Reign S1, 1-13
So I am a huge sucker for history as personified by ghost stories, and I really like what Reign is doing with that. There’s no way of getting the audience around knowing how things end for Mary et al, and I feel like the supernatural elements kind of incorporate our subconscious expectations into the narrative into a way that works. As silly as it sounds to hear them talk about prophecies, Mary Stuart did (tragically, ruthlessly, or both) live a life where everything she touched died, and the prophecy is a neat way for the characters to incorporate our sense of dread. Clarissa works as a Phantom-like addition to the narrative, but she also mirrors Mary’s own instincts and abilities: distant but protective at first, but becoming more and more dangerous.
The Pagans work as a non-specific representation of the religious enmity all over Europe at the time, but - this is probably where I swing off into author-is-dead territory - I think this caught something quite real about what I’m enjoying about the show. Their ritualistic blood sacrifices aren’t ultimately any more horrifying than the ease with which the ruling regime executes people. Moreover, I think the Pagans do fill a certain role about the folk-level culture that leaked into European Christianity, and show us the anxiety they caused the ruling classes independent of inter-Christian clashes. The witch-burnings themselves weren’t about Paganism as we recognize it, but they were in part about practices (or fears of practices) which pre-dated Christianity. Reign is all about examining different types of hard and soft power that women can realistically wield, and how it’s cut off at almost every turn. And because the vast majority of the characters we get to know are women, we see mostly competition within that hierarchy, which means that they don’t often see it dragged out to its most brutal conclusions. But every once in a while Mary looks out the window and sees a witch-burning, and she (along with the viewer) is reminded at just how perilous her situation is. Because it was mostly women who were burned at the stake, and a lot of those women did have “pagan” folk wisdom of one sort or another attributed to them. Even if Mary herself is horrified by the pagans, those are ultimately the same cultural forces that we know are coming for her sooner or later.
And the characters who are aligned with paganism are the right ones! Catherine, Catholic queen in good standing (if not the world’s best Catholic), and practitioner of the pagan arts. Bash is the other pagan and this kind of solidifies Rando’s place in the pseudo-RPF narrative. Bash is a narrative wild card as a character - he didn’t exist, so anything can happen with him without totally confusing the audience - and so he also has some connections with the subversive pagans, with the threats to the Catholic world order. The character of Bash, though, reminds me a lot of Cesare Borgia as imagined by Starz. Henry’s preference for Bash makes a lot of sense: Bash is his adoring little buddy, while Francis is his heir and therefore a walking reminder of his own mortality. (That’s a horrifying reality for a lot of the characters, though. IMO the creepiest thing so far is when tiny bro #1, cool as ice, asks Mary if they’ll see their mother “before she dies.”)
Reign is a breath of fresh air from your average Strong Female Characters™. It’s not that there aren’t well-developed women - there are as many as I’m seeing on any other show at the moment - but none of them are narratively set up to be SFCs who are somehow ~magically untouched by patriarchy, in terms of their worldviews or what they can and can’t do in their lives. There’s a telling little moment where the little six-year-old prince tells Mary that she’s not like a girl and Mary dodges it very smoothly, by asking him what he thinks girls are like and then not confirming or denying his impressions. Because it comes from a child character, it doesn’t come across as (a) credible or (b) flirtations. It’s just how this young boy is being socialized. And Mary’s response somehow manages to miss, like, every level of the SFC trope? Because (a) she’s playing with a kid, so it’s not the reactive SFC type, who only act to show the audience that they’re not ~girly women; (b) she doesn’t react like it’s a good thing that he doesn’t think she’s like a girl; (c) she doesn’t sit him down and give him a 21st century lesson about how gender bias starts young. She just dodges.
Maybe it’s a step up, even, from the SFC thing, in that it’s not asking us to suspend disbelief and think, here is the one special snowflake who is untarnished by ~the world. Nobody particularly wants to shake up or even buck the system; the fact that these people are important enough to make it into Mary’s sphere means that they’re people who are invested in things continuing as they are, and we don’t have to try not to know that. I was particularly impressed with one of the early scenes between the handmaidens where...Gria? Grier? baldy acknowledges that their fortunes rise and fall on Mary’s virginity. Because yeah, clearly they do, but it’s nice to hear that the girls know that rather than that they have (or the narrative anticipates the audience will have) any normative stake in the whole thing. The show is very frank about people looking out for their own interests, without actually condemning them for it, either as a group or selectively.
I also did a lot of thinking about The Prince (AS ONE DOES) and how cool it is to watch YA series capture that worldview. How “honorable” is Francis really, and how much so should he be? What are the particular challenges to a “new prince” from outside of the established line of succession? How close does Henry come to tyranny, with his ability to have his wife killed at his whim? Is it better to be feared like Catherine, or loved like Mary? &c.
So that’s all the big thematic stuff. But I also quite like it as entertainment. I like a lot of the characters, and it always feels like stuff is happening. I am very glad that the show didn’t go for historical accuracy, not just for the big things, but for the smaller stuff like wardrobe or accents or the indie background music. I think there’s a coherent aesthetic to the show which allows the important story elements to translate for us.
SO YES. I will definitely be catching up ASAP.
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