As I edit away on my next novel, I have a suggestion for anyone suffering withdrawals since the season end of Game of Thrones: Watch a show about the War of the Roses, history’s real life game of thrones.
It’s been well publicized that the historical War of the Roses helped inspire George R.R. Martin’s series A Song of Ice and Fire, which HBO turned into Game of Thrones. Fortunately, earlier this year, Starz ran The White Princess, a sequel to its 2013 mini-series The White Queen, both about the War of the Roses. If you haven’t seen them, there’s no better time than now to start binge watching.
I wrote about The White Queen back in 2013 (here) and the novel by Phillippa Gregory on which it was based (you can read my review here). But I also posted an excerpt from an article in Vulture titled “7 Ways Starz’s The White Queen is Like Game of Thrones.” Here’s it is again:
Character Correlations: It’s not always direct in Game of Thrones, as one of George R.R. Martin’s characters might share personality traits with a certain historical figure or group, yet a situation or position in common with another. But some people see Cersei from Game of Thrones in The White Queen’s Elizabeth Woodville, the commoner Edward IV married; others see her in Margaret of Anjou, the wife of Henry VI (the king Edward IV helped depose) because she’s a commanding woman fiercely devoted to putting her sociopathic son on the throne. Yes, there is a Joffrey predecessor, and his name is Edward of Lancaster, a.k.a. the Prince of Ice. Although these aren’t precise match-ups, The White Queen also has a mad king (King Henry VI of Lancaster), as well as an exiled heir to the throne (Henry Tudor). Edward IV, like Robert, also has two brothers vying for the throne. (His brother George, like Renly, doesn’t even want to wait for his death, telling him, “I was hoping for your crown.”) Bran and Rickon, meanwhile, are probably the Princes in the Tower.
If this whets your appetite, my guess is you’ll enjoy both The White Queen and The White Princess, but I suggest you watch them in order. The White Queen covers the heart of the War of the Roses, which ended up putting Henry Tudor (Henry VII) on England’s throne. It also tells the story of Richard III (he of Shakespearean fame), the Princes in the Tower, and all the drama surrounding that still mysterious event. All in all, it’s very well done.
As much as I liked The White Queen, I enjoyed The White Princess even more. Unfortunately, Starz premiered the series around the same time as it aired American Gods and HBO aired the final season of The Leftovers, so I ended up missing the show during its run. I did, however, have a chance to binge-watch it before the premiere of Season 7 of Game of Thrones.
What I enjoyed the most about the series was the transformation of its protagonist Lizzie (Elizabeth) of York. She’s the daughter of Elizabeth Woodville (the protagonist of The White Queen) and, historically, the mother of Henry VIII and grandmother of Elizabeth I. She begins the show as a fierce York loyalist, determined to secretly undermine her unwanted husband, Henry Tudor, in the hope of restoring a York to the throne. But when she finds that she and Henry have more in common than they realized, and later have two sons, she begins to change. By the end, she’s making serious moves in the game of thrones, displaying a ruthlessness one would not expect of the character in the beginning of the show.
Bill
September 30, 2017 - 9:38 pm ·I’ll have to check it out. I read a history of the period a couple of years ago. What a horror! Many people and families found themselves in literally impossible situations; doomed whatever they chose.