; it was a small barrel, they stuck his head into it as he struggled, pulled him out for an instant as he gasped for air and screamed, his head was wet and sopping, his face all red
Macbeth clutching his empty hands to hold an imaginary child, casting a clawed shadow on the wall
Ophelia ripping out hanks of her hair to give to people during her ‘flowers’ scene (obviously fake hair in real life)
Benedict in Much Ado About Nothing hiding from Claudio, Leonato and Don Pedro, taking a swig from a can of beer that happened to be full of cigarette butts and spit-taking it all over Don Pedro and Leonato
who then awkwardly pretend to check if it’s raining
Angelo in Measure for Measure taking off a bloody cilice belt from around his thigh while saying ‘Blood, thou art blood’
Also a really good bit where Angelo shows up in a two way mirror later on when the Duke’s speaking to himself and cursing him; the Duke turns to point at the mirror and there’s Angelo, in the chain of office, pointing back, accusing the Duke as much as the Duke does to him
The moment in Julius Caesar where Brutus asks his servant Strato - who’s been sitting with his back to the audience and wearing a hat with a wide brim - to help him commit suicide; Strato stands while taking off his hat to reveal that he’s played by Caesar’s actor
(a collective gasp went around the theatre; really lent a whole new meaning to ‘Caesar, now be still. I killed not thee with half so good a will’)
After a frantic chase scene in The Comedy of Errors which ends with all the cast collapsed across the stage in exhaustion and the scenery itself falling to bits…a pair of underpants falls from the ceiling, and Dromio of Ephesus (who’d tried in vain to retrieve them at the start of the play) crawls over several other characters, seizes them and screams in triumph
This!
feeling bonkers about measure for measure again. obsessed with the way angelo and isabella are such blatant foils of each other. angelo's introduced instigating the crackdown on vienna's sexual immorality while isabella's someone who's just become a nun and wants /more/ restrictions on her activities. (if you want a similar literary character from a different century, think dorothea from middlemarch.) devotion weaponized into self-restriction. they're both dangerously devout in their own way, though tellingly angelo's the only one who tries to push his beliefs onto other people and thus the one revealed to be a hypocrite in the end.
by contrast, the duke's a figure of total amorality. he spends most of the play in a friar's robes without performing the rites or following the strictures dictated by said robes. the duke has no faith the way angelo and isabella do. he's vaguely worried about ~corruption~ but why take a stand when he can get his overzealous second-in-command to do it and take the fall for him? dude could have revealed himself so much earlier but. he doesn't. the duke pretends to be in a comedy, but he's just a psychopathic puppeteer. he lets everyone think claudio's dead and for what. fucking deranged!!
the end of the play has the duke proposing marriage to isabella: her most important religious values mean nothing to him. angelo and isabella have their own beliefs, however self-flagellating. the duke only believes in himself.
There is a castle on a cloud...made of bones.
Master of the dog house.
On my own -- until my family feeds me.
I could go on, but you get the point.
a celebrity i follow on twitter: le miz but marius is played by wishbone
me, softly but with feeling: holy shit
behold, the goodest boy at the barricade
OR he’s dressed up as the prince from Ever After.
elijah wood as bacchus at 2004 mardi gras. if you care
Mr. Malcolm’s List is complete fluff with little weight or substance, but clearly everyone involved knew that and decided to make a sweet little film. The story is harmless, though I do wish Julia was the main protagonist--the actress playing her was clearly having the time of her life and she carried the movie on her back every step of the way.
Mr. Malcolm himself was incredibly...boring. Every time he opened his mouth I stifled a yawn. Seriously, could the casting director not have found someone more...anything. I don’t see how anyone could stay mad at this guy or have any strong emotions about him at all--he’s just way too bland. I’m not entirely sure if this is the actor’s fault, the writing, the bland character to begin with, or the directing, but all of these things come together to make a truly forgettable character.
Plus, his list is hardly unreasonable. Everything on his list is something any sensible person would want when picking out a boyfriend/girlfriend/partner/spouse. He just happens to be nerdy enough to have written his list down...and keeps it in his coat pocket, taking it with him everywhere he goes...That’s kind of dorky, but not particularly insulting.
All in all, I wish this bit of fluff had a sharper bite. Jane Austen, whose books clearly inspired this movie/book, had a far sharper and deeper bite.
Jane Austen had social commentary, this movie has...eye candy and geese.
This movie is by no means bad, but it’s not nearly as good or as clever as it wants to be and SHOULD BE. It’s just standard, like a big screen Hallmark movie, just with Jane Austen trappings instead of Christmas decorations.
Ideas for Season 2
What if next season the writers kept up the unreliable narrator device?
There could be an episode next season centering on the Massacre at Vassy - the start of the many wars of religion - where Louis de Bourbon (Prince of Conde) tells Ramira HIS side of the story. In his version he is the only one fighting for Protestants to have the same freedoms and rights as everyone else. This would make for a more rounded character and an interesting look at how Louis sees himself. With his narration he becomes a freedom fighter for the oppressed. Protestants can’t teach/study at Universities, hold certain jobs, worship in public in many cities/provinces. He sees himself as the Huguenots’ savior in many ways–their version of Martin Luther King Jr. He can even physically look thinner and more dignified instead of fulfilling the short/fat one dynamic he has with Antoine when Catherine is narrating.
Since other shows set in this time period do not have the unreliable narrator device, this show should use it to their advantage. This story is filled with people manipulating each other–why not manipulate the audience while you’re at it?
Plus it gives Ramira some internal conflict: who does she believe? Maybe Catherine could try to make her into one of her Flying Squadron (spy/seductresses) but Ramira doesn’t like this, so hearing Louis’s side of the story could help bring tension between her and Catherine, giving Ramira something to do next season since historically she never existed and could easily be overshadowed by the show’s historical figures and events.
Ideas for Season 2
What if next season the writers kept up the unreliable narrator device?
There could be an episode next season centering on the Massacre at Vassy - the start of the many wars of religion - where Louis de Bourbon (Prince of Conde) tells Ramira HIS side of the story. In his version he is the only one fighting for Protestants to have the same freedoms and rights as everyone else. This would make for a more rounded character and an interesting look at how Louis sees himself. With his narration he becomes a freedom fighter for the oppressed. Protestants can’t teach/study at Universities, hold certain jobs, worship in public in many cities/provinces. He sees himself as the Huguenots’ savior in many ways--their version of Martin Luther King Jr. He can even physically look thinner and more dignified instead of fulfilling the short/fat one dynamic he has with Antoine when Catherine is narrating.
Since other shows set in this time period do not have the unreliable narrator device, this show should use it to their advantage. This story is filled with people manipulating each other--why not manipulate the audience while you’re at it?
Plus it gives Ramira some internal conflict: who does she believe? Maybe Catherine could try to make her into one of her Flying Squadron (spy/seductresses) but Ramira doesn’t like this, so hearing Louis’s side of the story could help bring tension between her and Catherine, giving Ramira something to do next season since historically she never existed and could easily be overshadowed by the show’s historical figures and events.
I don't think anyone has said this but let me say this...the real foils in the ASOIAF is Dany and Bran. She don't look back on the past and he is going through the archives of it!?
I am definitely rereading the books whilst I am on vacation and making notes, this is going to be my hyperfixation for the last three weeks in December!
They probably will in later seasons. She did NOT get on well with her youngest daughter Marguerite or her youngest son Hercule (also called Francis). Both children went on to rebel against her. So much family drama!
Sure she had to run the country while these two were growing up, but still...things got tense between them.
i wish they expanded on catherine being a deadbeat mother. this is where series bias in her favor is showing imo (or is it catherine storytelling bias? either way it's unsatisfactory.) because none of her scenes with her children explain why francis is so bitter and untrusting with her. i believe he had strong reasons to act that way and him leaning on mary who was always here for him makes complete sense. unlike his mother who i suspect secretly liked to spent time busy with court intrigues instead of wasting her lively brain energy on clueless little kids. she's like one of those fathers who prefer to only acknowledge their kid when they are old enough to hold adequate conversation not bothering to form any kind of bond with them beforehand. but i am sure catherine will fix that mistake with little charles.