Friday, April 19, 2019

Ulysses: Jeanne d'Arc and the Alchemist Knight

I've watched five and a half episodes of this show, and currently have it listed as dropped.

There is stuff going on in it I like, and I love the English Dub voice cast.  But there are things I just have trouble tolerating.  The main thing keeping me from finishing it isn't even the main thing this post is gonna be about, rather it's the creepy fan service.

One thing that's, interesting, about the show is how much it's doing what Fate/ has made popular, turning certain historical men into Cute Anime Girls.  I could talk about how maybe now even Fate/ is over doing it a bit, but that's not for today.

I am very up for seeing a Fantasy world that is basically a more Matriarchal or at least Egalitarian version of Medieval Europe.  But the thing about doing this in specifically the context of fictionalizing Jeanne d'Arc is what makes her story interesting in heavily tied to how it was kind of inconsistent with the gender norms of her time.  You can also say that regardless of her gender her turning this war between Western European feudal lords who were all Papists into a Religious Holy War was unprecedented, but this show isn't really playing up that aspect either.

There are inevitably things that are gonna play out differently when you turn it into a Fantasy epic instead of just a straight historical drama.  But they shouldn't fundamentally change what the core appeal of the story is for no real thematic purpose.  This isn't exactly the only time an Otaku version of Jeanne d'Arc kind of does this, but the Puella Magi Tart Magica Manga just adds characters rather then changing any, and has plenty that thematically makes Jeanne still stand out.

There were historically other women around to enable you to pass the Bechdel test and devise a diverse collection of Cute Girl character designs.  Most of the men this show has flipped had either sisters or wives you could use.

Marie of Anjou, the wife of the Dauphin Charles, has been claimed by some websites I'm not sure I trust to have been trying to help Jeanne after she was captured.  Most fictionalizations seem uninterested in if these two women even met.  As a fan of the theory that Jeanne was in some way Queer I'm very into the idea of some Femmeslash being written about them.  Marie's brother Rene was married to Isabella Duchess of Lorraine.  Another sister of theirs was Yolande of Anjou, who was married to Philip I Duke of Barbant. And if you want an older woman around there's their mother Yolande of Aragon who was very influential at this time.

Interestingly enough there was another Prophetess active in France at the same time as Jeanne, Catherine de La Rochelle, I can't find a lot of information on her, it seems like she may be known only from the one letter where Jeanne mentions her.

Philip of Burgundy's sister Anne was married to John Bedford who was the Regent of Henry VI overseeing the war.  He also had 24 known mistresses.

Catherine of Valois probably never met Jeanne being in England the whole time, but in an alternate history you could change that.  In Shakespeare she had a Lady in Waiting named Alice, I don't know how historical she is.  Another sister of Charles was Joan of France who married John VI of Brittany who this show leaves male giving the gender flip to his brother Arthur who's historical wife was Margaret of Nevers, they also had a sister, Marie of Brittany.  Her son was Jean II Duke of Alencon who was married to Jeanne of Valois.

Eleanor Cobham  married a brother of Henry V in 1428, she had previously been his mistress, and was convicted of Witchcraft in 1441 in collaboration with Margery Jourdemayne, "the Witch of Eye".  She was possibly the mother of his two illegitimate children, Arthur of Gloucester who died in 1447 and Antigone of Gloucester, who married firstly Henry Grey, 2nd Earl of Tankerville, Lord of Powys (c. 1419–1450) and secondly John d'Amancier.

I'm not sure how much this is a spoiler for the show but...

Spoiler Alert....

The main character is Gilles de Rais, which makes it interesting that the woman he was married to at this time, Catherine de Thouars, seems to be absent from the proceedings, preferring to make his Harem out of Jeanne and the various gender flipped characters.

No comments:

Post a Comment