#and you might think oh! they have a gentry lover. that's nice | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

headcanonsandmore · 3 years

Text

Gentry and Gentlemen, Chapter One

Summary: Hermione Granger has just begun a new position of governess at Ottery Manor in the Devon Countryside, a world away from her upbringing in Regency-era London. There she meets a redheaded blacksmith man named Ron Weasley. Sparks may just fly between the middle class city woman and the working-class country man with a genuine and heartfelt charm all his own. (Jane Austen Romione AU)

Tagging: @hillnerd @nagemeikenu @acnelli @aimless-twig @femaledoubleagent @thehufflepuffpixie @adenei @abradystrix

~~~~~~~~~~

Read on FFN. Read on AO3.

~~~~~~~~~~

The Regency period is full of stories about dashing military officers and their lovers, titled men and women, and the romantic misadventures of the landed gentry. Almost always of young ladies of the gentry and their aristocratic suitors. Of money, land, and upper class goings-on. The sort of stories that have become synonymous with high romance, retold countless times since.

This is not one of those stories.

The stagecoach trundled along the country lane. It was the middle of April, and the Devon countryside was quickly losing any vestiges of the winter. Trees were growing green, bees were pollinating all manner of plants, and the lane was fast becoming dusty due to the lack of rain.

‘Oh, really, good sir!’ giggled a lady, her aristocratic manner evident in her voice. ‘You are a delight!’

‘My pleasure, good lady,’ replied the gentleman, a large tall man with a similar way of speaking. ‘I find myself inclined to be such when in the company of such an amiable person as yourself.’

There was a loud crack, as one of the stagecoach wheels hit a hole in the lane.

‘My apologies, ladies and gentlemen!’ exclaimed the coachman from above. ‘The roads have not been repaired after the winter rains!’

‘You’d think the locals would have done something about it,’ complained the gentleman to his lady friend. ‘But I suppose that is to be expected of being so far out from respectable society.’

The woman sat across from the couple stared out of the window, a slight frown briefly appearing on her face. Her fellow passengers did not notice this, and had made no attempt at conversation with her for the entire journey from Exeter. But she was somewhat glad of that.

She was a young woman, in her mid-twenties and, unlike the pair sat across from her, was not wearing the latest fashions of aristocratic society. Her dress was well-worn but functional, as befitted her position. Her hat was smart was simple but sturdy. Her face was impassive, yet strong, and her eyes - a dark brown- were piercingly intelligent. A parasol, far from new, was placed sensibly across her lap. Her shoes, polished but faded from use, were the sort worn by practical working women since time immemorial. However, in contrast to all this was her hair; an enormous bushy mane that strained against the many pins she had used to keep it in place. It was the sort of hair that you couldn’t help but notice, and it was perhaps for that reason that the young lady had chosen to keep her hat on in the coach despite the heat.

‘Final stop; Ottery St Catchpole!’

The coach trundled to a halt, and the coachman (whose name was Mr Jones) climbed down, pulling the small set of steps out from under the coach door. The gentleman helped his lady companion down, and the two of them sauntered away with their bags without so much as a thank you to the coachman.

Sighing to himself, the coachman turned.

‘Er… my apologies, Mr Jones,’ came a voice from within the coach. ‘Could you help me down, please?’

‘Of course, miss,’ he said, before helping the young lady down to the ground. ‘Allow me to help you with your bags as well.’

‘Thank you.’

As the coachman pulled her bags out from the luggage racks, the young lady stared down the street. The gentleman and his lady friend were laughing loudly to themselves outside one of the shops.

‘They were awfully rude, weren’t they?’

‘Afraid so, Miss,’ replied Mr Jones. ‘Many from London feel that Devon might as well be on another planet.’

‘I hope you won’t judge me by their behaviour.’

‘Oh, of course not, Miss…er… my apologies, my memory isn’t what it once was…’

‘Granger.’ Hermione Granger said, giving a small curtsy. ‘And thank you for keeping me company on such a pleasant journey, Mr Jones.’

‘My pleasure, Miss Granger,’ Mr Jones said, tipping his cap. ‘I’m surprised that such a pleasant young lady like yourself is travelling all alone, truth be told.’

‘Well, you see, I’m on my way to a new place of employment.’ Hermione said. ‘Ottery Manor; perhaps you know it?’

‘Oh, yeah, Miss. Very prominent local gentry.’

‘I am due to take up the post of governess for the young children,’ Hermione elaborated.

‘A governess, you say?’ Mr Jones said, looking very surprised.

‘Yes, I recently achieved my qualification, you see.’

‘Very impressive, Miss. Er… just a word of warning, if you please?’

‘Whatever for?’

‘Well…’ Mr Jones looked rather uncomfortable. ‘You are… that is…’

Hermione sighed. She had been expecting this.

‘Mr Jones, I am well aware that the colour of my skin is perhaps not what the locals are used to.’

‘Oh, no, miss; that’s not what I meant!’ Mr Jones replied, shaking his head quickly. ‘Good gracious, no! Plymouth isn’t that far away, and we’re used to seeing people from all over the world popping through. It’s just… the gentry round here… aren’t quite so relaxed about it as the ordinary people are.’

Hermione smiled. Mr Jones was a sweet old man who clearly wanted to warn her as best he could, even if he didn’t quite have the terminology correct.

‘Thank you, Mr Jones; you are very kind.’

‘My pleasure, miss.’

‘Could you… point me in the direction of the manor house?’

Mr Jones nodded, pointing along up the narrow winding street of Ottery St Catchpole.

‘You can’t miss it; the big house on the hill.’

‘Thank you.’

As Hermione made her way through the main street, she was aware of just how much of a different world this was to London, where she had lived most of her life. For one thing, people walked far slower and had a relaxed attitude in their comings and goings. One could certainly tell that the pace of life was slower.

Within a few minutes, Hermione had left the village, and headed along the country road up towards the manor house. The lack of rain had meant that dust was virtually inescapable, but Hermione preferred it to the mud she had been concerned about. She wouldn’t have wanted to make a first appearance with her best clothes dirtied. That would be most distressing. She, after all, was being entrusted with the care of the children of the local landed family, and ought to be presentable in a way that acknowledged that responsibility she was being granted.

Her stomach began to squirm, as her nerves became agitated. She had largely avoided thinking too much about it when she was travelling but, now that she was so close to the manor, she couldn’t help worrying. What if she wasn’t qualified for this? What if the other staff members didn’t like her? What if she-

‘NEIIIIIGHHHH!’

Hermione’s thoughts were suddenly interrupted, as a large horse rounded the corner of the lane, galloping as fast as it could, and heading right towards her. It was tall, brown, and looked startled, its eyes wide.

Hermione’s bags slipped from her hands as she stumbled backwards, but the horse was already barely seven feet away. With a cry, Hermione tripped over the uneven ground, her hat flying off her head.

The horse reared up on its hind legs, and Hermione found herself frozen on the ground. Hoofs began to fall.

‘WHOOOAAA!’

Suddenly, the horse was no longer there.

Coming to her senses, Hermione pulled herself to her feet, and collected her bags together.

A man, roughly her age, was stood with the horse a few feet away. The first thing of notice was his height, at least a foot taller than Hermione. His head was framed with short, red hair. Freckles covered every inch of skin that was on show. He was wearing a rough work shirt that was tied up to his elbows, and a pair of trousers that were slightly too short on him. A pair of tough work boots, that had clearly seen better days, completed the ensemble.

‘Sssshhhhh, Tiff….’ He soothed, stroking the horse’s neck slowly. ‘It’s okay, girl… no-one’s going to hurt you…’

‘Good grief!’

Another man had joined him.

‘Good thing you’re such a fast runner, mate!’

‘I try my best,’ replied the redheaded man. ‘Good thing we managed to catch her before she reached the village.’

As the horse was led away by the other man, the redhead turned and, spotting Hermione, ran forward.

‘Miss, are you alright?’ he exclaimed, coming to a stop in front of her. There was a splodge of dirt on his long nose. ‘Tiffany got spooked earlier, and we only just caught up with her. I’m so sorry; are you hurt?’

‘I’m… I’m fine, thank you,’ Hermione said, as a pair of bright blue eyes stared down at her. ‘Although I think my hat must have blown away in the wind.’

The redhead man looked around, and pointed up into the branches of a nearby tree.

‘You mean that one, with the nice bow?’

‘Yes, but-’

The man was up the tree in a flash, and was soon leaping down next to her again, holding her hat.

‘There we go,’ he said, handing it over. ‘Maybe a little dusty, but that’s the heatwave for you.’

‘Thank you,’ Hermione said, placing the hat on top of her bushy hair. The two of them began to walk up the lane. ‘I appreciate your concern, Mr…’

‘Weasley,’ the redhead said, smiling. ‘But there’s enough of the Weasleys around here, so you can just call me Ron. Everyone else does; it’d be confusing otherwise.’

‘I… I don’t think that would be appropriate.’ Hermione said, as she bent down to pick up her bags.

‘Why? We’re all people, aren’t we?’ Mr Weasley replied. ‘Oh, let me help you.’

‘Yes, but I’m…’ Hermione stammered, as her load was lightened considerably. ‘Well, I’m starting at the Manor as the new governess.’

‘Oh, you’re the teacher everyone’s been gossiping about!’ Ron said, cheerily. ‘Miss… Granger, if my memory’s correct?

‘W-why, yes!’ Hermione exclaimed, suddenly feeling rather embarrassed. ‘Er…gossip, you say?’

‘Yes; the scullery-maids have been talking about nothing else for the past week,’ Mr Weasley replied, keenly. ‘Well, that and the summer fete. But, yes; a posh lady governess from up-country coming down to our little neck of the woods! They’ll be delighted to meet you!’

Hermione felt her cheeks flush.

‘I’m not nearly as posh as all that, Mr Weasley,’ she said, primly. ‘So I hope I don’t ruin their expectations when they see me.’

‘Why? You sound posh to me.’

‘No… I… I mean… well, look at me.’

The redhead stared at her in confusion, and Hermione felt she needed to elaborate.

‘Surely they were expecting someone less… exotic?’

Mr Weasley blinked.

‘You are from London, aren’t you? That’s pretty exotic.’

Hermione found herself suddenly laughing. Not the usual polite laughs she had been taught as a girl, but a full, unrestrained laugh, full of accompanying snorts.

‘London… exotic?!’

Mr Weasley grinned at her, his cheeks dimpling under his freckles.

‘If you’re born and raised in Devon, it is,’ he said, cheerfully. ‘Besides, I bet that’s the first time you’ve laughed in a good long while.’

‘Why… yes, it is,’ Hermione replied, smiling. ‘However could you tell?’

‘I hear tell of the aristo’s who take the stagecoach routes down from London. I gather they aren’t much in the way of humorous conversation?’

‘You would be correct about that. But where do you hear that from? Mr Jones the coachman?’

‘Old Jonesey? Oh, yes; lovely old soul. I’m the… well, the blacksmith and the odd-job man for the estate, so I’m in and out of the village a lot.’

Hermione nodded, trying not to notice how well the redheads shirt seemed to fit him. She supposed blacksmiths were all rather… muscley.

Ottery Manor stretched out before them. It was a double-storied building, with fine windows and a pair of thick oak doors. The house was arranged around a central courtyard, so that two wings of the house stretched out in front. A small fountain marked the middle of the courtyard, and the centre of the house was covered in fine ivy. Grounds stretched out around the house in all directions, full of trees and well-trimmed lawns. Hermione could make out some distant greenhouses and vegetable gardens on the periphery.

‘You like the ivy?’ Mr Weasley enquired, pointing at the plant as they walked up the main pathway towards the house. ‘Me and my brother Bill -he works in the gardens- pruned them just last week; rather a nice effect, eh?’

‘Yes,’ Hermione replied. ‘Are all your siblings employed as members of staff here?’

‘No.’ the redhead said. ‘Percy -he’s the intellectual one- he works in Plymouth in an office. Fred and George -they’re the youngest brothers aside from me- work in the post office a few villages over.’

‘Any sisters?’

‘Just Ginny. She’s the youngest. Mum did want her to get a good job as a scullery maid, but Ginny’s always been more outdoorsy. She works in the gardens most of the time, but she sometimes helps me and Charlie in the forge.’

‘Charlie is… the main blacksmith aside from you, then?’

Mr Weasley laughed.

‘Yes, he’s always been good with animals, so he handles the shoe-fitting. I’m a bit of a jack-of-all-trades, myself; that’s why I’m the odd job man as well.’

‘There is nothing wrong with being multi-skilled,’ Hermione said, earnestly. ‘Most men in London would love to have a wide array of talents.’

Mr Weasley laughed again, his cheeks dimpling again.

By this point, they had reached the courtyard but, instead of heading for the front door, Mr Weasley lead her around one wing of the house and into a yard of sorts. Hermione could hear horses neighing nearby, and presumed that the stables weren’t that far away.

‘You’d best come through the servants entrance,’ Mr Weasley said, leading her up the rear side of the wing and stopping before a door, which was left open. ‘Not a good idea to get on the bad side of the footmen on your first day. Especially the head footman; he’s a right killjoy about these things.’

‘Well, I am a servant, technically.’

‘I know,’ Mr Weasley said, sighing. ‘But, if I had my way, we wouldn’t have to worry about separate entrances. We’re the people who actually keep this place going, not the aristo’s using this place like a retreat for when the season ends in London.’

Hermione felt rather shocked at Mr Weasley’s words, but she opted not to say anything. She could certainly understand his frustration, but she had never met someone who was so open about it.

‘The gentry often have friends and relatives down from London, then?’

‘Yes, but you probably won’t have to worry about them,’ Mr Weasley said, encouragingly. ‘They tend to stay away from the children if they can help it. This time of year, most of them are living the high life in London society; they shouldn’t be arriving here for another couple months.’

‘Well, I lived in London most of my life, but I already rather like it here in Devon.’

The redhead turned to look at her.

‘Really? Why?’

‘Well, judging from what I’ve seen so far, it’s quieter, for one thing. The pace of life in the city is far too extreme. Out here, you can hear the birds in the trees, see the bees in the hedgerows, smell the…’

‘Muck on the fields?’

Hermione laughed.

‘You’re very amusing, Mr Weasley.’

‘I try,’ the redhead said, his cheeks dimpling as he smiled. ‘Not very often I get the opportunity to make a woman laugh without making a prat of myself first.’

‘Oh, I-I’m sure all the local girls adore you.’

‘With five older brothers? I barely get a look in,’ Mr Weasley chuckled, his ears going a little pink. ‘But, thank you, miss.’

‘My… my pleasure, Mr Weasley.’

‘Mr Weasley, I trust you haven’t been frightening the new governess.’

A man had stepped out from the servants entrance. Judging by his dress, he was a footman of some description. His hair was surprisingly greasy, and he had a long, hooked nose. His voice gave an indication that he had taken elocution lessons to disguise a midlands accent.

‘Oh, no, sir!’ Hermione exclaimed, as the two of them deposited her bags near the door. ‘Mr Weasley came to my assistance when my hat blew astray on the front drive.’

Mr Weasley grinned at the footman.

‘Wouldn’t be a gentleman if I didn’t do so, sir.’

‘Mr Weasley… you are not a gentleman, and never will be. You are a commoner, and you would do well to remember it,’ the footman said, looking unkindly up at Ron over his long hooked nose. ‘Now, Miss Granger, if you would accompany me this way…’

As Hermione followed the footman, she happened to look back over her shoulder. Mr Weasley caught her eye, and mouthed “what an oily-haired git, eh?”. Hermione bit down on her lower lip to stop herself laughing.

On reflection, Hermione was rather embarrassed that she’d been so nervous about her first meeting with her employers. The lord of the manor seemed disinterested the entire time, while his wife asked a few questions about Hermione’s teaching qualification. In fact, Hermione spent most of the meeting nodding politely while the lady discussed the difficulty in finding a good governess in the local area, and that they appreciated that Hermione had come such a long way.

She was then escorted by the head footman back to the servants entrance, all the while wondering if all lords and ladies were so… underwhelming as people.

‘Thank you, but where should I-’

But the footman had already walked away.

Hermione looked around, her nerves building again. She didn’t know her way around, and she hadn’t even been told where her lodgings would be. Maybe she should-

‘All finished?’

Mr Weasley had poked his head through the door.

‘Y-yes,’ Hermione said. ‘But… well, where should I put all my…’

‘Oh, I’ll help you,’ Mr Weasley replied, cheerfully. ‘I can’t go into the women’s quarters, but I can let the scullery maids know that you’ve arrived.’

Turning, he knocked on a door.

‘Parvati? Lavender? The new governess is here; can you help her move her things into the women’s dormitory?’

There was a loud squeal from inside the room.

Rolling his eyes, Mr Weasley opened the door, and poked his head around it.

‘Oy; are you two finished?’

A few moments later, two women appeared from behind the door. Both of them dressed in the same simple uniform, and both roughly the same age as Hermione. They also both seemed to be very giggly.

‘Hello, Miss Granger!’ said one of them, who seemed to be of Indian descent. ‘Nice to meet you; I’m Parvati, and this is Lavender.’

Lavender, a girl with blonde hair that was pulled up under her bonnet, smiled.

‘Sorry we couldn’t meet you at the gates,’ Parvati said. ‘Me and Lav got a bit… distracted.’

There was a snicker from Mr Weasley. Lavender laughed, and slapped him playfully on the arm.

‘Anyway,’ Parvati continued, and Hermione was confused as to why the girl’s face had flushed at Mr Weasley’s comment. ‘We’ll help you take your bags up to the dorm.’

‘I wouldn’t want to cause you any trouble-’

‘Oh, it’s no trouble,’ Lavender said. ‘Besides, we never get to talk to anyone from London; do you know what the most recent styles are?’

‘Er…’ Hermione trailed off, as the two girls hurried along the corridor. She was about to follow, when she realised that the tall redhead was still there. She turned to face him again.

‘Thank you for all your help, Mr Weasley,’ Hermione said, giving a quick curtsy. ‘I am most pleased to make your acquaintance.’

‘As am I to make yours, Miss Granger,’ the redhead replied, his freckled cheeks dimpling once again. ‘Although, like I say, “Ron” is fine. There’s half a dozen Mr Weasleys here, so it just saves time.’

‘In that case, I will call you that,… Ron.’

The redhead grinned, before leaving to run across the wild grass nearby in the direction of the stables. The shirt Ron was wearing was, indeed, rather tight on him, and Hermione couldn’t help but notice how his muscles strained against the fabric as he ran, the sunlight reflecting beautifully off his red hair.

Hermione smiled, as she turned to follow Parvati and Lavender along the corridor. Ottery St Catchpole was shaping up to be a rather wonderful place to live.

~~~~~~~~~~

Thanks for reading, everyone! Hope you liked it! If you want to keep up-to-date with the series, please subscribe on AO3 or FFN, or ask me to add you to the tag list on Tumblr.

#jane austen #jane austen au #romione #ronmione #romione au #alternative universe #ron x hermione #ron/hermione #hermione x ron #hermione/ron #hermione granger #ron weasley #governess!hermione granger #blacksmith!ron weasley #background pavender

77 notes · View notes

robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

Note

Hello! I love your writing! I'm gonna send five prompts, I hope at least one of them inspires you and you have fun with them. Prompt #1: Wang Lingjiao (Wen Chao's mistress) interacting with Meng Yao in Nightless City, can be a ship but not necessarily (I... guess you could count shipping it as infidelity towards Wen Chao??? so def don't write ship if it makes you uncomfortable). Preferably WLJ pov, with her making numerous not always accurate assumptions about Meng Yao's role at Wen Ruohan's court, maybe sort of assuming he is to WRH what she is to WC and therefore approaching him with something like ~camaraderie (whether MY plays along or laughs her off I will leave to you)

ao3

Friends were a luxury that Wang Lingjiao had never been well-off enough to have, not when her tenuous position might be lost at any minute by a pair of seductive eyes or a new (not better) pair of tits, but it wasn’t like she was totally without any fellow feeling.

“Well done,” she said to the boy with Nie braids in his hair like he thought it’d make him something he wasn’t.

He blinked, surprised, and fixed her with the same pleasant, competent, I’m-here-for-your-pleasure smile that she’d seen him use on everyone else. “Lady Wang, whatever do you mean?”

Wang Lingjiao rolled her eyes. Sure, he wasn’t doing anything more stunning than getting himself some off-hours food from the kitchens, same as her, but there was no way he didn’t know what she meant.

He knew. Oh, he knew.

“For selling something else,” she clarified, and saw the darkness creep into that bright and clear gaze he was always pretending with, hiding behind; he couldn’t deny that he knew exactly what she was saying now. Personally, she’d rather be on her back in Wen Chao’s bed than helping out in the Fire Palace, but it was the principle of the thing. “And drop the ‘lady’ shit while we’re in the Nightless City. There’s no point in pissing off Lady Ma.”

His face didn’t give away any obvious tells, like eyebrows shooting up or eyes going wide, but she could feel that he was surprised. “You – care about that?”

Ma Liyuan was Wen Chao’s wife, officially, and Wang Lingjiao’s official job was as her maid, except of course she didn’t do any maid stuff because she was too busy fucking Wen Chao. Still, she would have thought that this Meng Yao character would know better.

“Born in a brothel, were you?” she guessed, and his face closed up. “Don’t be so squeamish. She told me to do it, of course. If she can’t keep him, better that she control him through me than let someone from the outside sink their claws into him. Doesn’t mean she wants it rubbed in her face or anything, though.”

It wasn’t an uncommon story, and he nodded slowly as she went to pick out some food – she could get better fare when she ate with Wen Chao, of course, but he liked the illusion of her being dainty and pristine, as if you could get tits like hers without having a decent meal on the regular, and so she supplemented in private.

“Someone told me you were from Yingchuan,” he said from behind her. “Yingchuan Wang sect.”

“I am,” she said, tearing at the flesh of an apple with her teeth. “What, the intonation didn’t give me away?”

“It’s not that,” he said. “I thought – Yingchuan Wang is a cultivation sect.”

Gentry, he meant.

“Sure is,” Wang Lingjiao said, and her lips twisted in derision. “What, did you think it was all fun and games after you get brought across the threshold? Did your mother fill your head with dreams of your legitimate father sweeping in and buying your freedom and hers, setting her up in a nice little courtyard and you in disciple robes, then seeing your merit and giving you the respect you deserve?”

He was quiet. Brothel girls, she thought to herself. Always the same old tune.

“My mother was a whore, too, only she did get brought in as a concubine,” she said. “Nice and official, past the threshold and everything. The official wives hated her, of course: shorted her on firewood in the winter and water in the summer, always gave her the worst pieces of cloth to make clothing and no allowance to buy anything else, gave us incense that’d give you itches and food that gave you the runs.”

“That happens everywhere,” he said.

“She got that nice little courtyard,” Wang Lingjiao said. “It even had a nice little gateway to the outside world – not for her to go out, mind you, that wouldn’t be proper for an official concubine. But it worked perfectly well for men to come in, with all the earnings flowing to the family coffers.”

She laughed at the expression on his face.

“It’s one pimp or another,” she told him. “Men always want something from you, always, don’t you know that? And when they think you’re already dirty, they don’t think too hard about what they’re asking. I was born inside the door to a proper legitimate father, never spent a day of my life in a brothel, and they still sold me out just the same as any madam – no, worse. The stuff these righteous bastards ask for is always ten times worse.”

“Worse?” he echoed.

“Isn’t it?” she asked him. “Even a whore that’s lost her charm still doesn’t have to do much more than lie on her back and spread her legs, but look at you – look at me. Running around catering to their every need, doing every nasty deed that they don’t want to do because that’s all we’re good for in their eyes.”

He grimaced.

“I’m in charge of getting new women for A-Chao’s bed, when he’s in the mood for variety,” Wang Lingjiao said. “And for getting rid of any accidents that might happen later, my own or others’. The Wen clan doesn’t believe in them, if you understand me; if he wants kids, he’ll get them through Lady Ma or nobody. And if a woman turns him down, it’s my job to punish her, or else he’ll start saying I don’t care enough, that I’m looking elsewhere…”

She laughed and took a bite of some pork.

“I’d do it anyway, of course,” she said, chewing. “All those little bitches that think they’re better than me, it’s a pleasure to knock them down to size. And surprise, surprise, once they don’t have their looks, suddenly they’re more than happy to come around begging at A-Chao’s door to see what they can get, since now the righteous ones don’t want them anymore…Peel off all that shiny exterior and it’s all the same underneath.”

Meng Yao didn’t like what she was saying, she could tell. Not that she cared.

“Find yourself a fool,” she advised him. “A-Chao’s not bad to me, all things considered. I’ve been by his side for a few years now and his tastes are pretty run-of-the-mill, not like his brother or his father; a bit of ego stroking - ooh, you’re so strong, so capable, I’ve never seen anyone as big as you, that sort of thing - and he likes coming on my tits. Sect Leader Wen, though? He’s too clever. You won’t be able to keep his interest for long, not even with those ingenious little torture machines you keep inventing for him, and then he’ll have you doing the real scut work.”

“I appreciate your consideration,” he said stiffly. Didn’t like his work being compared to someone like her, did he?

Men.

“I hear things about the brothels in Lanling,” she offered, just to needle him. “Not just perfume and flowers and a bit of witty conversation, not for men with all the money in the world; they like getting a little extra. If you’d gotten taken in the way you wanted, I’d bet that’s the job you’d get: you’d be seeing those women every day, bringing the women in smiling and taking them out crying – or worse. Some jobs you aren’t meant to come back from, after all; my best friend growing up ended up that way. You couldn’t even recognize the body as human below the neck.”

He was too well-trained to glare, but Wang Lingjiao could tell he wanted to. Someone like him, who signed up to do torture work, probably wouldn’t mind the bodies, she reflected, and shook her head.

“What’s Qinghe like, anyway?” she asked, nodding at his braids, actually curious. “Secretive sorts, and the one or two times my people acted as hosts to their inner sect disciples, they always turned down any offers for late night company.”

“I wouldn’t know,” he said.

“Stop having a stick up your ass. I’m not saying you provided services yourself, and even if you did I’m hardly one to judge. I just want to know. You were close with that big man of theirs, their sect leader, weren’t you? Sect Leader Wen sure talks about it enough.”

Talked about it the way Wen Chao talked about Wang Lingjiao getting close to a woman he was pursuing, sometimes. There was really no accounting for taste – Sect Leader Wen could have any woman he wanted and often did, her and Lady Ma included, and even sometimes at the same time; yet what he really wanted, apparently, was to hear Meng Yao talk about Sect Leader Nie’s personal habits.

Probably he wanted the joy in breaking him or something. Wang Lingjiao didn’t make it her business to try to guess, though she supposed Meng Yao did.

“No way someone as sharp as you didn’t pick up some clues about what he likes,” she continued. “Come on, what is it? He like beating his whores or something?”

“He didn’t frequent whores,” Meng Yao said. “And he didn’t take lovers.”

He smiled, faintly, probably at her expression of disbelief.

“He liked slaughtering Wen-dogs,” he added. “Rather a lot. See that you don’t end up on the wrong side of his saber. He didn’t make allowances for women.”

Wang Lingjiao tossed her hair – there was no need to bring in blood and war into their perfectly nice conversation! – and huffed. “Oh, I get you. The marrying type, then?” she sneered. “The ones that’ll give you their heart and forgive you for everything, then end up wearing green hats for cuckolds when it turns out the one they like isn’t near as virtuous as them? What a fool!”

“I thought you said I should find myself a fool,” Meng Yao said mildly.

“You still have to be able to keep him,” she mocked. “If you could get someone like Sect Leader Nie on the hook, why would you be busting your ass here?”

That shut him up.

“Well, your loss is Sect Leader Wen’s gain, I guess,” she said, and put aside her plate without washing it. The kitchen staff could clean up for her. “Ugh, I can’t wait for this war to be over already. I miss the discussion conferences! Even though I had to stay back with the servants, at least you got to see some new people…that last one, with the archery, that was a fun one.”

She grinned. “All the sect leaders came here to sit at Sect Leader Wen’s feet, your father included. He asked all three of his housekeeping maids to serve him in bed, you know. All at once. Brave man, at his age…come to think of it, you might want to check the nursery. See if you have some siblings there. Who knows? Maybe they’ll grow up to be competition.”

Meng Yao said nothing.

Wang Lingjiao laughed again.

“Have fun in the Fire Palace, Meng Yao,” she said, sashaying away. “Try not to end up on the wrong side of it.”

See? It was almost like being friends.

#mdzs #meng yao #jin guangyao #wang lingjiao #referenced WLJ/WC #discussions of NMJ/JGY #discussions of WRH/NMJ #my fic #my fics #a little extra #tauremornalome

158 notes · View notes

roc-thoughtblog · 3 years

Text

Sense and Sensibility Readthrough Part 2

Chapter 2-3, Pages 6-15

So Chapter 1 gave us all the background premise of the family situation, and introduces the three sisters. Elinor, Marianne and Margaret. Story can begin in earnest now.

Unrelatedly, I can't mentally unsee Marianne as Marianne FE3H, even though their personalities are nothing alike. Marianne Dashwood just has a blue braid-bun to me, now.

Readthrough below.

Chapter 2 Mrs. John Dashwood takes over the estate. The sisters and mama Dashwood are entreated to stay by Johnny, and mama doesn't have better options anyway. Ah yep and here we go. Mrs. Dashwood wants Johnny to reconsider giving the sisters as much as they're getting. She'd rather it all stay with her son.

It was very well known that no affection was ever supposed to exist between the children of any man by different marriage;

Ah her name is Fanny, nice to not have to keep calling her Mrs. John Dashwood. Johnny at least intends to keep his promise to his father to look after his sisters, but Fanny talks him down from 1000 pounds each, to 500. (What's Mama Dashwood getting out of this...?) Oh my lord she keeps going. Did she just talk him down to jack nothing by putting words in the mouth of their dead father? What an ass.

I'm kinda torn. The narrative is definitely framing that I should dislike Fanny Dashwood on principle, and on such I agree. John's made promises, and good ones, and Fanny's using conceited interests to walk them back by each step. On the other hand, everyone's gentry class, I'm not inclined to have the greatest sympathy for matters of hundreds of pounds. I suppose I generally dislike Fanny for hoarding all of it for 4-year-old Harry. Reasons for not giving anything to the sisters: They'll not really need to use it for much. Reasons for not hoarding it for a 4-year-old: The very damn same! They were doing fine before this.

Ahahaha. So she's talked her husband down from "Give 3000 pounds to his sisters and step-mother" to "Yeah actually just kick' em outta the house ASAP. Oh yeah, and steal the good furniture and cutlery that might rightfully be theirs too, cos, I mean, it's gonna look too good for where we're kicking 'em out to they're going. My, we are definitely and justifiably the kindest, most generous people, for giving them nothing we promised, kicking them out of their family home, taking the few things that were left to them. We might give them some gifts sometimes, when they're in season."

Just gotta be the most infuriating-

We've all met the type right? "It's all about me, and I'm the kindest and most generous, and if you disagree you are the RUDE." *Proceeds to be just, the worst*

Infuriating.

Chapter 3 Well at least Mama Dashwood wants to be gone. Living with Fanny must be hell already anyway. They're probably that certain type of person who feels themselves entitled to every appeasement, but feels offended at the very concept of compromising any of their own comfort for another. Looks like the only thing that's stopping everything between them devolving into hell is the appearance that Elinor has been getting long with Fanny's own brother, Edward Ferrars.

Mama Dashwood thinks nothing of inheritance nor risk, so Eddie gets her favour because he seems nice.

Eddie is the definition of mild. Neither handsome nor immediately charismatic. Approaches charming if you really get to know him, but he's kinda shy. And very largely unambitious, contrare to the will of his sister and mother. They want him to connected or in politics or something. Eddie just wants to be comfortable. Haha, it took Mama Dashwood several weeks to even really notice him. Says something about both him and Mama Dashwood. HA! First thing to make her notice and favour him strongly was Elinor just casually commenting that he's nothing like Fanny.

"It is enough," said she; "to say that he is unlike Fanny is enough. It implies everything amiable. I love him already." "I think you will like him," said Elinor, "when you know more of him."

Elinor is more reserved about when Mama will come to like him. Nice dialogic illustration of contrasts in emotional impulsivity. "I love it already" is something I'd say online. Elinor is how I'd say it in real life.

"Like him!" replied her mother with a smile. "I feel no sentiment of approbation inferior to love." "You may esteem him."

I like Mama Dashwood, and I enjoy Elinor's dynamic with her. I suspect this, but with Marianne, will be the chief dynamic of the book. Aww, Mama got past Edward's shyness. HAHA and she jumps to the conclusion of marriage as soon as she senses a hint of interest. Oh, oh I'm laughing now but those presumptions never end well. Mama Dashwood please no slow down before you overcook something. Elinor's reserved and Eddie is shy! It's slow burn! Slow burn!!

Marianne is unsatisfied. In her opinion, Eddie is kinda boring, kinda plain, and thoroughly tasteless. I feel almost called out on Eddie's behalf. She can't imagine a suitor who doesn't share all of her tastes. Can't imagine how Elinor could be happy or satisfied with what she's getting. Eddie has no appreciation for Elinor's art! Marianne worries that she'll never find a man worthy of her interest. Mama reassures.

So how this is gonna go, Marianne's gonna find some wild lover-boy who's on her wavelength isn't she? But he's gonna be a total mess otherwise and Elinor's gonna tsktsk, and the sisters are gonna get snippy about how they can't understand each other. To be seen.

#900 words but rounded down this time so it all cancels out #Sense and Sensibility #Jane Austen #novels #readthrough

1 note · View note

melodyofgraves · 5 years

Text

A little secret (Chambers and Sinclaire friendship)

A/N: Hi, I’m not sure if anyone would even notice if I didn’t say that but I’m taking a little break again. Nothing to worry about, it’s just because my anxiety and stuff got kinda worse and I need a little break from everything. I saw I have a few asks to answer and a few new lovely fics to read and I will do it when I'm fully back.

In the meantime, I decided to post this fic before i’ll hate it so much that I’ll delete it. Also, I’ll probably finish and post the Fluff ABCs for Chanevi soon since it was the second thing some people voted for and writing stuff kinda helps me focus (no matter how bad it is) and I'm already halfway through it.

This is a fic inspired by my love for friendship fics, headcanon that Chambers loves sweets and this line:

Anyway, I’m sorry if it’s stupid and I hope you still manage to enjoy reading!

Words: 1525

Tagging: (please tell me if i forgot anyone or added someone by accident. i have a terrible memory): @hellospunkiebrewster @queerchoicesblog @brightpinkpeppercorn @itsbrindleybinch @pixieferry @akrenich @thehonorarybeaumont

Mr Chambers was a rather well-mannered man. He wasn’t easy to provoke, usually fending off any snide remarks with a bright smile. He always tried to be polite and to act properly. He knew the rules of decorum, taught to him from a very young age and he did his best to follow them, no matter the occasion. However, he did have one weakness.

Sweets.

His love for anything sugary stuck with him from his childhood day to adulthood. It wasn’t too severe, whenever he was home he would just have a dessert here and there and it was perfectly fine. But when it came to parties or other social gatherings, where so much food was prepared for the expensive tastes of the gentry, he sometimes suddenly felt a strong urge to stuff his face with cake instead of socializing. And he usually did, when everyone was drunk enough to not even notice him sneaking piece after piece onto his plate. It was one of his favourite things to do at those events, alongside dancing.

So when the doctor suggested that it would be healthy for him if he limited the amount of sugar he ate to the minimum for a while, he knew it won’t be easy.

He asked Yusuf to help him with it, giving the permission to even yell at him if needed, and it was all going surprisingly well. Konevi was very supportive, never going as far as yelling, but he was exceptionally good at giving his partner stern looks whenever the man was doing something he shouldn’t. However, he did always try to make up for it by wrapping Bart in his arms after their meal and giving him a sweet kiss, which made this situation much more bearable.

But the real challenge came with social events. They were invited to the dinner party at Ledford, the first gathering there since Mr and Mrs Sinclaire came back from their honeymoon, and Bartholomew was just dying to ask Lucy all about their trip to Bath.

The evening was very lovely, as always when they visited Ledford Park, and very crowded since Mrs Sinclaire became quite well-liked among the gentry and seemed to have invited half the people she met in London. And that meant that not only Mr Chambers was forbidden from eating any of the delicious looking desserts served at the party, he also couldn’t count on much privacy with his lover.

However, that didn’t seem to stop the barrister to appear behind him every time he reached for the piece of the fruit cake he was eyeing all evening.

„Mr Chambers.” he heard a calm voice beside his ear. „Have you forgotten what the doctor said?”

„The doctor said I can have a biscuit or a little bit of cake from time to time.”

„And you asked me for help specifically because you knew this little bit of cake will quickly turn into a lot of cake, especially when you’re at a party.”

„Please…” Bart gave the man his best puppy look. Konevi looked like me might actually give in but quickly composed himself.

„No. I promised that I will help you and I want to keep this promise.” he moved closer, lowering his voice even more. „Maybe later we’ll manage to sneak away to one of the guest rooms for a moment? And I’ll make it up to you.” he wiggled his eyebrows a little, causing Chambers to chuckle.

„I’m afraid it won’t be as easy tonight with…” he was interrupted by a middle-aged man, who Bartholomew recognized as one of the barrister’s ex-clients, approaching them.

„Oh, Mr Konevi! How nice to see you here. May I have a word?”

„Of course, Mr Burk.” Yusuf nodded, walking towards the other side of the room.

Bart looked around and his eyes landed on the fruit cake again. He bit his lip, hesitating, but decided to take a chance. He moved a piece onto his plate, glancing at his partner who seemed to be deep in the conversation with the gentleman, and turned around to the hallway. He felt a little guilty for doing something behind Yusuf’s back, especially something so silly, but decided he’ll just tell him after the treat finds its way to his stomach.

He slipped into one of the rooms, that according to what Lady Lucy has told him after her wedding, weren’t really used anymore. His dear friend probably gave him this information as a hint that should he and his lover need a little privacy, they can always hide in one and nobody should bother them. He didn’t imagine he’d use this suggestion for such a silly reason though. He entered the room, expecting an empty space where he could eat his treat in peace.

What he didn’t expect was to find the master of the house, staring at him with eyes wide open and cheeks stuffed with the cake. They both stood there, frozen in place with plates in their hands, before Mr Sinclaire finally cleared his throat, composing himself.

„Mr Chambers.” he greeted, clearly embarrassed as he brushed some of the crumbs from his face with the back of his hand.

„I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.” Bart was still standing in the open doorway, completely caught off guard. „I’ll find another room…”

„No, please come in.” Ernest gestured towards the armchairs standing next to the window. „Just please shut the door behind you.”

Bartholomew slowly closed the door, careful not to make too much noise, and sat in one of them, joining Sinclaire. The room was dimly lit by only one candle place on the coffee table, where he also noticed a small tray with some more cake and a piece of a pie. He raised his eyebrows and looked at the man beside him with a puzzled look.

„I usually ask the cook to prepare a tray like this before big events. So I can enjoy it in peace.” Ernest explained, looking down at his shoes like a child caught doing something they shouldn’t do. „My wife teases me about it mercilessly.”

„Don’t worry, sir. Your secret is safe with me.” Chambers chuckled. „You know, you’ve never struck me as someone with a sweet tooth. Maybe because of that sour expression.” he ripped a piece of the treat, not even bothering with a fork, and stuffed it in his mouth with an amused smile.

Mr Sinclaire glared at him. „And what are you doing here? We’ve known each other for years and I can say with confidence that everyone knows about your fondness for desserts.” the gentleman took a big bite out of his own pastry.

Bart put more cake into his mouth and sighed before explaining the whole situation.

„I’m glad you also found someone who cares about you ” Ernest smiled at his friend. „And Mr Konevi is right. You even asked him to keep an eye on you yourself.”

„I know. And I hate doing anything behind his back, even something so stupid. I’ll tell him as soon as I can.”

„Good.”

The conversation ended. Bart knew Mr Sinclaire long enough to know that he wasn’t exactly fond of pointless ramblings, so they just sat there in comfortable silence for a few minutes, enjoying their food and listening to the faint sound of pianoforte from the other side of the house.

Bartholomew finished his dessert and reached for another piece from the tray but Sinclaire swiftly pulled it away. „Hey!”

„You said it yourself. Only a little cake from time to time.” he chuckled quietly at his friend pouting face. „ You know, I don’t think I’ve ever thanked you for helping the woman I love. With the proposal and such.”

“Don’t mention it. I don’t think I’ve ever thanked you for helping my friend. ” Chambers gave him a bright smile, visible even in the poor lighting of the room. “She looks so happy with you. And you look happy too. A very nice change after all those years.”

There was a moment of silence again and a soft smile found its way onto Ernest’s face, as he always when he thought about his darling wife.

“Thank you. You look happy too.” he gave his friend a nod. „It’s so good you and Konevi found each other.”

„Thank you. Truly.”

The sudden knock on the door interrupted their conversation and a very familiar face poked through it. The barrister gave Bart a stern look and he responded with an apologetic one but still felt the butterflies in his stomach, just like every time he saw him.

„I’m sorry, Mr Sinclaire, but I think Mr Chambers and I have some important matters to discuss.” he gestured for Bartholomew to join him in the hallway.

„Oh, please, come inside. I need to find my wife before she goes looking for me as well anyway.” Ernest grabbed the rest of his dessert and stuffed it into his mouth in a very ungentlemanly way. On his way out, the man looked over his shoulder, smiling at his friend, and left the couple alone in the room.

#desire and decorum #bartholomew chambers #ernest sinclaire #friendship fic #chanevi #just a little though #im sorry if it doesnt make sense #ugh #ill stop talking and log out again for now #hope ill see you soon #sorry for whining in the a/n #long post

55 notes · View notes

odysseywritings · 6 years

Text

Princess Lover pt. 2

(Last continued here)

Our hirsute friend Zoppo was walking along the paved path to the princess’s castle, complete with fine long black hair on his head and face with red clothes to signify power. He noticed the loss of trees around the area as evidenced by the stumps. They were used as seats for various nobles wearing red and purple suits and dresses that were adorned with intricate white laced loops on the hems. The sheer sight of these fancy men and women of the gentry talking with poise and grace as their bodies jiggled with every movement made the lanky peasant feel out of place even with his makeover.

He took the time to mimic their mannerisms and speech, from tilting his head back to appear haughty to sauntering along with dignity. He felt like a complete phony with a leg problem. But no step was too uncomfortable for him if he was too the princess.

Zoppo wanted to practice his etiquette by talking to a gentleman with a finely trimmed mustache and curly long hair. He was at least a foot taller and two feet wider than Zoppo, catching him off guard but without faltering in his intention.

“How’s it hangin’, big guy,” Zoppo asked cheerfully. “Name’s Zoppo. How about you?” He stuck his hand out for a handshake.

“Have you no grace, sir?” the noble huffed incredulously.

“I don’t have any grace on me, sorry. I got some other substances you might like, however.”

“My word! That is no way to talk to your superior!” He leaned closer to Zoppo and whispered. “My name is Lord Brickabrack, and we can talk more about this later in the night by the old pond.”

The lord went back to his original stature and asked him what this stranger was doing here.

“Well, Mr. Brick, here’s the thing,” Zoppo said. “The princess invited me over because of my wily charms. And because I want to meet with her more than once, I wanna try out that etiquette thing you guys love to do.”

“My boy,” the royal started. “If the princess and her poor taste sees fit that you yourself is what appeals to her, then you mustn’t fret. But to ensure the other nobles don’t try to off you for trying to taint our land with your smelly presence, there are a few rules you should know.” Zoppo proceeds to whip out a pen and paper.

“Firstly, do not bring up any mention of activities deemed to be fun. Or else the holy men will come by and throw their books at you. Secondly, the knights will certainly find any way to toss you around if you show a shred of weakness. Thirdly, mind your language. To act so casual around strangers here is bound to warrant harsh glares at best. But you seem like a friendly enough fellow so long as you don’t act like you run the place. Did you get all of that?”

“Yes,” Zoppo said. “Which is good because I can’t read.” He threw away the chicken-scratched paper and looked back at Brickabrack. “Thanks for the help, lordy!”

Zoppo and the noble waved goodbye as Zoppo arrived closer to the castle. It was adorned with rectangular stones that somehow curved around in a cylindrical shape, boggling the man’s mind. The height of the fortification seemed to pierce the sky with its pointed top, the width alone able to secure an acre of farmland. The belfry had an archer peering around for intruders, while guards marched along the stone trail atop the entrance.

The door was a tall structure that was a head taller than the gigantic nobles, positively dwarfing Zoppo. He was amazed by how the bottom was rectangular like doors he was used to yet the top was rounded and curved. He knocked on the door twice and heard a commanding tenor of a soldier’s voice.

“Who is out there and what do you want?”

“Hey, My name’s Zoppo. I’m here because the princess wanted me to. You can ask her yourself if you don’t trust me.”

“Wait right there,” the soldier declared. Zoppo waited for several moments, scratching his beard in the meantime as he was still not quite used to this new type of hair.

“All right, you’re good,” the voice behind the door said.

The door was opened in halves separated by a vertical crevice. The soldier who was guarding the door came up to Zoppo. A dark-haired man in a knight’s chain-link armor and a skin tone more similar to Zoppo’s than the others, Zoppo felt more at ease with him and tried to strike up a conversation.

“So how’d you get working in a place like this?,” Zoppo asked.

“I only know how to fight.” the guard said. “I had to turn it into a duty so that I could make a living off of my exploits.”

Zoppo felt immediately uncomfortable and decided to change the subject by asking where he should go. The guard said nothing and walked on, gesturing Zoppo to follow him. The duo walked along, encountering many pasty nobles along the way. Zoppo couldn’t help but stare at the wonderfully crafted statues, ornate decorations, and bejeweled textures. He immediately thought that this is where his taxes were going to.

The two headed to a room where various nobles were chatting to each other in eerily similar tones and mannerisms, making Zoppo feel like he was in a den of husks that only appeared to look human. The guard went away, leaving Zoppo on his own as he tried to mimic their own haughty, robotic nature until he found the princess.

As luck would have it, he saw her soon enough. She had finished talking with another large women and allowed him to come closer.

“Greetings, Princess Jackson,” Zoppo said, kissing her gloved hand again but leaving significantly less dirt on it. “Nice of you to invite me over for a nice dinner.”

‘Charmed,” she said in a throaty yet refined voice. “I just had to have someone of your rustic qualities to give me company. The same old people come in and out, and after a while you want a change of pace.”

“Well, don’t you worry. I know a thing or two that might make you feel less wound up.”

“Oh?” Zoppo started to reach into his pocket and whispered.

“Wanna try some acid, Princess?” She immediately gasped with a hand over her face. “Oh, excuse me. May I offer some acid?”

“Who do you take me for?” she huffed with pride, causing Zoppo to lower his head. “I come from a long line of powerful heirs to the throne. I only expect the hardest materials. This alone won’t satisfy me.” She walked off with a scoff and her chins were pointed straight to heavens. Zoppo had to think of some way to woo the adrenaline-seeking royal. But how?

#princess lover #my writing #fiction #comedic #njm

4 notes · View notes

fictionchronicler-blog · 7 years

Text

Prince Charming: A Historical Romp Through Masculinity, Marriage, and Bad Haircuts

“And then he realized the doll wasn’t completely inflated.”

NOTE: Illustrations and gifs do not belong to me.

Ah, the perfect man, riding gallantly on a white horse, cape billowing in the wind, armor blinding in the sunlight—and he's on his way to find you, gentle reader! This is supposed to be what we want, and I don't just mean women, but I mean general audiences. The handsome prince saving the day is one of the oldest and arguably most satisfying endings there is.

While the term “Prince Charming” itself wasn't coined until 1889 in an English translation of the French fairy tale The Blue Bird, the idea of a noble man rescuing a damsel (usually a princess) from some unholy terror is as old as time, categorized as “princess and dragon tales” by folklorists. Andromeda in Greek mythology has to be saved by Perseus from the kraken. Sita in The Ramayana has to be saved by Rama. In a Norwegian tale, not one but three princesses have to be saved from a troll, the youngest getting the guy in true fairy tale fashion.

This was...a very broad concept, I'll admit, and I almost decided not to do it, but the idea of the ideal man coming along and giving the heroine her happy ending has adapted over time like anything else, and your reliable ol' folklore researcher is here to guide you through it!

As True a Story as Fargo

“I rang the dinner bell fifteen minutes ago. Are you two still fighting?”

The tale of Saint George and the Dragon has been around since at least the eleventh century telling the story of a town needing to feed the nearby lake dragon two sheep a day to keep it from destroying their village—a scaly, supernatural Mafia situation. When that no longer appeases the dragon, the village assumes this means it wants the taste of human flesh and starts a lottery, the “winner” getting to sacrifice one of their children. Well, one day, the lottery winner is the princess. Dressed as a bride, she is led out into the forest to wait for the dragon.

In the first version I read of this, the princess volunteered to sacrifice herself for the good of her people, but I digress. We'll talk about women's agency here and there. Saint George comes across the princess and subsequently the dragon. Ordering the princess to give him her girdle, she does so and Saint George places it around the beast's neck. From here on out, the dragon follows the princess around like a dog on a leash. Saint George takes his new, unique entourage back to the village and offers to kill the dragon if the townspeople convert to Christianity. Fifteen thousand men convert. Take that, modern evangelism.

While Saint George and the Dragon is largely allegory, it falls in perfectly with the big medieval trend of courtly love. In a nutshell, courtly love is a way to make love both passionate and disciplined. Romantic love hadn't really been covered in literature up until now, Beowulf not really having to deal with having to juggle two prom dates.

It's hard to explain what courtly love is without saying “emo.” Think of love the way a teenager might see it. Not seething with jealously? It's not love. Your feelings aren't ruining your appetite? Not love. This was more or less a series of rules and concepts that dictated how romantic love was supposed to be. A man's good character makes him worthy of love. You should turn pale when your lover is around. Women should grieve for at least two years before allowing themselves to love again. It is not proper to love a woman you would be ashamed to marry, etc. Perhaps the most noteworthy thing about courtly love is that there isn't that big an emphasis on love being returned. When a man falls for a woman, he should do nice things for her and just hope that one day she'll love him, too. Unrequited love was pretty romanticized. You can get a really nice feel for it in The Cantebury Tales' “The Knight's Tale.”

No. That’s something else. “The Knight's Tale” is much more long-winded and has no Queen songs. That, and it's one of the least funny tales. Thank goodness for the Miller and his story that involves farting in people's faces. Anyway, the tale is all about two imprisoned knights who fall in love with Princess Emily at first sight and spend the rest of the time fighting over her and praying to Roman gods to marry her...while she prays to Diana to either stay single or marry someone who truly loves her. It's not as fun as other tales, mainly because the Knight has a tendency to get off-topic, but if you want textbook courtly love, read that.

So what do these stories tell us about people's version of the ideal man in the Middle Ages?

1. Competent. A real man gets things done.

2. Decisive. A real man does not stew on the morality of killing dragons.

3. Protective. Sombody’s gotta look out for these women who are inferior to men in every way, amirite?

4. Upper Class. Peasant men might not have had much time to rescue damsels. And the Peasants Respond!

Just a tad predatory looking. All he needs to do is sit on her chest while a random horse watches...

While fiction in the Middle Ages really enjoyed its daring sword fights and unrequited love, peasants in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries told tales to children with a far different purpose—don't go into the woods. For the love of God, don't go into the woods, don't make deals with the devil, and don't run afoul of the fairy folk. This might seem funny, but for peasants living in or around the Black Forest of Germany, this was no laughing matter. Think how many fairy tales are more about being suspicious of suspicious-looking people than romantic love. Keep in mind, too, that there is little to no chance of upward mobility in this kind of society. If you're a peasant, your kids are going to be peasants, marry peasants, and produce little peasants of their own. It's even worse if you're a farmer and your family's prosperity depends wholly on how well your crops do. How can you get ahead in life?

1. Go off the grid and become a pirate/bandit/thief

2. Learn alchemy and hope for the best

3. Join the church and live in a cubicle for the rest of your life

4. Marry up.

The stories collected by the Brothers Grimm took royalty and made it the ultimate reward. In most of their stories, if the protagonist (male or female) is clever enough to outsmart the villain and/or kind enough to listen to cleverer people who know how to outsmart the villain, they are usually rewarded with a prince or a princess at the end. There really isn't much disparity in how often the reward is a princes vs. a princess.

I won't go into much detail in what all these stories are about, but if you haven't ever heard of “The Three Spinners,” “Cinderella,” “The Six Swans,” “Snow White,” “Snow White and Rose Red,” or “The Peasant's Wise Daughter,” you might be surprised to learn that the protagonist(s) is a plucky, kind-hearted, usually skilled maiden and her reward is a prince. For all the crap fairy tales get for being chauvinistic, it's jarring that the most memorable characters are all female.

So jarring, Charles Perrault decided to make a few changes.

In the late 1600s, fairy tales started becoming appealing to the rich, and like all good things the poor come up with, the rich people took it over and added a bunch of rules. Many upper class French men and women had heard these peasant tales and saw them as potential for witty conversation in the salons. I like me some stimulating conversation, but I also know when not to mess with the original. With courtly love also coming back into vogue, the stories evolved into elegant, romantic tales with a heavily-hammered-in moral at the end. Less blood and fewer trees. The forest became a more pastoral setting, or even a city. The peasant protagonists became gentry or displaced royalty. And marriage became a big, big deal.

When in the Middle Ages, the prince figure was usually a knight a man of action, these were unquestionably princes, their refinement and sophistication as highly valued as their masculinity. Beauty and the Beast started as sort of a fable for arranged marriages, that the guy you end up with may not fit your definition of handsome, but if you look deep enough, you'll find something lovable.

“Forgot my keys--oh.”

Okay, so you might not find something lovable, but the Beast is no less an extremely romantic (read: emo) character. He asks Beauty every night to marry him, gives her his estate and possessions and invisible servants with no questions asked, and literally cannot live without her as he begins wasting away when she leaves to visit her family. And of course, he's a prince that pissed off the wrong fairy.

It is in this same era that Perrault tweaked the Cinderella story. The Grimms told a story of Cinderella's dead mother supplying her a gown and other ball-related necessities via tree, but Perrault creates a “fairy godmother” who pops in at the last minute to help Cinderella go to the ball—a place where she might be able to catch a husband and escape her bad home life—but never appeared before to use her benevolent magic to stop the girl's stepmother and stepsisters from abusing her. Perrault also cut out the stepsisters cutting off parts of their feet to try to fit into the slipper, preferring to have Cinderella turn the other cheek and find desirable husbands for them instead.

We're going from the clever, talented heroines in the Grimm stories to waifs who are damned if they do, damned if they don't. If you're pure and sheltered like Sleeping Beauty, you'll still fall into a hundred-year coma. And if you're naughty...well, this time a woodcutter has to come cut Red Riding Hood out of the Wolf's stomach...then fill said stomach with stones. This kind of undoes Perrault's moral about not trusting strangers since this woodcutter never appears in the story at any other time, but we can't have a morally susceptible female rescuing herself, can we? Even Bluebeard downplays the heroine's character to uplift the prince's/nobleman's. Bluebeard's a freakin' serial killer and yet Perrault's text blames the wife for the situation, that if she just had refrained from being too curious, her husband wouldn't be trying to kill her for finding out about all his previous wives.

“Princes went from chivalrous to serial killers?”

Not quite, but the heroines were rarely given personalities and the princes were the rescuers, the real movers and shakers in the story. Princes went on adventures and rescued future brides. In 1706, the first English translation of One Thousand and One Nights told the West the story of Prince Ahmed, who a nifty magic tent that could expand to the point where it could hold armies and contract to the point where he could put it in his pocket. He also happens to buy a magic healing apple and saves a princess with it. There are a number of strong, three-dimensional female characters, but the princes all get to be active and go on adventures. There is also a robot. I'm not joking. But a huge double standard is that women are foolish and selfish and cheating on their husbands with a Moor is the worst thing ever, but the men in the story (princes included) sleep around, hit women, and even Sinbad murders a bunch of innocent people for food, but the male characters are rarely punished in these stories. The whole fictional reasons these stories exist also lauds men; the Sultan is worried about being cheated on, so he kills every wife he has. Scheherazade, the newest wife, is creative and clever and tells stories that always leave the Sultan wanting more, so he spares her life, choosing to keep her after a thousand and one nights. The Sultan lives happily ever after, madly in love with an intended murder victim.

So let’s see how things have changed?

1. Competent? Check.

2. Decisive? Check.

3. Upper Class? More check than ever.

4. Protective?

Protection adapted, didn't it? Protection stopped being more about keeping women away from beasts and more about providing for women. The men in these stories are not only filthy rich—which is its own kind of protection—but they are also morally guiding these women and keeping them alive. Bluebeard's wife is rescued by her brothers at the end, but Perrault says the moral of the story is that curiosity can lead to deep regret. He then goes on to talk about how “clearly” this story takes place a long time ago as, “No husband would be so terrible as to demand the impossible of his wife.” How the hell is that the issue when the man's a serial killer??? What does curiosity have to do with the very first wife???

We're going to throw in another value here. Wise.

Think about it. Cinderella's prince immediately seeks her out, seeing her as no one has seen her before, as appealing. The “Marquis” in Puss in Boots is in reality a simple miller's son, but the Cat is so worldly and clever that he more than makes up for it. The woodcutter is a fatherly figure who heard Red Riding Hood's cries for help and knew exactly what to do and took her home to her mother. Even Bluebeard, who sets his wives up for failure and has a room full of tortured corpses is entitled to test his wife and keep this horrendous secret, his only crime being that he “asked the impossible of his wife,” which translates to, “asked his wife not to be too curious about her own home, lest she find the room of tortured corpses.”

Yin and Yang

Hamlet: I said I wanted the grave to be dug under a weeping willow tree on the edge of a cliff perpetually surrounded by mist! How hard is that?

Gravedigger: But this is where the cemetery is, sir.

Hamlet: (to skull) Can you believe this guy?

Hamlet, first performed in 1605 is not anything all that special, but so many tote it as Shakespeare's masterpiece. My theory is that that is all propaganda on the part of actors. Getting to play Hamlet is like being written a blank check—the actor can do with the role whatever he wants because it is sooooo ambiguous! You don't even know how old Hamlet's supposed to be, as he's a student in medieval Denmark, which would put him in his late teens, but the gravedigger says Hamlet's 30. Hamlet seems slightly more upset about his mother remarrying than having learned his father was murdered, but he also goes berserk a few times at people who aren't involved in his father's murder at all, and while Claudius, the villain, murders one person (in back story) and angsts about it for the rest of the play, Hamlet himself gets quite the body count and shows little to no remorse about it.

Does the fact that Hamlet is a prince have to do with this role often being the peak of an actor's career? Why do we think an actor who can play Hamlet well can do anything? Hamlet's not really enough of a jerk that it's Villain Sympathy. In fact, Hamlet is one of the least proactive protagonists in literature. The majority of the play is him wondering what he should do. Should he listen to this ghost that claims to be his father? Should he tell any of his friends what's going on? Should he kill Claudius when he finds out that, yes, the guy did kill his dad? Should he leave his mom out of it, or was she involved? To be or not to be?

But to the mainstream, Hamlet is the guy who holds the skull and waxes poetic while sword fighting in period dress. Somehow, him just sitting on this supernatural order to avenge his father's death has been twisted to where we've decided it's the role of a lifetime. Shakespeare wrote other characters who were princes, but none of them were as prominent or as over-analyzed as Hamlet.

Does Hamlet have any good qualities? Well, of course, or the play would have been a complete flop. He's magnetic. He's smart, snarky, and unsure of himself. But then you have Ophelia, his love interest. Whereas Hamlet is defined by his struggle to be decisive, Ophelia just lets her father and brother make decisions for her. She is dutiful, she has no idea that Hamlet is pretending to be crazy for some of the play (or maybe he is crazy. So much ambiguity), and when her brother leaves, Hamlet seemingly rejects her from out of nowhere, her father is killed and her lover banished, she goes off the deep end.

Therefore, it seemed like what was going on is that women were losing more and more of their credibility while royal men could afford the luxuries of indecision here and there so long as they still fit all the other criteria.

Hammer It Further In, Victorians!

The Victorians might just be my favorite historical group of people. They're a psychological delight. Not that they were as repressed as pop culture makes them out to be, but they were all about restraint when it came to deviant behaviors and ideas, often disguising them. In the Victorian era, the hero stopped being the centerpiece of the story. Most of the care, detail, and time went into the villain. Dracula, Sweeney Todd, Spring Heeled Jack, Frankenstein, Dorian Grey, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and just about the rest of the cast of Penny Dreadful were the ones driving the plot of their respective stories, the ones the authors paid the most attention to. Often, they were pitted against an innocent heroine, like Christine in The Phantom of the Opera and Mina in Dracula, but there was an edge to them. Both Christine and Mina might surprise readers in how deadpan and genre-savvy both these women are, and while they don't physically vanquish their beasts, they play key roles.

So where does this leave the prince?

The role of the home in the Victorian era became more significant than ever before. A man's home was his castle. His job was to make it a safe haven; his family's job was to make it a domestic ideal. Again, the ideal man was a protector, someone who could keep his wife and children safe from beasts (poor people, people who didn't speak English, Irishmen, etc.), but also protect them morally. It's kind of easy to be seduced by the list of villains I put on here, isn't it? They're just as rich as princes, sometimes handsome, often decisive and passionate...and maybe therein lies the problem. The ideal man was not yet passionately in love with the heroine.

“What do you call all that courtly love business?”

Isn't that more in love with the idea of being in love? Honestly, you pick a random woman, say you'll do great things for her whether she loves you or not, but at the end of the day, you're the one getting the credit for doing those brave deeds and she'll be seen as ungrateful because you've never even had a conversation with her to tell her how you feel. Loving a woman in the sense that you physically desire her while still desiring her friendship wasn't happening yet. In a society that didn't encourage women to be open about their own passions, the men also weren't really allowed to do much that wouldn't result in a scandal. He was supposed to treat his wife more like an employee than the object of his affection. He could praise her skills at mothering and running a household, and maybe she could play a mean tune on the pianoforte, but none of her skills were supposed to be superior to his own. The princes and heroes of the Victorian age were as bland as all get-out because everybody wanted to live vicariously through the more passionate villains.

Well, film changed how we view the devil. Did it change how we view Prince Charming?

Who Would Have Thought Melodrama was Boring?

Now, to be fair, not all these guys are princes, but I would be remiss if I was going to talk about princes in film and omit Disney's contribution. For a long time, Disney animators had difficulty animating human men, and it shows. Remember that short, Goddess of Spring? Even though her arms are boneless, she looks like a passable female human. The god of the Underworld, though? It looks like an old-time Mardi Gras mask.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs premiered in 1937, the same year that the Prince Valiant comic strip did, and both princes are given next to no personalities. Snow White's prince doesn't even get a name! Please stop saying Snow White is objectified when it's her prince that is treated as nothing more than a goal and subsequently a reward.

“But his heroism is just supposed to be accepted because he's a man and he's royal!”

Is it? Disney animators tried to work around the lack of princely influence in the Grimm version by writing a subplot about the Evil Queen capturing the Prince and him escaping...but animating a realistic-looking man was just too hard for them. We don't care about him or look at him like a person. He's Snow White's reward. Nothing more.

Cinderella's prince, officially the “Prince Charming” of Disney canon, is also objectified. He has maybe three lines? He isn't even there when Cinderella puts on the slipper? His dad is given more screen time than him?

Notice that, in keeping with the Victorian melodramas and silent movie traditions, the movies that have the most boring princes have very engaging, very passionate villains. The Evil Queen, the Wicked Stepmother, and Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty are given richer animation, more distinctive voice actors, and a deliciously evil charm, that, so far, the princes just can't top. They remained fairly quiet with their heroism just a given. Around this same time, Laurence Olivier won an Oscar for 1948's Hamlet, the only time an Oscar was given to someone playing a Shakespearean character. So it seemed like the prince was still relatively unexplored. “He's a prince! Must be a great guy.”

Not all princes in early Hollywood were bland, but there was a kind of leading man that got a lot more action, both in the cinematic and romantic sense—the rogue.

In the 30s and 40s, it was more common for the hero of a movie to be anything but a prince. He was a hard-boiled private detective, a thief (usually of the Robin Hood variety), or a pirate, as swashbuckling dramas were big back then. Princes, therefore, started becoming a little buffoonish. The ideal man in the 50s was, oddly, the family man. The prince had changed to the ruler of a suburban home, still retaining all the traits we've mentioned before, only Ward Cleaver (Leave it to Beaver), Steve Douglas (My Three Sons), Ozzie Nelson (The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet), and Andy Taylor (The Andy Griffith Show) all upheld values most of Middle America agreed with and added a truly positive item to our list:

1. Competent

2. Decisive

3. Upper Class-ish (rise of the middle class!)

4. Wise

5. They Want to be Dads

Parody Ensues

The 60s changed a lot of things, how princes are portrayed among them. While the Prince Valiant comic strip was still going strong, people began wondering if this Prince Charming ideal was really a positive thing. Wasn't the upper-to-middle class white guy the enemy of the Civil Rights Movement? Wasn't the patriarchal figurehead oppressing and dismissing women? Were these guys—gasp--just like everyone else in that they're fallible and sometimes do stupid or misguided things? Jeez, these Prince Charmings (Princes Charming?) must all be doofuses when you peel back the veneer. Isn't that how princes are in real life?

When Royalty Smiles...

In 1973, Jay Williams wrote the children's book Petronella, and it fit right in with the Women's Movement. Eager to seek her fortune, Petronella sets out into the world like her brothers and learns about a prince held captive by a wizard named Albion. Albion says she must prove herself by completing certain fairytale-esque tasks, she does so through kindness and wit, and—spoiler alert—she and Albion fall in love. Turns out, the prince is just a house guest that won't leave. I can't find the cover art for the back of the book, but the prince looks like a Monty Python character.

In this same year, there was another book out there with a prince who was deceptively appealing. William Goldman wrote The Princess Bride and later adapted it for the screen in 1987. The only person who starts out as royalty in the book is Prince Humperdinck, and that name alone should tell you this isn't someone to take seriously. Sure, he's competent, noted in the film for being an excellent tracker, and he's quite the mastermind, but he's also the villain! The whole reason he plans to marry Buttercup is so he can kill her on their wedding night and frame another kingdom for it so he can get a war! Buttercup's True Love is actually a former farm boy named Westley who is doing a stint as the Dread Pirate Roberts. Humperdinck doesn't stand a chance.

I do like Chris Sarandon's performance. He brings such dignity to it, which actually makes it more fun.

As if pop culture wasn't dropping the anvil fast enough that Prince Charmings weren't all they were cracked up to be, Stephen's Sondheim's Into the Woods gave us Cinderella's Prince and Rapunzel's Prince, and the line, “I was raised to be charming, not sincere,” says it all. Who would have thought a musical about interconnecting fairy tales would have so much innuendo (it's pretty uncomfortable seeing certain parts of this with children, let me tell you), adultery, psychological abuse, and character deaths? It was finally filmed in 2014 and satirizes these angst-ridden overly-masculine types with the song “Agony:”

We're going to talk about one more before we get an interesting counterpoint to all this parody. Ladies and gentlemen, Prince Charming from the Shrek universe:

Forget the fact he looks like Jaime from Game of Thrones. Rupert Everett's Prince Charming is a spoiled, prissy snob whose mother is none other than the Fairy Godmother, the brains behind the operation. Seriously, the movie where Prince Charming takes the lead as the Big Bad is terrible. There isn't much to say about the role even though it's entertaining except that it just goes to the other extreme. Prince Charming is decisive about not letting an ogre be with the woman that was promised to him, and he does seem competent at horseback riding and doing the tango, but he's whiny, preens a little too much for traditional manly men, and, most importantly, is okay with forcing Fiona to be with her against her will.

“But, but, but, if the Prince Charming archetype is just an illusion, what kind of man can we have faith in?”

Well, I would say the rogue as in most movies, he proves to be a hero underneath the snark and scruff, but that's another meta (see The Unscrupulous Hero meta). This brings up a good point—at least these parodies of princes are characters. They have personalities and arcs. You can call them a lot of things but you can't call them bland. Prince Charming up until now has been a construct, a goal, a reward. Everything but a real person.

Evolution!

Bringing it back to the Disney princes, 1989 responded to all these unworthy princes with Prince Eric in The Little Mermaid. I consider him the prototype prince since he is substantially given more to do and emote than the previous princes ever were, but he's still kind of vanilla. Eric likes being out on a ship, longing for a life at sea while Ariel longs for a life on land. Hmm. He plays the flute, totally doesn't mind doing the messier tasks a crewman on a ship would do, and the film goes out of its way to show that he is brave and not one to be messed with. He saves his dog from a fire and harpoons a giant octopus woman. He hangs out with Ariel, has fun when she’s around, and this was one of the first Disney movies that introduced some chemistry between the human leads.

After Eric came the Beast, Aladdin, and Simba, and while Aladdin is by far the most fleshed-out of these characters, these prince figures were given something Eric didn't have—pain. Disney's Beast isn't proposing to Belle every night like in the original fairy tale. We don't meet him as a romantic lead, but as a broken chimera despairing that his entire life seems to be defined by one bad choice. Simba may not be the most interesting character, but there is a moment in the movie where he starts yelling at the sky (read: his dead father) about Mufasa not being there for him and then just breaks down in tears and cries, “It's my fault.” Good lord, you feel for him there as much as you do when he's a little cub shaking his dead father in hopes of awakening him.

Prince Naveen in The Princess and the Frog is not your grandmother's prince. It's almost a full-out comedic role as Naveen is...kind of a bum. He's a prince, but he's lazy, so his parents have cut him off, leaving him to either get a job and work for a living, or marry a rich woman. Ha ha, Naveen just wants to play the ukelele, enjoy New Orleans' night life, and pick the richest of his many admirers to marry. After he falls for Tiana, he doesn't change all that much. He is willing to work for something and can buckle down, but he's still that funny, enthusiastic guy you want to be friends with. He isn't diminished in his relationship with her. Nor is she. Naveen can get Tiana to loosen up, and while the plot of The Princess and the Frog is needlessly complex here and there, the romance is very strong and their banter is right up there with all the great movie romance banter.

D’awww!

Counterpoint to a Counterpoint

Oh, Prince Hans of the Southern Isles, I'm onto you, what with your romantic-comedy shtick. To this day I am torn as to whether or not the twist to make him the villain was a good one or not. On the one hand, it gives his character a reason for being in the story, and it's a realistic lesson that trusting everyone is just as bad as trusting no one. However, what's the goofy little smile at the end of the clip all about? Does he genuinely like Anna but still plans to somehow take over the throne? Is that just how he smiles when he tweaks his own schemes? His original plan was just to marry Elsa, but now it seems like, “Well, I can marry the cute, funny girl instead and just kill the aloof one. Win-win.”

“Psychopaths don't wear t-shirts saying 'You're with Psychopath' on them.”

Very true, and a commonality many psychopaths share in real life is that they are, you guessed it, charming. They know how to attract people to them. Unfortunately, though, things like empathizing with those people and putting those people before themselves are not really feasible things for a psychopath to do. But then again, we are talking about film here, not real life, so is it a cheat that they made him the villain seemingly out of nowhere? Weren't we supposed to be given some hints about his true nature since this is a story?

If you ask Disney, they did disperse clues here and there that Hans was not what he seemed. He wears gloves, for example. Did you know gloves are a visual shorthand for villain? Never mind that most of Hans' screentime is either at a ball in which gloves would have been fashionably appropriate or when it's, you know, cold outside. Another thing they refer fans to is that in the song “Love is an Open Door,” Hans' lines about “finding his own place” and agreeing that Anna's “sandwiches” response to his “We finish each other's ____” was what he was going to say are indicative that he's stringing her along. Okaaaayyyy.

“But if you were taken in, isn't that the point? Nobody knowingly gets involved with a psychopath.”

Yeah, but this is all so vague. Consider that while Elsa is the queen and Anna is the princess, they are way too busy dealing with their own problems to actually rule Arendelle or do anything to help all the innocent people suddenly plagued by an unexpected winter.

Look at this! Doesn't this just muddle things more? Hans is the one handing out blankets and inviting the subjects to the castle where he makes it a point to say it's warm there and they've got plenty of hot food for everyone. We're making the villain the only character in the entire thing who does any damage relief? I'm sure this is probably a “catch more flies with honey than vinegar thing” as the truly logical person would conclude that Hans is just trying to win over the peasants so they don't revolt when he takes things over, and I know that being homicidal doesn't necessarily preclude anyone from being a great ruler, but come on!

I guess the point the movie is trying to make with Hans is that you can meet a guy who seems great on paper and fits all the items on the checklist we've been keeping track of, but he can still turn out to be a jerk. And I will say that Disney has tried the “surprise villain reveal” thing in a few of its other movies that came out after this, but this one handled that the best.

The New Wave

I can't say 2015's Cinderella is better than the 1950 version, but one thing it did that I admire was that it made Prince Charming a person. Prince Kit (I would have named him something else, but I digress) has his doubts that he can be as good a king as his father. Richard Madden gets to actually act as he not only has to be a little restless in his role, but also gets to express grief. He had said that the challenge of playing the Prince is to make sure that Cinderella is not seen as being lucky to get a prince, but that this prince is lucky to have found her.

We have an earlier example of this with 1998's Ever After. Prince Henry (Dougray Scott) is a very reluctant prince and shirks his duties whenever he can. It is Danielle (Drew Barrymore) who changes his way of thinking in that he can do so much good with the power that he has, and it is his obligation to do so. He listens to her, respects her, it's clear that he also physically wants her, and the two get plenty of time to get to know one another. His reaction when the princess he's betrothed to starts wailing is priceless because it's so in-character and there's even Leonardo DaVinci thrown in the movie for fun...a very charming movie indeed.

Artie Hammer is also a good prince, Prince Alcott in Mirror, Mirror. About the only good thing in that, actually. I didn't feel it was dark enough to be a Snow White story, but Snow White and the Huntsman didn't have enough joy to be a Snow White story (or enough actual dwarves playing the parts). Again, the Prince gets to be funny, gets to be a bit political as his whole reason for going to this kingdom in the first place is to meet with the Queen (Julia Roberts being horribly miscast). I don't appreciate the amount of ogling this otherwise children's movie does to the poor actor, but for the most part, he's a character in his own right. Maybe soon he'll pick some better projects that don't have him upstaged by a guy pretending to be a Native American like in The Lone Ranger.

But my all-time favorite Prince Charming has to go to Josh Dallas' David “Charming” Nolan on Once Upon a Time.

“Attention, everyone! I know magical shenanigans are ruining all your lives, but you have to be in the background while the show focuses on my family's drama! For goodness sake, pull yourselves together and be the comic relief!”

Charming is pretty much everything we've covered so far, and you can see the historical detail they put into developing his character. This prince started life as a shepherd, a commoner who, by some magical deals that don't merit this meta, must pose as a prince. He gets to be one for real after he marries Snow White, but the crafted him to be a farmer-type guy. He drives a pickup truck. He wears a lot of flannel. He's sometimes old-fashioned with his flaws as he can be overly protective and quick to judge, but he's also quick to change his opinion when he's proven wrong.

Charming is deceptively easy to understand, and I don't mean that he's an airhead or a parody of what he represents. I mean that his goals in life are simple. His likes, his morals—they're all simple, even his fears. The man's greatest fear is that he isn't a good dad. That's so relatable since every parent has wondered that about themselves, but it's fresh and unique when it's applied to Prince Charming, a “character” far more defined by offscreen heroics than being a member of a family. In the very first episode, he's taking on three swordsmen while holding his infant daughter. That's the character in a nutshell.

It's a role that's a little underwritten, but like Hamlet, that sometimes means you can do some amazing things with it. OUAT is full of polarizing characters, but Charming is not one of them. He's universally loved, and that has everything to do with how convincingly Josh Dallas plays him, especially that he is able to play a father to an actress technically older than him playing his daughter.

Even when he doesn't have much to say, Josh Dallas brings so many fatherly gestures and facial expressions to the part. That might be why the show has given him more and more to do as it's gone on. It's a new take on the Prince Charming construct, isn't it—that all the sword-fighting, arrow-shooting, horseback riding, face-punching, and villain-confronting this guy does is for his family?

His relationship with Snow on this show is sort of the measuring stick to which all other romantic relationships are compared to, and I wouldn't even say “Snowing” is the main romance. While Snow gives Charming some much-needed direction, he gives her confidence. There are so many moments when Snow is doubting herself that Charming is the one to build her back up. His belief that his wife can do anything is the foundation of True Love, and I don't mean that he sees her through rose-tinted glasses. They are partners. One gets the sense that they rule together, whether it be in the flashbacks in the Enchanted Forest, or how they handle the town's problems in the present.

So I would say our checklist is looking more like this:

1. Is a complex human being with positive (competent, decisive, wise, willing to parent) and some flaws to stay interesting

2. Has respect and admiration for his love and their relationship has a healthy dose of friendship in it

But if I were to just list all of Charming's traits—good and bad—or anything other well-written character in any medium—the list might just go on and on. It's that way with real-life personalities, and opinions will vary on what the ideal man or woman is like. Prince Charming is no longer an archetype or a plot point but a person, a real person who is inspired to do his best for love at the same time he inspires the person he loves to do their best. Life is hard, and it's hard to find someone to share it with, but the fact that fiction is emphasizing these aspects is so positive.

#meta; once upon a time; disney; fairy tale; film; books

0 notes