#the duchess and the devil

[demon4dilfs]

pellew @ hornblower after hornblower pulled off some crazy feat that risked his and his midshipmen’s lives and then says they all have to go back to Spanish prison

[spockvarietyhour]

Hornblower "The Duchess and the Devil"

[hornblower-diary]

Hornblower: The Duchess and the Devil

[aye-aye-captain]

Edward "Can't Hide the Smile" Pellew ♡ | Hornblower (The Duchess and the Devil)

[now-you-sound-like-a-jedi]

It amazes/amuses me that anyone in-universe or irl believes anything Almec or Pre Vizsla or such says about Satine because, like, they fully cannot make their minds up about what's wrong with her.

Half the time they're trying to portray her as this weak, naive, passive, silly little woman, and then the rest of the time she's a scheming, evil, cold-blooded killer who could also secretly be working with the Separatists.

Like, pick an angle and stick to it at the very least.

[anghraine]

dontstandmedown replied to this post:

re:tags could you share the playwright you're talking about? :0

No problem! For others, the tags in question are this:

#thinking about this partly because the softer & gentler versions of fanfic discourse keep crossing my dash #and partly because i've written like 30 pages about a playwright i adore who was just not very good at 'original fiction' as we'd define it #both his major works are ... glorified rpf in our context but splendid tragedies in his #and the idea of categorizing /anything/ in that era by originality of conception rather than comedy/tragedy/etc would be buckwild

I am always delighted to share the good news of John Webster! If you're not familiar with him, he was an early seventeenth-century English playwright known for being a slow, painstaking, but reliable writer. He did various collaborations with other playwrights (and acknowledges a bunch of his peers in an author's note to The White Devil, including Jonson and Shakespeare) and wrote some middling plays in various genres that could be more or less termed "original fiction," but he's remembered for two brilliant, bloody tragedies.

The basic premises/plots of both of these were essentially ripped from the headlines of the previous century, and Webster makes zero attempt to conceal that fact.

I couldn't shut up about my guy so more under a cut!

The White Devil is based on the actual murder of Vittoria Accoramboni in the late sixteenth century and the characters in the play are generally given the same or similar names as the real life people in the story as known at the time, so there's no attempt to conceal the play's origins (the anti-heroine/villain???[debatable] is named Vittoria Corombona in the play, for instance).

The original production of The White Devil largely failed, which Webster blamed mainly on bad weather and an audience who just didn't get his ~vision and what he was trying to do. It would not be unsurprising for a contemporary audience to struggle with it given that it's a complicated play in which, among other things, Vittoria is put on trial and rhetorically shreds the underlying misogyny of the entire legal process.

The Duchess of Malfi, generally considered a still greater achievement, is based directly on the murder of Giovanna d'Aragona, Duchess of Amalfi by her brothers (it was presumed, likely correctly). Lope de Vega also wrote a play about this tragedy not long before Webster did, though the plays are very different and it's unlikely that Webster would have had the time or linguistic knowledge necessary to read Lope's version. Probably part of the reason for the differences between Lope's and Webster's takes is that Lope had to be careful about the reception by the Catholic Church given that one of the murderers was a cardinal, while obviously an English Protestant like Webster could say whatever he wanted about eeeeevil cardinals.

Webster takes a lot of artistic license, a normal approach at the time to adapting previously-established narratives, but the source material is very recognizable. One of the commendatory verses at the beginning of the play (blurbs in poetic form from other playwrights) is like "I'm sure the real duchess was cool but she couldn't be as cool as Webster's heroine, wow <3". (One of the other commendations is by another fave of mine, John Ford.)

Bosola, the historically mysterious minion of the Duchess's murderous brothers (=Bozolo in the historical narrative) gets an elaborate quasi-redemption arc in the play. And the play is extremely critical of various characters' obsession with and attempts to control the Duchess's sexual behavior (a fixation that is often extremely normalized in early modern British drama, but which comes off really badly here).

Ultimately this obsessiveness leads to her brothers, the Cardinal (=the historical Cardinal Luigi d'Aragona) and Ferdinand (=Carlo d'Aragona) orchestrating her torment and murder in which she emerges with her sanity and integrity intact and dies with dignity. Meanwhile, the Cardinal is exposed as a remorseless villain (he proceeds to murder his mistress with a Bible) and Ferdinand's already-shaky sanity snaps under the realization of what he's done.

Webster's Duchess is often considered the first real female tragic hero in British drama—the tragic is especially significant because tragedy was typically considered a higher art form than comedy and the truly great female characters from that era of drama are often restricted to comedies or secondary roles in tragedy (a marked trend in Shakespeare, for instance). The Duchess in the play is virtuous, strong-willed, witty, and fairly unabashedly sexual in the context of the time, a concept that several hundred years of critics have struggled with. (My favorite OTT complaint is from Martin Sampson, an early 20th century critic who lamented the conspicuous absence of a "strong active man, following righteous things" in Webster's work, to which I say l m a o.)

Anyway, among scholars of early modern British drama, Webster is often considered second only to Shakespeare as a tragedian, on the basis of those two plays. And the modern obsession w/ originality and novelty makes this kind of fascinating, given that his "original" work (in our sense—again, the original vs fanfic dichotomy was not a thing in that cultural context) is sort of meh but his work with pre-existing sources turns them into these staggering dramatic achievements.

[chr0n1c-ag0ny]

Sigzai:

[hello-prettybird]

I refuse to hate on Colin like some are already doing, isn't he your favorite? Some of my favorite male leads in historical romance are Sebastian St. Vincent (Devil in Winter) and Malcolm Bevingstoke (The Day of the Duchess) and let me tell you guys they ain't NO saints for sure and the amount of terrible decisions these two make oh la la. You know what they have in common with Colin? They are so in love with their romantic interest, it makes them stupid. And Colin is one my favorites too, and thank God he is not perfect, he's just a man! So you know what? Fuck all of this, I'm chill now, and just waiting to see Colin and Penelope be in love with each other and FUCK EVERYTHING ELSE. And a very important thing, having sex is not a character flaw. Get over it.

[hamartia-grander]

Going back into my cave after this but Wyllstarion x The Princess Diaries au. Wyll as Mia, Astarion as Nicholas, Tav as Andrew. You understand.

[incorrect-hornblower]

Horatio: Sorry I ruined the Vibe by bringing up logistics until the plan was fully formed and feasible

[frankiedoart]

I'm making homebrew monsters!

Vashelaak: The Duke of Friendship

She is the most amiable of the dukes. No one seems to have any problems with her. Anytime someone disagrees with her, their minds swiftly change due to her incredible persuasive nature. You will always agree with Vashelaak. You will not oppose her. She also loves to dance.

[fatestouch]

After his children depart to prepare for the party in their own ways, Tartarus takes a few long, silent moments to tend to the flowers. All was a hush around him... after all, he always gave the magnolias in particular the closest attention.

He takes a moment to brush a finger over them for a moment. A sigh, and a close of the eyes.

And then he snaps his fingers. A figure appears behind him, on one knee with his head bowed, hand over his heart.

"Yes, Your Majesty?"

"You, Runi, Azalea, and... hm, Robin. You four will be coming with us to Vanystea. I don't expect any issues to arise, but you are to stay vigilant nonetheless."

"Robin is still young, and new to the Order besides. Is sending him to a foreign land so soon wise?"

"It will be a good learning experience for him, and he can know how knights from other countries conduct themselves besides. I'm sure my sister will be eager to hear what he ends up learning."

"You only give Her Grace more reasons to dote on him~..."

"And you grow cheeky, boy." Though his back is turned, the slight amusement in his tone is telling. "Now, go. Prepare yourself for an.. entertaining experience."

"As His Majesty wishes~"

[spockvarietyhour]

He's having a great time at camp superfun

[hornblower-diary]

Archie & Horatio

Hornblower: The Duchess and the Devil

I adore their friendship so much!

[aye-aye-captain]

Edward, Kitty and Horatio | Hornblower (The Duchess and the Devil)

[mareastrorum]

Replaying the Blood & Wine expansion for Witcher 3, and I triggered the unmarked quest where a kid delivers a letter from Yennefer. I forgot one of the options was to tell the kid to get lost instead of giving him a 5 coin tip.

If this was early books Geralt, when he's a depressed and bitter jackass, I think he'd do just that. But since this is post-books, I paid the tip.

It was still tempting though.