The Cathedral of the Sea: Or, in case you think I do only positive reviews...
The Cathedral of the Sea: Spanish miniseries on Netflix, filmed version of a novel I haven't read. Set in 11th century Barcelona and thereabouts. I started out watching it out of general interest and kept watching it in a state of ghastly fascination, as the series hit every cliché, and then some, and every now and then it looked like maybe we'd avoid the cliché, but nooo, no such thing. And the whole work is only a few years old. (Both the book and the miniseries.) Basically, the plot:
Noble peasant and serf gets married. On his wedding day, the evil lord of the area shows up, claims jus primae noctis, never mind most historians these days think this supposed right to the first night on the part of the nobility is the fabrication of a later age, then, after raping the woman, makes our first hero have sex with his battered wife Francesca as well, so that any kid she has can't be claimed to be his bastard. This whole event is mainly depicted on our first hero's trauma, note. Francesca has a baby, which conveniently has a mole just where her husband has one, thus proving it is indeed his kid, which pisses off the Lord who wanted his seed to be stronger, so he orders Francesca to his manor to be gangraped by his soldiers and be nurse to his legal kid, while leaving her own baby to starve. We're still solidly on our first hero's pov, and it's still his trauma. He rescues the baby (but not Francesca), and runs away to the next big city, Barcelona, where if he manages to remain there for a year and a day, he can become a free citizen. He hides with his married sister, but her husband is a rich jerk who promptly exploits our first hero and our second hero, the baby, as free labor and lets him live with his slaves. Also, our second hero's cousins turn out to be jerks as well, especially the female cousin, Margerida, who is evil because she's evil and when she gets her younger brother killed accidentally promptly shifts the blame on our second hero. Once our first hero's sister is dead, first and second hero are competely downgraded to slave status.
Our first hero dies tragically as the result of a riot of starving peasants plus ensuing execution, but not before our second hero has befriended another kid, Joaquin, whose father won't recognize him and whose mother has been literally walled into a tiny house to punish her for infidelity. In a story where people are either all good or all bad, Joaquin (as an adult) is one of the few showing glimmers of more dimensionality but as a kid, he's another tragic de facto orphan, especially once his mother dies in her walled off house (this is his tragedy, because any woman's bad fate in this story is a male character's tragedy), and becomes our second hero's brother-by-adoption.
Once our first hero has been executed in front of both boys, they get cared for by the sole nice cleric in the story. (Most priests and all nobles are evil. Peasants are good. You have to admire the dedication to the J'Accuse part of this tale, but it doesn't make the characters more than paper thin.) They also get different educations. Joaquin is deemed bright enough to get a scholarship and becomes a priest in training, our second hero, otoh, starts as a stone bearer working for the titular church, dedicated to Our Lady but not financed by the nobility but by the people and thus the great symbol of the tale. Once he's adult, our second hero meets his first love, Aleidis, and the two are powerfully attracted to each other. Because our hero has no cash, her father marries Aleidis to a rich and abusive merchant instead. Guess whose tragedy that is? Not hers. Our hero also gets married againsts his will to a sweet girl, Maria, whom he doesn't have sex with, becoming involved in an adulterous affair with Aleidis instead. This is presented as Aleids (who gets beaten by her husband) being a femme fatale and selfish. There's a war, and our hero, wanting to escape his domestic situation, becomes a soldier for the next four years. We see him being brave in one battle. Aleidis runs away from her husband and tries to join our hero and the army but instead after getting robbed and raped (of course she does, she's a female character with lines) runs into a group of whores led by Francesca, just when I had given up finding out what had become of her. Aleidis claims to be our hero's wife, and Francesca, realising this is her long lost son, wants to reunite them until she learns Aleidis has lied, and also, our hero gets praised by his comrades and the King when she's reached the camp. Francesca decides her long lost son is better off without her and Aleidis and returns to the whores' camp, telling Aleidis her son died in battle and reproving her for having lied re: the marriage, but continuing to offer shelter.
After four years of soldiering, our hero returns to Barcelona just when the city is in the grip of the plague. His wife Maria dies and our hero feels forever guilty about her (it's his tragedy). Since the city blames the Jews for the plague and starts a medieval progrom, our hero saves two Jewish children and later returns them to their father who is a rich Jewish merchant. In gratitude, he sets up our hero as a banker, and our hero, with the help of an Arab slave who gets transfered from the Jewish merchant's service to his, instantly makes a success ouf the job and becomes rich. He also adopts an adorable female orphan.
Another time jump, so the moppet is now fully grown and our hero is the most respected guy in town, single handedly saving Barcelona in a crisis. For this, King Sancho marries him, against our hero's will, with his ward Eleanor. Eleanor is evil, regards this as a horrible degradation (since our hero was a serf's son), and schemes against him pretty much from day one, all the more so once he turns her down sexually. It becomes apparent the former moppet, his adopted daughter, has a major crush on him. After saving the city, he starts to see her in a new light, too, but too late, that's when the King makes him marry evil Eleanor. (The miniseries sees no problem in our hero switching from regarding the former moppet as his daughter to regarding her as a potential love interest.) Eleanor teams up with our hero's evil cousin Margerida (who also was turned down sexually by our hero by now, because her father is now nearly broke and they need our hero's money so she offered herself, but no dice). Also, Joaquin returns from having studied in Bologna and with a big dose of patriarchal brainwashing, so he fears the former moppet will seduce our hero into another adulterous affair and also joins a scheme with Eleanor, this one designed to a) having the former moppet kidnapped by another dastardly noble, who rapes her, then offers to marry her as compensation, which our hero as her guardian has to accept as the only way to save her reputation. (Three guesses whose tragedy this is.) Then Eleanor and Margerida join teams with the local chief inquisitor, our hero gets accused of having an affair with a Jewess (he doesn't, he just hugged one of the now grown up kids he saved at the last progrom), and Joaquin realises too late what's going on and that his brother's life is at stake. For the big showdown, the story brings back Francesca and Aleidis (who's angry when realising Francesca lied to her re: our hero, but has become firm friends with her so forgives her - now THIS is the relationship I'd have wanted to watch for the last few episodes), as Francesca is arrested and dragged into town by yet another evil noble (this one the son of the original evil lord and Francesca rapist) under the accusation of witchcraft. Aleidis teams up with the now adult rescued Jewish kids and the former Arab slave to save Francesca and our hero while a repentant Joaquin travels to the former moppet's castle where her evil rapist husband has died but she's in no forgiving mode. Until she learns our hero only ever loved her. Then she comes to town to join the big rescueing efforts. The grand rescue happens (because the former Arab slave, now a rich merchant himself, cajols the King's son into helping by pointing out that if our hero is executed by the Inquisitor, his property will fall to the Church, including all the debts King Sancho owes our hero, which will give the Church way too much leverage against the royal family), the people carry our hero triumphantly to liberty, Francesca and Aleidis discreetly withdraw as to not sully his happiness, and he reunites with the adult moppet. While they make up and declare their love, Joaquin goes to evil Eleanor, sets himself on fire in ongoing repentance about having schemed with her against the moppet and his brother, and hugs Eleanor so she burns too. For some reason, Eleanor doesn't run or do anything when he's still busy setting himself on fire and before the lethal embrace. In the epilogue, our hero starts a new life with the former moppet, and yet another adorable orphan, the hero of the sequel, which I, faithful reader of these lines, will not watch, because too much is just too much.
Noble peasant and serf gets married. On his wedding day, the evil lord of the area shows up, claims jus primae noctis, never mind most historians these days think this supposed right to the first night on the part of the nobility is the fabrication of a later age, then, after raping the woman, makes our first hero have sex with his battered wife Francesca as well, so that any kid she has can't be claimed to be his bastard. This whole event is mainly depicted on our first hero's trauma, note. Francesca has a baby, which conveniently has a mole just where her husband has one, thus proving it is indeed his kid, which pisses off the Lord who wanted his seed to be stronger, so he orders Francesca to his manor to be gangraped by his soldiers and be nurse to his legal kid, while leaving her own baby to starve. We're still solidly on our first hero's pov, and it's still his trauma. He rescues the baby (but not Francesca), and runs away to the next big city, Barcelona, where if he manages to remain there for a year and a day, he can become a free citizen. He hides with his married sister, but her husband is a rich jerk who promptly exploits our first hero and our second hero, the baby, as free labor and lets him live with his slaves. Also, our second hero's cousins turn out to be jerks as well, especially the female cousin, Margerida, who is evil because she's evil and when she gets her younger brother killed accidentally promptly shifts the blame on our second hero. Once our first hero's sister is dead, first and second hero are competely downgraded to slave status.
Our first hero dies tragically as the result of a riot of starving peasants plus ensuing execution, but not before our second hero has befriended another kid, Joaquin, whose father won't recognize him and whose mother has been literally walled into a tiny house to punish her for infidelity. In a story where people are either all good or all bad, Joaquin (as an adult) is one of the few showing glimmers of more dimensionality but as a kid, he's another tragic de facto orphan, especially once his mother dies in her walled off house (this is his tragedy, because any woman's bad fate in this story is a male character's tragedy), and becomes our second hero's brother-by-adoption.
Once our first hero has been executed in front of both boys, they get cared for by the sole nice cleric in the story. (Most priests and all nobles are evil. Peasants are good. You have to admire the dedication to the J'Accuse part of this tale, but it doesn't make the characters more than paper thin.) They also get different educations. Joaquin is deemed bright enough to get a scholarship and becomes a priest in training, our second hero, otoh, starts as a stone bearer working for the titular church, dedicated to Our Lady but not financed by the nobility but by the people and thus the great symbol of the tale. Once he's adult, our second hero meets his first love, Aleidis, and the two are powerfully attracted to each other. Because our hero has no cash, her father marries Aleidis to a rich and abusive merchant instead. Guess whose tragedy that is? Not hers. Our hero also gets married againsts his will to a sweet girl, Maria, whom he doesn't have sex with, becoming involved in an adulterous affair with Aleidis instead. This is presented as Aleids (who gets beaten by her husband) being a femme fatale and selfish. There's a war, and our hero, wanting to escape his domestic situation, becomes a soldier for the next four years. We see him being brave in one battle. Aleidis runs away from her husband and tries to join our hero and the army but instead after getting robbed and raped (of course she does, she's a female character with lines) runs into a group of whores led by Francesca, just when I had given up finding out what had become of her. Aleidis claims to be our hero's wife, and Francesca, realising this is her long lost son, wants to reunite them until she learns Aleidis has lied, and also, our hero gets praised by his comrades and the King when she's reached the camp. Francesca decides her long lost son is better off without her and Aleidis and returns to the whores' camp, telling Aleidis her son died in battle and reproving her for having lied re: the marriage, but continuing to offer shelter.
After four years of soldiering, our hero returns to Barcelona just when the city is in the grip of the plague. His wife Maria dies and our hero feels forever guilty about her (it's his tragedy). Since the city blames the Jews for the plague and starts a medieval progrom, our hero saves two Jewish children and later returns them to their father who is a rich Jewish merchant. In gratitude, he sets up our hero as a banker, and our hero, with the help of an Arab slave who gets transfered from the Jewish merchant's service to his, instantly makes a success ouf the job and becomes rich. He also adopts an adorable female orphan.
Another time jump, so the moppet is now fully grown and our hero is the most respected guy in town, single handedly saving Barcelona in a crisis. For this, King Sancho marries him, against our hero's will, with his ward Eleanor. Eleanor is evil, regards this as a horrible degradation (since our hero was a serf's son), and schemes against him pretty much from day one, all the more so once he turns her down sexually. It becomes apparent the former moppet, his adopted daughter, has a major crush on him. After saving the city, he starts to see her in a new light, too, but too late, that's when the King makes him marry evil Eleanor. (The miniseries sees no problem in our hero switching from regarding the former moppet as his daughter to regarding her as a potential love interest.) Eleanor teams up with our hero's evil cousin Margerida (who also was turned down sexually by our hero by now, because her father is now nearly broke and they need our hero's money so she offered herself, but no dice). Also, Joaquin returns from having studied in Bologna and with a big dose of patriarchal brainwashing, so he fears the former moppet will seduce our hero into another adulterous affair and also joins a scheme with Eleanor, this one designed to a) having the former moppet kidnapped by another dastardly noble, who rapes her, then offers to marry her as compensation, which our hero as her guardian has to accept as the only way to save her reputation. (Three guesses whose tragedy this is.) Then Eleanor and Margerida join teams with the local chief inquisitor, our hero gets accused of having an affair with a Jewess (he doesn't, he just hugged one of the now grown up kids he saved at the last progrom), and Joaquin realises too late what's going on and that his brother's life is at stake. For the big showdown, the story brings back Francesca and Aleidis (who's angry when realising Francesca lied to her re: our hero, but has become firm friends with her so forgives her - now THIS is the relationship I'd have wanted to watch for the last few episodes), as Francesca is arrested and dragged into town by yet another evil noble (this one the son of the original evil lord and Francesca rapist) under the accusation of witchcraft. Aleidis teams up with the now adult rescued Jewish kids and the former Arab slave to save Francesca and our hero while a repentant Joaquin travels to the former moppet's castle where her evil rapist husband has died but she's in no forgiving mode. Until she learns our hero only ever loved her. Then she comes to town to join the big rescueing efforts. The grand rescue happens (because the former Arab slave, now a rich merchant himself, cajols the King's son into helping by pointing out that if our hero is executed by the Inquisitor, his property will fall to the Church, including all the debts King Sancho owes our hero, which will give the Church way too much leverage against the royal family), the people carry our hero triumphantly to liberty, Francesca and Aleidis discreetly withdraw as to not sully his happiness, and he reunites with the adult moppet. While they make up and declare their love, Joaquin goes to evil Eleanor, sets himself on fire in ongoing repentance about having schemed with her against the moppet and his brother, and hugs Eleanor so she burns too. For some reason, Eleanor doesn't run or do anything when he's still busy setting himself on fire and before the lethal embrace. In the epilogue, our hero starts a new life with the former moppet, and yet another adorable orphan, the hero of the sequel, which I, faithful reader of these lines, will not watch, because too much is just too much.