King Richard III for Richard Armitage

... from a totally un-historic perspective

[This article was originally meant to be a series of 7 articles during the KingRichardArmitage Week 2013, but due to time pressure, the topic did not get the planned wider execution, but now comes condensed and shortened down to this minimal rump-post. Please excuse the wide range and only touching of an abundance of topics. I just want to put down these ideas somewhere, to keep them.]


King Richard III had so much drama in his life that it was even too much for the congenial William Shakespeare.
He needed to flatten his character into inrecognizablility to be able to bring him on the stage.

But why is that and why do I think an artist like Richard Armitage could do more and bring more aspects of the complicated life of King Richard III to a wider audience and show new aspects of an individual, so far flattened and simplified into unrecognizability by either literature and research?


My main question is, what aspects prevent King Richard III from getting a just and scientifically adequate research into his life?

• His blood relationship to the current royal house reigning over England?

•  His supporters giving the impression (though at closer contact mostly a false one) of manufacturing facts in their / his favour.

• Scholars have established their position and hate to be wrong or proven wrong about something.

• King Richard III just is such a convenient villain one need not think further about. That is much easier than to do extensive research about him.

King Richard III really was busy during his just 32 years long life. He is accused of being a:

father figure murderer - getting rid of opposition and his former tutor and fatherly friend

murderer out of envy - murdering the first husband of his later wife to make her available for himself 

brother murderer - out of greed, to gain the inheritance of his wife, to ascertain his succession into power

king murderer - to fulfill his duty towards his oldest brother King Edward IV.

murderer of Scotts - good that was war and ordered by his brother and no closer sources are available about that, but we certainly can invent some kind of case around that 

child murderer - to gain power

wife murderer - to fulfill his duty as king, to ascertain a secure bloodline and consequential peace for his country

friend murderer - to ascertain and continue in his ill-gained position as king and defeat all opposition.



We should note, that except for his wife, King Richard III was very friendly towards women and tried to avoid killing those. So, unlike Jack the Ripper, his preference clearly was on men.
That could make it a decidedly good role for Richard Armitage and his female fans ;o)

Getting rid of, ... - sorry, just read a book about a court case, where the end-consequence really lead me to feel happy that some of the men were just...
I would not have even stopped at the end and had some more candidates I would have gotten rid of as author. Unfortunately, the real author of the book did not agree with me on that and left some of the annoying men alive at the end.


But King Richard, the murderer, we already discussed in the last post as well. That is the most common interpretation of his character.

The interesting thing about King Richard III is that he has - or could be manipulated/interpreted into having - so many more character traits to make him the ideal subject for a film crew.

Just to list a few which readily came to my mind:

• The forgiving brother / husband / son / guardian.
• The frightened child.
• The fearful and uprooted son.
• The carefree participant of social games and play at his home in Middleham.
• The loving husband.
• The learned / well educated scholar.
• The pious man.
• The obedient subject to his king and older brother Edward IV.
• The able ruler.
• The observant creator and founder.
• The open-minded and loyal friend.
• The power-sensitive observer.
• The patient creator and taker of opportunities.
• The brave warrior.
• The envious brother.
• The greedy husband, marrying an exceedingly wealthy dowry, not the woman. (Though it was disputed and needed a good and long fight to achieve it.)
• The power crazy conniver.
• The devilish single-minded king.
• The forgiving patron of York.
• The able and merciful ruler over England.
• The political tactician.
• The far planning patron of trade.
• The wise founder of learning & universities (Cambridge, Kings College).
• The supporter of liberty and free spreading of knowledge. (Printing trade)
• The straight forward fighter in conflict.
• The defender of the weak.

There is not really much of an emotional sentiment you cannot in some way or other dump on King Richard III.
Is it possibly not too few murder cases but too much drama in King Richard III's life for film makers?
Are they not able to cope with such a multitude, after all, not even Shakespeare could cope with all of it and was only able to show an un-recognizable excerpt of King Richard III's life in his drama?


Is King Richard III just too much for the abilities of today's film makers?


Still, I believe Richard Armitage could do better than what was previously done with the subject.

If you agree with me, please sign the KingRichardArmitage Petition!

---

King Richard Armitage Week 2013

(Picture of Richard Armitage is an edited version of this picture - source: RichardArmitageNet.com - by Robert Ascroft)

Jack the Ripper & King Richard III

Jack the Ripper got more screen appearances than King Richard III (admittedly leaving out the Shakespeare drama, as that is not really about the historical person Richard III. Shakespeare's drama is about as accurate as a fable is to explain the world).

But to follow my argument, why does the historical figure King Richard III not get any more attention and screen time, when Jack the Ripper is so attractively positioned on screen?

It certainly can't be that King Richard III's supposed brutality keeps him from getting a dedicated film, as his brutality seems to draw the most attention.

So maybe we can come up with some more murder cases Richard III might have committed during his short life of just 32 years to get him his own film?

We at least have a good sample in Shakespeare, how we may proceed to invent some new murder cases for Richard III.

At least, during his lifetime, quite a few people died an unnatural death, even if for some he might have been just too young to hold the sword. But that did not keep Shakespeare from it, why should we hesitate?

As I have heard from legal comments about King Richard III, the king of a country in the last consequence is responsible for all that happens in his country.
That may be a good starting point to find some new accusations against him, at least for the last two years of his life.

Now I need to go and search for some murder cases during his lifetime, King Richard can be burdened with...


I wonder, may that be the reason why the Tudors get all the attention?
Was King Richard III just too harmless and nice compared to them?

---

King Richard Armitage Week 2013

(Picture of Richard Armitage is an edited version of this picture - source: RichardArmitageNet.com - by Robert Ascroft)

Belated Happy Birthday Wishes

I know I am late - about ... - with everything, especially with birthday greetings.
And I recognized I already have over 50 draft mails - I send mails into draft status, when I need to answer someone - so I presume that won't change any time soon.

Glitter-graphics.com

But perhaps this little mouse shows, why my greetings needed such a long time to arrive ;o)
The cake just was so heavy...
So now, before continuing with being late, finally I join the fandom with...

Happy Birthday

Glitter-graphics.com

Glitter-graphics.com

to Mr. Armitage here on my personal blog.

The KingRichardArmitage Week 2013 is going on and the quiz runs fine there (though I am still in need of a 100% answer - there was I thinking I made the quiz much too easy.)


After my last post, in which I revealed my fighting stance, I now must reveal parts of what brought me back to consider that all my fighting was just defense on the outside, while on the inside I am hopelessly lost and committed. I am just trying to come to terms with it somehow and what I am best at is, fighting and being prickly on the outside.

What made me realise that it was a totally hopeless effort and through all the emotional upheaval my fight brought me, the one constant still remained the calming, soothing effect RA has on me.

Why I think every fighting on my side is totally hopeless:

• He is my sole infatuation (Nobody else far and wide, not even a slight interest.)

• I went around town and inadvertently looked into a shop window of an exclusive men's store, exhibiting a male model with an aubergine jacket. My immediate only thought was: "That would look nice on RA."
  Considering that I don't even like to select or buy clothes for myself, that really was an astonishing experience ;o)
  (The only exception with clothes is selecting a tie for my father, but as he rarely wears one nowadays, the last one I selected was years ago.)

• I feel connected to his dreams. Not that I dream about him - if I do, I mostly can't remember anyway.
  But I feel that it is bodily and mentally important to me and my life that he can reach his dreams.

You surely are not surprised about that, after all I am doing the KRA-website, but the totality of that effect for my real life overwhelmed me.
The fighting helped me a bit to determine and dissect the totality, the mega-importance, draw it into question, look at it from all sides, could the effect be broken somehow, why was it there in the first place, what could be done about it,..
Why his dreams, not somebody else's? Why this and not something which would help me? Why does he take precedent, when I could use a bit of that importance for myself?
Why is it so important to me that he gets where he wants?

The sole answer I so far came up with is:
Part of why I want him so much to reach his dreams is, because I continuously and always need to fight hard for every small bit I want to reach. If luck could look the other way, in my case it certainly does. So what I want I am well prepared to work hard to get it.

After all those experiences, I just want to make it a tiny bit easier for him to reach his dreams.

So my belated birthday wishes are:

Happy Birthday

&

May all your happy dreams come true!

Glitter-graphics.com

---

King Richard Armitage Week 2013

(Picture of Richard Armitage is an edited version of this picture - source: RichardArmitageNet.com - by Robert Ascroft)

For a While Now

For a while now, I have had problems publishing posts here on my blog.

For a change – not technical problems, but a feeling of uncertainty about if the tone of my articles would be right here and right for the fandom.

And this all before the great and - at least from me - hotly anticipated

King Richard Armitage Week 2013

I have kept back many articles I already wrote.
In the end – I must say – I come back to my first position.
This place is for me to develop my ideas and my English.
(I hope you don’t mind or just swap reading, when I don't entirely follow my otherwise strictly obeyed rule: "when you have nothing positive to say, keep your mouth shut".)
;o)

In this sense, not all my future articles will meet with all your consent or even will try to find one.
They might reveal more about me or not, but always will be short glimpses of me, not allowing you a complete picture.
Why should you have it any better than I have it myself? ;o)

I am trying to explore my depths, my interests, my abilities, my creativity and the person I am (which might change from day to day, depending on how confident I feel).
This also includes my passions, my anger and my aversions, which, I can assure you, are never directed against a person, but against a bad result that may in my opinion be reached and might have been avoidable. So criticism never is a personal fight against someone, but a fight to achieve something for the better.

I will work through some of my old posts and will try to push them out – when they still contain some relevant thoughts.
As I am no chronicler of RA-world, most things will not have any ‘read-by’-date.
You will most likely know that of me by now, my head strays to whatever it likes, in its own time and on its own schedule.


What made me so very restless lately also was, that I tried to fight my RA-obsession.
I can comfort you - I did not succeed.
But with fascinating RA, how could I ever?
You will more likely ask, why I even bothered to try.
;o)

Well, now, that is a difficult topic in itself.
Perhaps, I feared I could fall out of fandom someday and wanted to preempt the sorrow? Do it now and cut the bonds holding me?

Really hard to say why I tried and I can't give you a clear answer to that, except that I always try to not depend on something or at least see and discover the most about the bonds holding me and see what they mean to me, what extent they have, what they make me do, what they can do with me, how far I go and how far they reach, ...

Perhaps, because I feared the bonds could become grey (tztztz - shaking my head ;o) - not that 'grey', just the colour grey) and loose their clear black and white shading and I just wanted to ascertain their clear, undisturbed, pure and wholesome hold over me?


Thankfully, the one constant still is the guarding and nourishing presence in all thoughts, RA.


And I once again accept his status and effect on me, though I still have not totally left my fighting stance to find the borders of his hold over me.


But now that I start to accept my time of fighting, I more easily can go over and celebrate the 22nd and the upcoming

King Richard Armitage Week 2013

(Picture of Richard Armitage is an edited version of this picture - source: RichardArmitageNet.com - by Robert Ascroft)