#bonaca

if we were villains 🎭: are you into theatre? who’s your favourite shakespeare character? would you or do you smoke weed or cigarettes?

i’m kind of into theatre, yeah, though not nearly as much as i’d like to be! fav shakespeare character is, like, hamlet i guess? and weed doesn’t do much for me, but i do smoke cigarettes on occasion

wine 🍷: how far would you go to help yourself? what about to help other people? do you think humans are inherently selfish?

poc!potterweek | day seven: au day → pansy parkinson as a youtube vlogger and musician 

Awesome! I am so glad you will look them up! (And thanks so much for another ask! You made my day!)  They are Amazon Prime though… that’s the only issue. But as for the other two you mentioned, settle in for a nice long post. :D Please put your seat belts on!

Let’s start with HBO’s Rome (I just watched part of the 2nd season - After Julius died):

I honestly, have never been much of a fan of HBO shows because they focus too much on sex and gore rather than plot. (Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind either on other shows, but hear me out!) The issue I find with these shows is that I will be watching and like, “OH! Yay! Octavian is about to kick Brutus’ ass for killin… wait. What’s going on? Why did we cut away from plot to show boobs? I want plot! You don’t NEED to put more gore and sex into a plot that historically has an abundance of both! And… oh. Good. Back to the plot- wait. Why did you have to brutally behead that guy? I don’t mind, but…where’s my plot? Oh? It’s the end of the episode already? Oh… I guess we won’t see Octavian again until next episode…” And then, repeat this pattern every episode and you get a slow-crawling show that takes 6 episodes for anything actually historically important to happen. 

That’s one of the reasons why I gave up on HBO’s Rome. The sets were beautiful though, to be honest. The other reason why I gave up was the ‘insert fictional characters to interact with historical characters. I don’t mind sometimes when they are in the background. But when I want a show about Rome, I want a show about historical Romans! Also, I really hated how they, from what I understood in the 5 or less episodes I watched, they made Octavian’s mom evil. She’s mentioned only ONCE in Suetonius and I haven’t gotten around to Tacitus’s accounts of her yet, but it just seemed unneeded to the plot overall.

Now… onto I,Claudius and I will TRY really hard not let my own historical bias sink in. 

But here it goes. 

My issues with I, Claudius are many. Let me begin with my biggest problem of that show and it is Livia:

The show and the book make her out to be pure evil. Now, in my research, nothing really backs up the idea that she killed Augustus and a lot of other people. I have my own theories about WHY she killed her grandsons (which Tacitus mentions) but that’s another story. I accept that Livia killed those two, but I don’t think she would kill Augustus and manipulate everyone. It really bothered me as a person, because it seemed like Graves did to Livia what many people did to Cleopatra. Make a woman in power evil because she has power. Which is SO wrong.

I also found it really funny how Claudius always seemed at the right place at the right time. Just perfectly so like a Mary-Stu. It’s was kinda funny, but sometimes, it was a bit unbelievable.

And I never hated Augustus before. He’s my favorite good Emperor and Graves and the show portrayed him as weak. (I wrote a whole essay for college about the Emperors history vs. the media and this was one of the points I touched on.) But if you watch the Augustus movies that I recommended, they show Augustus being strong and even in HBO’s Rome he takes no crap. But in I, Claudius, he is pushed around by Livia and it’s PAINFUL! So painful that it still hurts to think about it. Augustus restored Rome and ruled (somewhat) peacefully and is someone to be admired, not butchered.

Also, Caligula. Even though he was brilliantly played by John Hurt (RIP! T_T) and I adored his character, Graves seemed to… how do I put this… miss his character by just a little. (Granted, I have written him a little the same, but very differently in my novels.) But the thing that bothers me to the most is I don’t think Gaius in history would have killed Drusilla. (And that scene in episode 9 where he kills her was actually, from what I think, inspired by what Domitian did to his niece, Julia Flavia). Because in history, when Drusilla died, Gaius disappeared for a really long time from public life and banned almost EVERYTHING. Like eating together with your family- Treason! Crying- Treason! Let’s kill them for that because Drusilla died!

And I also don’t think that Graves or the show gave Tiberius much chance to be historical Tiberius, but that’s my bias. Because if I traveled back in time, I would be far more afraid of Tiberius than Gaius, Nero or Domitian. Combined.

So, yeah. I could go on. But anyhow, I, Claudius is a fun watch, but shouldn’t be taken seriously. Which is another issue. Too many people (on Tumblr and sometimes even real life) seem to think that Grave’s work is more accurate than Suetonius or Tacitus. Which, by the way, Graves drew from for his historical fiction that people take as history. Hahaha. But seriously. I, Claudius is fiction and Livia didn’t do it!