The gifts have been revealed, with author identity from the get go. Rec posts to follow in the days ahead, but for now, just what I wrote, and what I got. I was matched in The Borgias, and my prompt asked for Sancia. Who shows up only in a few season 1 episodes and has not many scenes in them, so she was a rare woman indeed. But I enjoyed fleshing her out wiht a bit of history and speculation, and besides, outsider takes on the ensemble are always fun to write. And thus, I wrote my first Borgias fanfiction:

More composition and fierce quality (6108 words) by Selena
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Borgias
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Sancia & Vannozza, Sancia & Rodrigo Borgia, Sancia/Juan Borgia, Sancia & Alfonso, Sancia & Lucrezia Borgia, Rodrigo Borgia/Vannozza dei Cattanei, Sancia & Ferrante of Naples, Sancia/Gioffre Borgia
Characters: Sancia (Borgias), Rodrigo Borgia, Vannozza dei Cattanei, Juan Borgia, Lucrezia Borgia, Alfonso (Borgias), Alfonso of Aragon, Cesare Borgia, Gioffre Borgia
Summary:

Sancia and the art of survival among the Borgias.

One of my requests had been for Margaret of York, for reasons touched upon in a post I wrote a year ago and because Margaret the survivor always intrigued me, so I was delighted I got a tale about her from Planatagenet expert lareinenoire:

Queen of Swords (5260 words) by La Reine Noire
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 15th Century CE RPF
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Characters: Margaret of York, Richard III of England, Edward IV of England, Mary of Burgundy, Cecily Neville Duchess of York
Additional Tags: Off-screen Character Death, Court Factionalism, Uncivil War, Epic Yorkist Fail
Summary:

For the duchess of Burgundy, there are no easy decisions.

I still haven't read all the stories and fandoms I want to expore, there are that many this year. :) But here is a second bunch of reccomendations:

Singin' In The Rain: Top Billing

What happened to Lina Lamont and Cosmo Brown after the film. The author hit on the ingeneous idea of letting Lina essentially become Hedda Hopper (who was a film actress before switching to becoming one of the two lethal gossip journalists of Hollywood), while Cosmo gets into script writing in earnest, and the zingers fly while Hollywood is Hollywood.

Star of the Guardians: Sanctuary

I think I may have mentioned before, years ago, that among the many, many Star Wars inspired space operas, this one, a series of novels by Margaret Weis is my clear favourite. Given the central relationship in it is between friends/lovers-turned-enemies-turned-allies-where-trust-is-a-big-question, how could it not? The simplest explanation for non readers is probably: think Leia and Obi-Wan Kenobi as one and the same character (the Lady Maigrey Morianna), with a telepathic link to the Darth Vader character (Derek Sagan), whether or not they're currently enemies or allies. This story is set after the novels end and probably makes no sense if you haven't read them, but it captures their dynamic beautifully.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Familiar

At Ezri's zhian'tara, she is most nervous about meeting the most recent former host of the Dax symbiont. I'm fond of Dax in various incarnations, and this one was written beautifully. The Ezri-Jadzia-in-Kasidy encounter is the well deserved climax, but I confess I had a particular soft spot for Curzon-in-Quark.

Norse Mythology: The Lidless Eyes of Night

Sigyn is holding the bowl. Fantastic fleshing out of a character somewhat obscure in the myths, Loki's wife Sigyn. Pulls no punches.

Looper: Across The Sea: impossible to describe in an unspoilery fashion, and the film is still relatively new, so I shan't try. Let's just say it's an intense portrayal of the three main characters that deals with some of the central questions of the film.

Homeland:

The Spy's Guide To Survivor's Guilt: Carrie after season 2. A possible future. Excellent ensemble use, and I love the Carrie-Dana encouner in particular.

L'Dor Vador: Backstory for Saul and Carrie, Saul's pov. How their relationship was forged. A magnificent Saul voice.

Adrian Mole Diaries For Historical Characters:

I picked this header because there are actually two this Yuletide, and they're both hilarious, one for Alexander the Great and one for Augustine. The Augustine one has already been recced all over the place, but I'll link it anyway, because it's just that good:

The Very Secret Diaries of Saint Augustine

404
Correspondence Jerome continues. Infuriating. Do not understand why he does not see my point! Translation of "gourd" vital to understanding of gospels.

And then we have young Alexander, Achilles and Patroklos fanboy extraordinaire, whose parents just don't get it:

The Not Remotely Secret Memoirs of Alexander the Great, Aged 13¾

When will I meet my own Patroklos??? Father has dozens of lovers, and six wives to boot. I only want one! Well, I suppose I’ll need a Queen someday, as well, but one of those will be quite enough, too.


Dollhouse: Documentation

As far as Whedon shows are concerned, I think of Dollhouse as an interesting and sometimes even fascinating failure, but it had its moments and most definitely its actors. Some of the characters stuck with me, which is why I still check out the fanfic at Yuletide, and I'm glad I did, because this Topher portrait just about kills me.

I just saw that I have not one but two as yet mysterious and veiled stories in my gift box, so someone wrote a treat for me. This makes me very happy and even more gleeful at the prospect of Yuletide, which is good, since reading the news this morning is more inclined to make one hoping for satire or filled with rage. Or both. Reality is such a tv show, it's not even a little bit funny, except that you have to laugh sometimes or wish to strangle someone. Or at the very least slap them with a fish, thank you, internet, for teaching me this non lethal alternative.

In more pleasant news, this week we had the 200th anniversary of the publication of a certain collection assembled and rewritten by two German professors. I've already written a post about why the Brothers Grimm were cool a while ago, so I'll simply relink it. Also, yesterday was Gauda Prime day, the coincidence of which makes me think hat the Grimms would have appreciated Blake's 7, though Jacob, being a member of the revolutionary parliament of 1848, would probably have hoped for another ending. Still, being fans of the then newly rediscovered Nibelungenlied, the Grimms would have gone with Gauda Prime and wouldn't have written fix its, as much as they'd have collected tales of what Blake was up to during s3 and s4. :)

I sometimes joke that the Grimms would be ideal for modern fandom if anything resembling their actual lives were written or filmed - they make both the Winchesters and Petrellis look distant and restrained in sheer sibling co dependency terms, they were Genius Abrasive Sarcastic Guy and Mild Mannered Social But Sometimes Passive Aggressive Guy long before Holmes and Watson ever were invented, and Wilhelm's wife Dorothea even joked about her two husbands, so they offer something for friends of threesomes as well - but maybe we're lucky a Grimm fandom doesn't exist, for with it would come shipper wars. Recently I checked out fail_fandom, which I sometimes do, and lo and behold, there were embittered Alexander/Hephaistion fans accusing Mary Renault of inflicting Bagoas, that Mary Sue, on their pairing. Which, as amenirdis once put it, has to be one of the oldest shipping wars ever, seeing as Alexander himself inflicted Bagoas on himself. (Also, seriously, if you think Renault is anti-Hephaistion, you haven't read Fire in Heaven. There is a difference between what the narrator thinks and what the author thinks, by all Olympians, to stay in the period. Oh, and also, if Renault is writing any character as too good to be true, it's neither Bagoas nor Hephaistion, both of whom are very human and real, it's Alexander himself.) (I'm rooting for Bagoas/Lydias anyway, thanks, jo_graham, for giving me this alternative.) I shudder to think what would happen if fandom really had a go at the Grimms. Poor Dortchen would be accused of Coming Between Them (never mind that she didn't), and there would be complaints about a woman sullying the slash. Also, the arrival of Savigny in the lives of the brothers would give an out to those fans who really aren't into incest - what with him rescuing Jacob from librarian hell - and then the shipping wars would really commence....

Nah. They're better off without a fandom. I think?

Long, long before "putting the characters of fandom X into a completely different era/setting" AU became such a popular trope in many a fandom, novelist Susan Howatch made a living out of it. She wrote multi generation family sagas that transported the Plantagents into the first half of the 20th century, and did the same thing for the early Julio-Claudians while she was at it. Not all of these novels are equally successful (either in terms of quality or sales), but I like a great many of them, and one I downright love. Surprisingly enough, it's not the one about my favourite Planatagenets. (My problem with that novel, Penmarric (about Henry II, Eleanor of Aquitaine and kids), is as an AU, I have severe problems with several of the equivalents because she flipped the social standing in a key relationship around and that just doesn't work (you can't make Eleanor a poor barely literate widow, Ms. Howatch! Still-a-measly-duke Henry married majorly up, not down, when he got the richest woman of Europe and just divorced queen of France for a wife), and on its own merits, it still isn't as layered as her other books.) No, it's the one about those fellows recently featured in The Hollow Crown. But one of the great things about The Wheel of Fortune is that it really does work on its own merits. Figuring out who is who in terms of British history is just for additional kicks.

The Wheel of Fortune has all the Susan Howatch trademarks: multiple narrators, witty dialogue, a murder mystery or two hidden in the narrative, and the clashing view points with their sympathy shifts as a big part of the story. Just when you're lulled into agreeing with one of the narrators and their estimation of everyone else, it's time for the next view point/narrator, and lo and behold, things and sympathies can look quite different indeed. Truth is multi-layered, and relationships aren't set in stone. She's also really good with capturing the respective eras, and with letting the characters be believably part of those eras, instead of indulging my pet peevein historical novels, i.e. give all the sympathetic characters completely progressive view points and hand out the period bias and prejudices only to the vile ones. It's never that easy. The main setting is Oxmoon, that (half) island on the silver sea, so to speak, the family heritage in Wales, gorgeously described.

( Details about the book with some spoilers follow )

One of many reasons to love fandom: it gives you over 70 comments debating centuries dead kings, queens and the way they're written, including the trivia that there is a novel in which King John calles his penis 'Raoul', which I am sure you all wanted to know. You can thank me (and angevin2 who supplied me with this information) later. Now the last months have stirred Jossverse nostalgia in me (not just "Buffyverse" since the term would exclude the Los Angeles branch), with the occasional reminder of what I don't miss. (Apparantly first people were upset Mark of capslock and Mark Watches fame doesn't mention Spike often enough in his reviews, and then people were upset other people were upset and posted fandomsecrets about it? See, londonkds, this is why I'm staying out of the Spike wars.) Anyway, the fandom part I am nostalgic for definitely includes shiny meta, like this essay about Once More With Feelings.

Since I was in shiny Jossverse meta mood, I reread this splendid essay about Wesley and the various personas he goes through on both shows, by versaphile. And then it hit me what Wes and his repeated self recreations reminded me of: Breaking Bad. The last season of which is about to start, so I was thrilled to read frenchani's new essay about Walter White.

In conclusion: meta is fun. And now excuse me while I hum Standing in the Way and wonder for the nth time whether or not the Merlin producers should have found an excuse to let Uther sing.

Travelling with various air planes and trains through Italy left me with time to read Lindsey Davis' newest novel, Master and God. Now Lindsey Davis is most famous for her series of Roman mysteries centered around one Marcus Didius Falco, but she also writes non-Falco historical novels, of which this, as far as I know, is the third. The first one, The Course of Honour, about Caenis, the slavegirl-going-freedwoman who starts out working for Antonia and ends up as Vespasian's life long lover, I enjoyed but fund it oddly dry for what is definitely an interesting subject. The second one, Rebels and Traitors, set during the English Civil War I loved until the last 40 pages or so, which was when the story took a turn that felt like an incredibly let down and very bizarre. But until then, it was everything I had hoped the tv series The Devil's Whore would be and wasn't, the story of an interesting determined woman making her way between parties during the Civil War, with characters from both sides written more dimensionally and sympathetically. Now, with Master and God she is back in the Rome of the Flavians again. If you know your history, this is what Domitian called himself - dominus et deus - and the book covers his reign, though the main characters are two more or less invented ones, Gaius Vinius Clodianus (spending most of the book as a Pretorian) and Flavia Lucilla (hairdresser and freedwoman of the Flavians). They're the archetypical Davis pairing of wise-cracking guy and no-nonsense, unimpressed woman, and this time around, the result is enjoyable throughout the novel, so I don't always buy the obstacles Davis throws in their path.

Now, the the third volume of what is one of my all time favourite trilogy of historical novels by Lion Feuchtwanger also deals with the reign of Domitian, and is a vivid and chilling depiction of a dictatorship written during the Third Reich which nonetheless manages to avoid making Domitian into a Hitler avatar (which means he's a far better drawn character than Feuchtwanger's deliberate Hitler avatar in another novel he wrote at the same time, The False Nero), so my standard of writing for this era was pretty high. Nonetheless, Lindsey Davis managed to convincingly present her own version. Domitian, like Caligula, Nero or Caracalla, became a byword for the mad, bad and dangerous to know type of emperor, though not having the obvious madness of Caligula or the theatricalness of Nero (which reminds me: in Naples they show up the remains of the theatre where Nero performed - th roughout an earthquake, no less, where he insisted the audience was to stay in order not to miss his performance), he doesn't get nearly as much fictional treatment. What surprised me is that Davis is subtle about him. As opposed to his appearance in her Falco novels, where he is already a villain during the reign of his father, her take on Domitian here is somewhat different; he starts out as a mixture of good and bad, and actually quite competent as an emperor, but the combination of paranoia, resentments from days past and absolute power with no more checks and balances combine to turn him and the Rome he rules more and more into a nightmare. Because these days inevitably I have the cinematic Marvelverse on the brain, it hit me that Davis' Domitian is in many ways Loki without the fannish woobie glasses, if, you know, Loki were to actually succeed/remain successful, aka how his uncontested rulership would turn out. Older brother (Titus) with military success, beloved by many, much closer to their father, father preferring same, while self is looked at as a sly schemer by social circle? Check. Traumatic event changing world view? (Domitian nearly gets roasted while his uncle is torn apart by the mob during the year of the four emperors.) Check. Short taste of rulership until Dad and Older Brother take it away again? (After Vespasian, still campaigning with Titus in Judea, is voted Emperor, 18 years old Domitian got to represent him in Rome until Vespasian was back in Italy.) And the narrative as well as Gaius Vinius isn't without sympathy for Domitian on that score, but it at no point excuses him for what he does therafter, and when Lucilla, who is an immensely adaptable survivor, finally says "whatever it takes, he has to be stopped", you're more than with her.

If I have one complaint, it's that Davis' auctorial voice, which is that of an Olympian, all-knowing narrator who occasionally points out that, for example, governor Trajan is going to end up as an emperor himself, is a bit of an odd choice, not least because such interjections are few and far; had she chosen to stick to the usual third person personal narrative, with no very occasional comments, it would have been just as effective. All in all: a good novel, and so far her best non-Falco one.


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Speaking of avatars, history, fictionalisations of same and Marvelverse cross connections, Shakespeare's histories have been filmed yet again, and here's Tom Hiddleston as Hal and Jeremy Irons as Henry IV from Henry IV, Part I. Colour me amused that the clip they choose is Hal getting chewed out by his father, not, say, any of the many other scenes where Hal is being in control and having a go at Falstaff. Maybe I'm paranoid (though as Domitian would say, it's not paranoia if they're really after you), but imo the choice reflects the popularity of Hiddleston's most successful role. Anyway, here they are:



Incidentally, angevin2 will appreciate that the way with which Irons!Henry IV rants about the late cousin Richard's behaviour allows for all sorts of subtext.


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Lastly, some links:


The Skins: a great multifandom vid about the various doppelgangers, clones and other selves haunting sci fi and fantasy. Creepy fun.


Avengers:

To shawarma or not to shawarma : Natasha’s still getting used to rubbing shoulders with living legends. One of the terrific results of The Avengers fandom post-movie release is that the film makes any combination of characters interacting interesting, and the resulting fanfic actually reflects that. Here, we get the combination of Natasha and Steve Rogers, with the rest of the ensemble making strong appearances as well.

If, like me, you've fond of history, a tad frustated that the Plantaganets never seem to get as much attentions as the Tudors do, fond of Doctor Who, and very fond of long, plotty, intellingent fanfiction, this is the (three chapters) tale for you:


The Winter of our Discontent: in which the Doctor and Jack Harkness end up in the Wars of the Roses, Jack hits it off (in every sense) with the future Edward IV (of course he does; this son of York was clever, morally ambiguous and in his youth supposedly the sex god of the age), the automatons from Girl in the Fireplace are back and and the Doctor gets confused with Merlin again. Also, which may be of interest if you've had a recent post of mine, Marguerite d'Anjou, Cecily Neville and Margaret of York all show up being formidable.


And now on to my solely growing collection of Avengers fiction links. All of which are written post movie, with mild spoilers for same. (I'm sorry, I know a lot of fantastic fanfiction was written pre-movie based on the various origin movies and guesswork, but now that I've seen the film, it doesn't really do it for me anymore because the dynamics and characterisations are either slightly or in some cases majorly off compared to what we got, and it's the people from the film proper I want to read about.)

Best Safety Lies In Fear: Bruce and Natasha post-movie.

Budapest: how Natasha and Clint roll.

Running over the same old ground: Natasha and Clint post-movie. Did I mention I love Natasha and her relationship with Clint a lot?

Contingency: Bruce & everyone else post-film. Angst and tentative friendships in a fine mixture.

On shadows and whether they suit you: Bruce & Tony leading to Bruce/Tony. Lab geeks unite!

So, James Boswell, whom I may have mentioned once or twice, was an 18th century man who really wanted to be liked. He also was a Tory. And yet, when it came to the American Revolution, his sympathies were were with the Revolutionaries throughout. Granted, he was Scottish, but it wasn't exactly a popular view to root for the Colonials in Scotland, either, and several preachers declared it was everyone's duty to pray for the King's troops and pray for the Americans' demise, which caused the religious and very anxious about it Boswell to switch churches to go to for a while at one point.

Have some diary entries:

Friday 8 November 1776: I had this day read an extraordinary Gazette with accounts of the King's troops having taken New York. I regretted it.

Thursday 12 December 1776: This was the fast appointed by the King to pray for success to his arms against the Americans. I paid no regard to it, but studied a confused cause and dicatated part of a paper upon it. At five I went by appointment to tea and cards at the Hon. Alexander Gordon's. MacLaurin was there. I maintained that it was shocking in a nation to pray to GOD for success in destroying another nation.

Sunday 5 January 1777: Heard Dr. Webster at the Tolbooth Church in the forenoon, and Warden of the Canongate in teh afternoon, imagining Mr. Walker was to preach. Was shocked with his praying against the Americans.

Sunday 16 February 1777: Heard Dr. Webster in the forenoon. Dined with him at my father's. He mentioned the success of his Majesty's arms today in his prayer in such a manner as hurt me, and I thought I should not hear him again while the war in America continued.

Sunday 1 March 1778: As Lord North had now brought in bills for conciliation with the Americans, our clergy who were for the violent measures could no longer pray in a hostile strain. So I went to hear Dr. Blair, from whose ministry I had absented myself for more than a year. I heard him again with much relish.

Don't be too hasty, Boswell. For:

Saturday 25 December 1779: Lay longer in bed than usual. (...) The town was illuminated on account of the news of a victory in Georgia over Count d'Estaing and the Americans. It gave me no pleasure, for I considered that it would only encourage a longer continuance of the ruinous war.

Thursday 3 February 1780: This was a fast by Proclamation. As I was dubious whether the Americans were not in the right to insist on independence, I did not go to church.

Friday 30 November 1781: The account of Lord Cornwallis's surrender came today. It pleased me much as I trusted it would at length put an end to the American war.

Saturday 1 December 1781: Restrained my joy on Lord Cornwallis's surrender, not to give offence. But it inspireted me, in so much that though for some time I had been quite lazy in the morning, relaxed and unable to rise, I this day sprung up. I supped at my father's. I was a little heated with wine. He had his old republican humour, reading the King's speech: 'What a clattering's this - my forces! I think he might have said OURS.

My Merlin muse came back and at last I could write the story about Arthur and Morgana I've been wanting to write throughout season 4. It's off to be beta'd now. Arthurian family dynamics are screwed up in any incarnation of the myth, but, to misquote Tolstoy about unhappy families, they're differently screwed up in every single one. Oh, messed up family dynamics, how I love you.

Speaking of messed up families: Game of Thrones has started and continues to be this weird thing which I can enjoy precisely because I'm not emotionally invested and thus do not fret for any of these people. I'll say ( nothing very spoilery, but I'm playing it safe just in case )

Historical aside: fannish osmosis tells me that Martin was vaguely inspired by the War of the Roses. It occurs to me that the most likely match for the Lannisters then might not be the Lancasters but the Woodvilles (though Edward IV. was a far smarter man and more competent king than Robert Baratheon; but he did overindulge himself to his death), except for the part where Tyrion is a transplanted very vague Richard III analogue, i.e. a York. Now A Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire prides itself on bringing gritty medieval realism to the fantasy genre, but personally, I find it rather telling that the later War of the Roses is actually chock full of matriarchs and female power players, Edward IV.'s queen Elizabeth Woodville and her mother Jacquetta being two of them, and singularly lacking in patriarchs (no Tywin Lannister equivalent around in any family, or any other influential patriarch, unless you count Warwick the Kingmaker who instead of being an icy cunning supermachiavellian was a egotastic, incredibly touchy diva dying due to believing in his own hype ). On the Lancaster side, we have Marguerite d'Anjou as the primary mover and shaker, saddled with an insane king at her side, and Margaret Beaufort whose son Henry Tudor is the endgame survivor of the lot in great parts due to her. On the York side, Cecilly Neville, the House of York matriarch, kept things going after the early death of her husband and one of her sons in battle, in the end outlived all her children except for two of her daughters, and her daughter Margaret of York as duchess of Burgundy didn't just provide backup and asylum for her brothers Edward and Richard during those times when York was losing but after the early death of her husband Charles the Bold ruled and saved the duchy. (You can easily make a case for Margaret being the most successful member of the House of York as a ruler, full stop.) All the Margarets in the War of the Roses were tough as nails. So were the Elizabeths, Elizabeth Woodville being one of the all time great pragmatists and survivors as she went from widow of a Lancastrian knight to Edward IV's's queen to coming to terms with Richard III. (whatever you think happened to the princes of the Tower) to seeing her daughter and namesake marry the last king standing, Henry Tudor. And you know what didn't happen to a single one of these women (as far as we know)? Rape. Insanity. Or an early death.

What are your five favourite sibling relationships?

A challenge after my own heart. Though alas, some potential choices due to their shows devolutions aren't usable any more (say, the Petrellis or Deb and Dexter Morgan) when they would have been on the list in earlier times. After much pondering, and with the caveat I have more loved siblings to offer, but had to limit myself to five, here we go:

1.) Buffy and Dawn, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. One reason why season 5 is my favourite is their relationship and the central focus it gets there. I remember how after the first Dawn episode, Real Me, got broadcast you could tell who'd been a younger and who'd been an older sibling by the reactions. (For the record, I was an older sister.:) From the comedy of Real Me to the tragic drama of The Gift, there was so much I recognized and identified with, I can't tell you. Not for nothing is my sole BtVS story that's set post show written around Buffy and Dawn.

2.) Claire, David and Nate Fisher, from Six Feet Under. I list all three rather than one individual pair of siblings among the fishers, because it's the combination which does it to me, and all their relationships with each other. Claire relates to her two older brothers differently and the way she relates to each of them changes as she grows up, Nate and David who are closer in age have some degree of the traditional competitive element, but what looks like a replay of the parable of the lost son in the pilot (one wild but most beloved by dad brother, one obedient stiff stay at home brother) turns out to be something quite different as they live with each other again. And for all that their respective love lives are important for the show (with the Nate/Brenda and David/Keith pairings providing key narratives, and Claire's, err, questionable taste in boyfriends becoming a tragicomedy of its own), Claire-David-Nate is its emotional core.

3.) The Endless, from The Sandman by Neil Gaiman. Speaking of sibling combinations and scenes that are golden. Whether it's Death being no-nonsense concerned older sister with Dream in Preludes and Nocturens, the messed up clusterfuck that is the Dream/Desire relationship, Delirium and any of her older siblings who can't help being protective even when being driven insane by her, Despair remembering that one moment when Destruction kissed her cheek and his variable good-natured kindness, or the everyone-but-Destruction-bickers family gatherings: Neil Gaiman portraying various anthrophomorphic personifications as dysfunctional siblings is one of my absolutely favourite things about the entire Sandman saga.

4.) Rom and Quark from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. I've said it before, I'll say it again; my favourite scene in the s5 finale is when Quark realises Rom hasn't left the station with Leeta, tells him to do so at once, and Rom objects Quark is staying, too. Quark says he's looking after the bar, Rom says he's looking after Quark, Quark says "you're an idiot" and kisses Rom on the head. It sums up their relationship, and why I love it, in two minutes.

5.) Lywelyn and Dafydd ap Gruffyd, both as portrayed by Sharon Penman and as portrayed by Edith Pargeter (aka Ellis Peters), with me slightly favouring the Penman incarnations. Sharon Penman is great with sibling relationships, good and bad, in general (my favourite thing about her first novel, The Sunne in Splendour, is the one between Edward IV. and Richard III.), so it's tricky to single one out, but this one still wins for the mixture of closeness/rivalry/betrayal/reconciliation. Also they make me cry. That's history for you.