#wickedesprit

[mc-critical]

About Nurbanu reaction when it comes to Defne death, I really want to point that Nurbanu, despite all her many flaws, doesn’t seem to enjoy that death. The problem that I have with Nurbanu (or more the actress) is that she seems un sincere in her acting except few scenes (I don’t say that Merve is a bad actress ! I really like her and she’s very convincing when it comes to her cunning part) especially the first ones (the harem and the prison ones). But here, after Defne death, she seem to give a new light to Nurbanu. I don’t know you, but I really think that Nurbanu didn’t enjoy doing that thing and may even have some respect to Defne (she seem to look sorry and so disgusting of her when she saw her dead-body...) I really was confused. What are your opinion about that ?

I agree. The death of Defne and her children was Nurbanu's necessity, but by no means was she happy during or after it and she may have had some regret inside of her when she saw the dead body.

I admit that I never found anything wrong with the way Merve portrayed Nurbanu, because her arc was pretty well underlined for the time it had on-screen and I found her expressions to fit well for her fiery cold and pragmatic nature, but I also admit that I usually watch the beggining of S04 in the Bulgarian dub and only by Mustafa's death I switch to the original episodes and by then Merve's cold expressions begin to befit Nurbanu more and more when her vulnerabilities begin to disappear, so I may have missed some things.

Nurbanu may be more pragmatic or ruthless than say, Hürrem and she may have adapted to her environment faster and steadier than usual, for she already has an example to follow and position to return to (or at least try to reach the closest resemblance to her previous Venetian Princess self with the closest level of power and respect), but that doesn't mean that she's lacking of conscience. It's no lie that Nurbanu oriented herself fascinatingly quick with her ability to see the destiny in the stars and a neat psychological perception of what is going on around her (that was crucial for Selim's success, IMO), but that doesn't make her immediately able to comfortably kill everyone who stands in her way. It's a skill she learns, not a skill she has in advance. That is very well demonstrated by her relationship with Valeria/Nazenin: they have been in a (toxic definetly) master - slave relationship in Venice and Nurbanu wants to keep that in the castle, too, at first, while Valeria wants to get out of it, but Nurbanu still valued her in some way and expressed massive difficulty in killing her. That's very important, because killing her is Hürrem's order, someone Nurbanu has to prove her loyalty to, for she "propelled" Nurbanu's path to success through sending her in Manisa. Loyalty and motivation stand against humanity and vulnerability and when Nurbanu ends up killing Nazenin anyway, she is explicitly shown to regret doing it. This is the first point her conscience spoke and the first sign of her slowly letting go of her own humanity in order to focus on the goal that is putting Selim in a favorable position and then on the throne.

In a slight parallel to MCK Halime, Nurbanu's character motive is survival through rise in the hierarchy in every single way including opportunism, but unlike Halime, Nurbanu's motive is more personal than thematic and the ways she would ensure that survival evolve throughout the narrative and aren't immediately established and part of her character from the beggining. She starts considering everyone except the one she has to vouch for (and her son) an enemy only after transitional events in her life are allowed to occur - Nurbanu loses her humanity slowly, but surely: after she kills Nazenin, after Dilşah kills her dog (which is also a symbol of humanity and a source of comfort, paralleled with Hürrem's horse that Hafsa killed back in S02), after Mustafa's death.... Until Mustafa's death, I dare say that Nurbanu saw killing as something extreme, something she wouldn't let herself do, for she said this when she regretted Nazenin's death and questioned on the possibility of whether a father could kill his son in E123, a thing similar to what she did with Defne and her kids later.

Both Selim and Nurbanu realized that in order to win, they have to be capable of anything without hesitation. Nurbanu was on this ruthless path before that, but now it was only a confirmation that she had to learn from what she went through: that in this time period, in this circumstance you have to merciless. So she goes on with this negative development, motivating Selim to let go of his doubts and do the humanly and morally impossible: if a father could kill his son, why should they hold back? And only then she began to strive to remove everyone who stood in her way of victory.

Hürrem herself began to stand in that way and after her death, there was presumably nothing to hold Nurbanu back and her ruthlessness reached its peak. Defne also stood in that way, on an even more personal angle: Defne was a person loyal to her and Selim once, after all, and Defne's betrayal was in parallel to Nurbanu's one of Hürrem and Hürrem and Nurbanu had parallel reactions. They are already too far gone into the rules of the system, so they are already able to kill and consider it a necessity. It was logical she would go after Defne and the kids. In that scene, Nurbanu was truly at her worst, seeing how her arc truly paid off and one could easily say that she's entirely lost it by that point.

And yes, while she was the furthest from her humanity in the scene, there was another, as strong (but still not morally justifiable) hint of humanity there and it wasn't just in the end in her expression after she saw her dead. Humanity shone through the dialogue between Defne and Nurbanu all the way through, but what I want to highlight specifically at, is their exchange right before the execution: where Defne begged her to spare her, because she should understand, because she is a mother, too, to which Nurbanu responded that, yes, she is a mother, but that's what she has to do as one. Now we see that she still keeps her awareness within the ruthlessness, that there is something of the old Nurbanu inside her, but that she simply has to let it behind to achieve the goal. Because Defne was the last obstacle to victory at last and she has to eliminate her, no matter how much she seems to respect the motherly feelings. Because being a mother in the harem is naturally tied to your own and your children's survival alone and while there is empathy, it has to be masked to play within the rules of the system and win. It's so sad, really. 😢

[ottomanladies]

Hey ! What do you mean when you said that Turhan and Gulnus made a alliance for destroye the Grand Vizier ?

I only translated what Pietro Civano wrote.

The Grand Vizier from 1676 to 1683 — Civano's report is dated 1682 — was Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Paşa; apparently both Turhan and Gülnüş wanted to substitute him with someone else. Civano claimed that Turhan resented him because he laboured to keep her away from the court in Edirne (and therefore could not influence her son). 

He doesn’t say why Gülnüş didn’t like him. 

In the end, Kara Mustafa Paşa was executed on Mehmed IV's orders in Belgrade for his failures during the Vienna Siege. By then, though, Turhan was already dead.

[queenaryastark]

i'm really sorry to disturb you...i just wanted to tell you that i follow you since the days of yours gifs about arya,and i love your blog. You made so many progresses, you are really inspiring for me :) :D

Aw thank you so much :)

[mc-critical]

Hey ! So i have saw your post about Hatice...just a golden piece ! So here i ask you something with a little but of imagination...in your opinion how Ayse Humasah could be as a main character in the show ? And what do you think of her relationship with her mother ? I found it, quite cold with her. We don't have many interactions between them but she never mentionned her daughter and in the last episode she even plan her wedding as her own mother did many years when she's just a teen. I mean...Rustem is FAR MORE present with her daughter, he give him more affection and even a pretty bird. What do you think ?

Aww, thanks <33 I was inspired by an awesome meta! 😊

I don't have much of an opinion on Ayşe Hümaşah, tbh. She didn't have much personality or screetime and it's like she was glossed over from the start (even her birth happened during a time skip, hence it was shown very briefly), except for one plot line where she was more of a plot device than anything else.

With that said, yes, she's not a main character in the show, but she could work as one. Her mostly absent personality (except for her love for her mother and father) makes her potential practically limitless: she has quite some material for her own story and we could parralel her or contrast her to her own mother and father without issue. I feel if she were a main player, she would've gotten a love story of her own, since that seemed to be a trend for the princes and sultanas in the show. I see her finding her own voices and agency and helping her mother and father in a way, though Mihrimah may try her best not to put her into this whole game. (especially after she was abducted as a baby) It would be interesting to observe her relationship with Hürrem and her relationship with the remaining princes and their baby nephews - I feel we can experiment as much as we wish there. Her relationship with SS would be interesting to explore, too, because we barely saw him with his nieces and nephews and him being close to Hümaşah, for her reminding him even more of Mihrimah. There's a lot that can be done with this character, no shortage there, and I would've loved to see it.

We don't see a lot of Ayşe Hümaşah's relationship with Mihrimah, so I don't have much of a stance here, either. It's clear she cares about her, though: she was very concerned when she was abducted by Nigar (and I admit I loved how protective mama bear Hürrem got on Şah and Hatice when she was questioning them for the abduction!) and she sure loved her daughter, it's just they had a lack of screentime that didn't allow them to be fleshed out. From what I remember, Mihrimah does want to keep her out of problems, however you're right about her planning her marriage - a result of Mihrimah adapting more to her environment and even hardening because of it. I didn't see her as cold to her, rather more composed, more showing that she knows better, with Mihrimah to Hümaşah I got more the "acting like the more mature mother" vibe whenever a conversation between them happened. This relationship deserved more.

Yes, we had considerably more material (but not that much more) with her and Rüstem, but I think these scenes served more to humanize Rüstem at least a little bit through his relationship with his daughter, which is something Mihrimah didn't really need. I can't really say which parent was more loving to Ayşe Hümaşah, because the material was so few and far between.

[mc-critical]

A little thing than always despite me in mc:kosem is the treatment given to Mahfiruze hatun (the first one) and Sayeste. I mean...THEY ARE WONDERFUL. But they were totally ruined ! WHY ? it's a absolute criminal act i think, because they were nuanced with flaws and qualities on my opinion (Mahfiruze is emotive and try to kill her weak side with her arrogance, she has loved ones with and has a talent for manipulation when Sayeste is loyal, grateful but dellusioned ans angry) What do you think about the two girls ? What will you like to see with her ?

Oh yeah, early Mahfiruz was filled with potential from the start. I also love the subtly presented vulnerability of her character: that was perhaps her best scene that gave her both flavor and uniqueness. Developing a devious nature and sneakiness to mask a more insecure side of yourself isn't the most outstanding concept ever, but it's something that we didn't really get to see all that often in the franchise, especially not as masterfully established in a single scene, no less. And Anastasia herself being the one that discovered that vulnerability of hers is a rare gem that should be cherished and lets me acknowledge this simple conversation as one of the softest lines of action and dialogue in MCK.

What baffles me the most is not so much that the writers wimped out on her at some point, since that was to be expected both due to other cases in the past and the whatever reason behind the scenes (did the actress want to leave the show? I heard that there was something like this, but I'm not sure...), but how quickly they gave up on her future set up and development, most possibly even before the supposed stuff behind the scenes happened. She had so much promise with her one scene wonder, then we had a parallel repetition of the beating plot in MC E03 (that somehow ended up being even more filler than that from a narrative standpoint, how do they do it?) and... that was it. 2-3 episodes before her "departure" it was already done. There was some hope they would continue on her character concept when we realized that TIMS wouldn't give up on this relatively major role in the story, even if with a different actress. But Dilara Aksuek's Mahfiruze was an entirely different character that didn't live up to Mahfiruz's potential and instead turned her into a one-dimensional S01 Mahidevran archetype that has only a single aspect of that archetype. And that was a problem and relatively, a downgrade, because it seemed like Mahfiruz's dynamic with Anastasia, despite of some similarities, wouldn't be just a rehash of the typical rivalry dynamic between the two main concubines of the Sultan. The chance of seeing something different went away completely.

And you know, Dilara's Mahfiruze would've been a much better character if the writers picked up where the old Mahfiruz left off without killing her off, just replacing her actress (similarly to Vahide Perçin's Hürrem, but applied to a more minor character, of course), but also kept Mahfiruze's relationship with Ahmet and fleshed out more her relationship with Osman, fully utilizing her thematic role in setting the conflict between him and Kösem, which would have freely happened with both fleshing her character out and letting her meet her doom during the time-skip in E21, if you want that so badly, writers - these two aren't mutually exclusive concepts! But we got two safe, effortless, sudden and abrupt endings of two characters that we ended up not caring as much about in the long run due to sloppy writing.

While the waste of Mahfiruz's foundation is far from the worst offence of the show, it's certainly the most bizarre one. Unlike MCK Turhan, where they more or less had to rush things, they didn't have that much of an excuse to turn Mahfiruz's concept and role into... this. I, for one, generally cut the MCK writers more slack because of the ratings, but I don't feel this can be done here, neither because it is a choice they had to make because of ratings in terms of both characters, nor because I think the ratings would've gone down, if they fleshed Dilara's Mahfiruze more, quite the opposite really. Mahfiruz and Mahfiruze. didn't. deserve. the. MC. S04. Rumeysa. treatment. I fully believe this is one thing they could've avoided, yet didn't.

I'm not such a big fan of Şayeste, to be honest. I never liked her or her writing from the start, but that doesn't mean that she didn't deserve better. Her characterization was bonkers the instant she was introduced and her going back and forth from side to side was neither well written, nor interesting, unlike the duality of some other characters. They set her as a mean girl quickly manipulated by Mahfiruz from the start with only some more positive traits and I don't believe that "Heel Face turn" felt as earned as intended. Though, yeah, the worse thing here is that, just like Mahfiruz, the writers wimped out on her completely after that turn and that was also unfortunate. I would've loved to see these gratitude and loyalty you're talking about more in the story, even though their use was a step better than everything with Mahfiruz and Mahfiruze, and also, a bigger, closer role to Kösem, even though Meleki apparently took that spot for her.

Their dynamic was... okay? It seemed to only be a plot device at the end of the day and it was very vague and one-dimensional, too? I definetly wouldn't object if we saw more of it, but my current impressions just aren't as strong. It only seemed to have fulfilled a single purpose and left. If the writers fleshed both of these characters more, it would've been great though, no doubt.

[ottomanladies]

Hello ! Hope that you are well :)

What means Sineperver ? It's a strange name fir a concubine i presume, no ? Can you give us more information about this Valide Sultan ?

Sîne- is Persian for heart (or chest), -perver derives from pervar that means protector (or benefactor). In short, her name means protector of the heart.

Everything I know about her was told here and here. I suggest checking her tag for more posts but these are the most comprehensive.

[queenfredegund]

Story of Yanxi Palace (2018) | Fuca Rongyin, Empress Xiaoxianchun (孝賢純皇后) / Gao Ningxin, Imperial Noble Consort Huixian (慧賢皇貴妃) / Hoifa Nara Shushen, Consort Xian (嫻妃), later Step-Empress (繼皇后) / Wei Yingluo, Imperial Noble Consort Lingyi (令懿皇貴妃), later Empress Xiaoyichun (孝儀純皇后)

Look at the mirror, the face is thin, Seeing love and hate, new and old, See the lamp like the day, tears overflowing, See who is coming, After dusk...

Happy Birthday @wickedesprit! 💞💕

[queenfredegund]

Catch up meme

Tagged by @natahjikio and @mydaylight, thanks girls ♥

Rules: answer + tag 9 people you want to get to know better and/or catch up with!

Favourite colour: Red! Last song / album: ¿Por qué te vas? Last movie: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone Currently reading: La Passe-Miroir, t. 3 (and I love it so muuuuuch until now!) Currently watching: Be Loved in House ♥ Currently craving: Hmmm... being less exhausted? Coffee/tea: Tea!

I tag @fierce-little-miana, @antonomase, @ladyniniane, @ourgraciousqueen, @wickedesprit, @plaidetchocolatchaud, @ladywraith, @penitencebedamned and @characterfromthebook

[queenfredegund]

when you get this, please reply five things that make you happy and send this to the last ten people in your notifications 💐

My cats ♥♥♥

Eating and discovering new foods

Laughing my ass with my sister

Writing

Searching about royal women and courts ♥♥

I tag @winterhalters, @fierce-little-miana, @antonomase, @ourgraciousqueen, @wickedesprit, @ladywraith, @haweke, @ardenrosegarden, @history-be-written and @plaidetchocolatchaud <3 And of course, all people who want to do it!

[queenfredegund]

7 Comfort Films

Tagguée par @haweke, merci ! ;D

Les Disney en général, peu importe lequel d’ailleurs, même si j’ai une préférence pour ceux qui m’ont marquée enfant, comme Le Roi Lion, Pocahontas, Mulan, Le Bossu de Notre-Dame ou La Planète au Trésor. Et maintenant, j’ai aussi débloqué un nouveau skill en les regardant : je pleure à chaque mouvement de musique, c’est juste imparable !

Les Harry Potter, et surtout le premier que je dois connaître absolument par cœur ! Que dire, si ce n’est qu’il me renvoie à mes 10 ans et demi et l’envie de découvrir la série ? Que du bonheur à chaque fois, en tout cas !

Le Prince d’Égypte, à mon sens le plus grand chef d’œuvre d’animation jamais inégalé, et on ne pourra pas me faire changer d’avis ! Et je pleure aussi. Tout le temps.

Le Diable s’habille en Prada, qui m’a donné tellement de private jokes ou de moments auxquels m’identifier ! Grandir en le visionnant encore et encore, c’est clair que ça te donne un humour corrosif et une façon de considérer le glamour sous un autre angle...

La 7ème Compagnie : des barres de rire, des acteurs que j’adore (Pierre Tornade, Robert Lamoureux, Pierre Mondy...), une musique qui te reste dans la tête, et surtout une façon d’écrire le scénario qui reste drôle en dépit des années, et qui est tellement, mais sensiblement plus acerbe que ce qu’on peut le voir au premier regard. Un vrai régal !

Ever After, que j’ai découvert y a pas longtemps, mais qui a toujours fait parti de mon univers mental puisque le trailer était sur plusieurs de mes VHS. Je ne sais pas comment j’ai fait pour vivre si longtemps sans lui, c’est juste une pure merveille et j’ai du mal à comprendre comment on a pu passer de ça à la version moderne de Cendrillon avec Lily James...

Anastasia !!! Le meilleur pour la fin, je pense ! Anastasia, c’est juste LE dessin animé de mon enfance (avec Balto, que j’aurais sans doute mis en 8e position si ce n’était pas juste 7 films !). J’ai encore la vidéo caméscope du Noël où je l’ai reçu et où on m’entend brailler du haut de mes 7 ans extatiques “woaahhhh, Anastasia, trop bieeeen !” Et l’amour ne s’est jamais démenti depuis ! Expliquez-moi aussi comment on a pu passer d’une héroïne téméraire et malicieuse, qui nous a donné de très belles vannes à renvoyer contre son crush (même si elle l’ignorait encore à ce moment-là) et n’hésite pas à envoyer quelques bons poings ou claques de temps à autre, à des héroïnes aussi plates que dans les derniers gros Disney...

Je taggue en retour @winterhalters, @ladyniniane, @antonomase et @wickedesprit !

[queenfredegund]

Tagguée par @antonomase, @haweke et @ladyniniane, merci les filles !!

honey and lemon or milk and sugar // musicals or plays // lemonade or unsweetened iced tea // strawberries and raspberries // winter or summer (unless it's the part of winter before Christmas, because I just love Christmas time!!) // beaches or forests // diners or cafes // unicorns or dragons // gemstones or crystals // hummingbirds or owls // fireworks or sparklers // brunch or Happy Hour // sweet or sour // rome or amsterdam (history-nerd, what did you expect?) // classic or modern art // sushi AND ramen (yeah, i'm a glutton, what else?) // sun and moon (love both of them) // polka dots or stripes // macarons AND croissants (yeah, i already make amend for that...) // glitter or matte // degas or seurat // aquariums or planetariums // road trip or camping trip // colouring books or watercolor // fairy lights and candles

Je tagg en retour @ladywraith, @wickedesprit et @fierce-little-miana