Re Anchises: Perhaps it's because it's Venus? Jealousy and anger aren't her thing. She loves and she moves on with no hard feelings, no need to punish Anchises or send him to a tragic end. She's not the wronged wife or the vengeful lover spurned.
All true, but it didn't save Adonis from Ares' wrath. (As I recall the myth, Ares/Mars sent the boar which killed Adonis in retaliation for the Venus/Adonis liason, right?) So: maybe the fact there was a child helped Anchises? (I.e. not only has Venus not the nature to punish him but her more lethal fellow gods decide to spare a single father? :)
To be honest, I think a lot of it is my doing, although since I don't write much from his perspective I will say that he's meant to be a lot scarier in Henry's POV than he is "objectively." I know it doesn't really read that way though. The whole thing owes a lot to my relationship with my mother.
Gaunt actually does get a POV in a thing I'm working on, where I think he comes off a lot more sympathetically then when we're not in his head (actually he comes off rather Stannis Baratheon-like, so he's not especially cuddly, but he wasn't in real life either). I also did give him his own daddy issues, largely because Edward III resents all his other sons since his favorite died. lareinenoire also writes a good sympathetic!Gaunt.
Oh, I'm not saying it's implausible. (Chances are in that family that of you start as a younger son and end up on the top in effect if not in title for years, you are not a cuddly person.) But the - in lack of a better term though I hesitate to use it in a small fandom - universality of it reminded me of how "Daddy issues" has become such a default thing, no matter whether or not there is actual canon to justify it. And makes me want to look for something to go against the trend and gift a main character with an entirely functional relationship with his father. (Time for some DS9 rewatch?)
Well, this particular fandom is tiny and closely-knit -- this is the biggest ficathon turnout ever, and the first time in several years that anyone outside a particular circle* has joined -- and as such there's a lot of shared characterization happening, which I like to think is a different sort of phenomenon than particular possibly-idiosyncratic characterizations appearing frequently across a large fandom that lots of people write in.
This is particularly the case since there are quite a few people in the tiny relatively stable center of the histories fandom who don't write Richard II fic at all, and even out of those who do I don't think many of them have written fic where Gaunt appears or is mentioned frequently, so really this particular trend in characterization is perpetuated by maybe three or four people, and I can say with some certainty that I pretty much started it. So, really, the answer to the question in your post is essentially "It's angevin2's fault
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there's a lot of shared characterization happening, which I like to think is a different sort of phenomenon than particular possibly-idiosyncratic characterizations appearing frequently across a large fandom that lots of people write in.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking when this came up. People explicitly responding to and building on each other's world-building is a little bit different than 'everybody decides Draco is a woobie because he has neat hair' (or however Potter fandom worked).
A lot of the Gaunt characterization does stem from the fact that very few people in the fandom write from his POV--plus, it's worth noting (as angevin2 pointed out to me some time ago and now I can't unsee) that, after the failed duel, Gaunt is among the advisors who (very briefly) discuss what to do with the combatants and ultimately decide to exile them for their respective terms. Presumably he at some point argues in favour of his son, but Shakespeare curtails that discussion so much that it seems like a pre-ordained conclusion. Why Gaunt would do this is unclear, especially given his behaviour in the previous scene with the Duchess of Gloucester, but it is suggestive that all is not entirely well in the Lancaster household. That being said, I expect Gaunt is considerably more sympathetic when viewed from a POV that isn't Henry's or, even worse, Richard's.
I'm writing him from Katherine Swynford's POV in an unfinished AU fic, and although I wouldn't go so far as to call him sympathetic, he's most assuredly Gothic. ;)
I always thought it was a shame Shakespeare didn't include Katherine Swynford among the cast, but then he probably didn't have enough good boy actors available. Still. Her life is one that historical novelists would catch no end of complaints about for inventing if it hadn't actually happened ("oh, sure, first she's the governess, then she spends thirty years as his mistress, and then he marries her - and her brother-in-law is the most famous poet of the age to boot, and did I mention the flash forward where her descendants make it to the throne?") , and because of her outsider pov, her perspective on everyone would be invaluable.
(It's entirely Wheel of Fortune's fault that I keep expecting versions of John of Gaunt to say "and here I draw the line". And to have a cultural identity crisis. *g* More seriously, what that book does with the psychological damage handed over from generation to generation but in different ways is amazing because it always feels fitting for the individual in question, and because of the different
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I have to admit, there is a part of me that wants to go back in time and slap whoever it was that initially decided women couldn't be on the stage in England, because I cannot help but think of all the glorious female characters Shakespeare could have written, in addition to the ones he wrote, if he'd had access to more actors who could play those roles.
There was an anonymous John of Gaunt play in I want to say the 1590s that we have records of, but which sadly does not survive. I have to imagine Katherine at least makes an appearance, although one never knows with these things.
("oh, sure, first she's the governess, then she spends thirty years as his mistress, and then he marries her - and her brother-in-law is the most famous poet of the age to boot, and did I mention the flash forward where her descendants make it to the throne?")
FYI, the Gaunt/Katherine fic is part of the enormous Victorian/Edwardian/Interwar AU and is a Jane Eyre pastiche. Because there is no way NOT to do that if it's Gaunt/Katherine set in the Victorian
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Never underestimate the benefits of a very talented Roman spin doctor! Anchises is not the only one who benefitted there, but the comparison is illuminating
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Roman spin-doctors were the best in the ancient world. :)
I've never read Anya Seton's novel, but my own (more positve than not) views on John of Gaunt were shaped by a novel as well, Wheel of Fortune by Susan Howatch. (Which has a great Katherine character, too.) Which, btw, avoids that "always the same Daddy issues" trap you accurately mention as a multi fandom phenomenon; Howatch's John has parent issues and is himself the cause for daddy issues in both the Richard and the Henry Bolingbroke character, but not because he can't show affection, and they're not the same issues for both, either.
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Gaunt actually does get a POV in a thing I'm working on, where I think he comes off a lot more sympathetically then when we're not in his head (actually he comes off rather Stannis Baratheon-like, so he's not especially cuddly, but he wasn't in real life either). I also did give him his own daddy issues, largely because Edward III resents all his other sons since his favorite died. lareinenoire also writes a good sympathetic!Gaunt.
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This is particularly the case since there are quite a few people in the tiny relatively stable center of the histories fandom who don't write Richard II fic at all, and even out of those who do I don't think many of them have written fic where Gaunt appears or is mentioned frequently, so really this particular trend in characterization is perpetuated by maybe three or four people, and I can say with some certainty that I pretty much started it. So, really, the answer to the question in your post is essentially "It's angevin2's fault ( ... )
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Yeah, that's what I was thinking when this came up. People explicitly responding to and building on each other's world-building is a little bit different than 'everybody decides Draco is a woobie because he has neat hair' (or however Potter fandom worked).
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I'm writing him from Katherine Swynford's POV in an unfinished AU fic, and although I wouldn't go so far as to call him sympathetic, he's most assuredly Gothic. ;)
(Also, LOVE Wheel of ( ... )
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(It's entirely Wheel of Fortune's fault that I keep expecting versions of John of Gaunt to say "and here I draw the line". And to have a cultural identity crisis. *g* More seriously, what that book does with the psychological damage handed over from generation to generation but in different ways is amazing because it always feels fitting for the individual in question, and because of the different ( ... )
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There was an anonymous John of Gaunt play in I want to say the 1590s that we have records of, but which sadly does not survive. I have to imagine Katherine at least makes an appearance, although one never knows with these things.
("oh, sure, first she's the governess, then she spends thirty years as his mistress, and then he marries her - and her brother-in-law is the most famous poet of the age to boot, and did I mention the flash forward where her descendants make it to the throne?")
FYI, the Gaunt/Katherine fic is part of the enormous Victorian/Edwardian/Interwar AU and is a Jane Eyre pastiche. Because there is no way NOT to do that if it's Gaunt/Katherine set in the Victorian ( ... )
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I've never read Anya Seton's novel, but my own (more positve than not) views on John of Gaunt were shaped by a novel as well, Wheel of Fortune by Susan Howatch. (Which has a great Katherine character, too.) Which, btw, avoids that "always the same Daddy issues" trap you accurately mention as a multi fandom phenomenon; Howatch's John has parent issues and is himself the cause for daddy issues in both the Richard and the Henry Bolingbroke character, but not because he can't show affection, and they're not the same issues for both, either.
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