Aug. 6th, 2012
Thirty Days of Borgias: Day Twenty-Five
Aug. 6th, 2012 07:52 pmDay 25 ~ Good riddance: Who have you not been sorry to see killed off?
In a fictional narrative involving historical characters, this is a tricky question because several of those deaths just had to happen, so to speak. Also, sometimes I think the death in question was entirely fitting for the story and character, but that doesn't mean I spent my days wishing the character away, just that it was good storytelling, and usually happened at exactly the right moment. Case in point: Savonarola. He was introduced in s1 in a minor role (only one episode, I believe), bcame a major antagonist in s2, and his death in the finale was just right in terms of how long in the fictionalized universe of the show he should be around, no more, no less. (Also, the way it came about didn't chicken out of depicting both the heroic side of Savonarola and the brutality of the clerical power the Borgias wielded, while not ignoring Savonarola's own previous use of said power.)
(Sidenote: I think the show set itself up with something of a problem re: Giuliano della Rovere. He can't die, because history, what with being the next pope, but the show also presented him as an unrelenting and unwilling to compromise antagonist, so when he won't get killed in the next season, they'll have to deliver a good in-show reason why.)
( The rest of the days )
In a fictional narrative involving historical characters, this is a tricky question because several of those deaths just had to happen, so to speak. Also, sometimes I think the death in question was entirely fitting for the story and character, but that doesn't mean I spent my days wishing the character away, just that it was good storytelling, and usually happened at exactly the right moment. Case in point: Savonarola. He was introduced in s1 in a minor role (only one episode, I believe), bcame a major antagonist in s2, and his death in the finale was just right in terms of how long in the fictionalized universe of the show he should be around, no more, no less. (Also, the way it came about didn't chicken out of depicting both the heroic side of Savonarola and the brutality of the clerical power the Borgias wielded, while not ignoring Savonarola's own previous use of said power.)
(Sidenote: I think the show set itself up with something of a problem re: Giuliano della Rovere. He can't die, because history, what with being the next pope, but the show also presented him as an unrelenting and unwilling to compromise antagonist, so when he won't get killed in the next season, they'll have to deliver a good in-show reason why.)
( The rest of the days )