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nrgburstI should really be writing fic BUT I need to unburden myself somewhere after several weeks of frustration in the #catherine de medici tag. Like come on tumblr. THIS SHIP IS AWESOME.
1. THIS IS A MEETING OF SELF-PROFESSED EQUALS.
Oh, Narcisse doesn't know it at first. He obviously had little idea of the kind of power Catherine wielded when he was introduced at the start of S2, seemingly more used to making the king yield to his demands than seeing her behind the scenes machinations. But Narcisse is no idiot. In the space of an episode (2x03), we see him go from trying to use her (as a tool to force Francis to cow to his demands) to grudging admiration of her subtle methods.
(And then after the coronation)
Narcisse: "You bought grain with your Medici money after all. Just not from me. A small amount. hardly enough to solve your son's problems, but... you weren't thinking about your son, were you?"
Catherine (smirking): "Now you're going to tell me what I think?"
Narcisse: "There's a village in the north, not far, not near. Your grain was delivered there: Compliments of Catherine de Medici."
(He smiles knowingly.) "I hear the townspeople are toasting your name. Catherine de Medici, their saviour."
(Catherine touches her breast and simpers as if deeply touched.)
Catherine: "I do what I have to do. For the people."
Narcisse: "You do it for yourself. To ensure that you are loved and protected, by at least some within the realm."
HOW DELICIOUS IS THIS. A man who has enough hard power to 1. figure out Catherine's game, 2. call her on it with zero fear for himself and 3. openly admire her strategy. And she has been advising Mary (and Francis) all along that he is someone to be reckoned with, that he is a noble with enough land, money and influence to refuse an order from the Crown.
Narcisse's access to power has fluctuated over the season but this mutual respect of the other's skill has remained a constant.
(2x09)
Narcisse: "You cannot support this engagement."
Catherine: "Do I look pleased? But I am not a king."
Narcisse: "Pity. You would have made a good one. To what might have been."
(they clink glasses)
(from 2x13)
Narcisse: "Catherine. We are both veterans of the game, are we not? So I hope you'll forgive the question. But isn't it possible that you don't have syphilis-- but that you've been poisoned?"
(She rolls her eyes.) Catherine: "Don't you think I take precautions? My system of food tasters is impeccable."
Narcisse: "I meant no offense."
And by 2x19:
Maybe it's just because I don't like ships with a huge power imbalance (which is almost always weighed heavily in favor of the male, LBR) because there's no real back and forth tug the way there is between equals. And the potential for this power couple working together? Is like Frary plus deviousness and experience (and minus moral scruples and crippling debt). They were both so gleeful at their own deviousness in that last scene AND SO WAS I. <3
Narcisse has had to earn his way back into her good graces after trying to undermine and overthrow Francis for the first ten eps of the season, but I think it's been shown how he went about this. And she's still very aware of exactly who he is.
(2x14)
Catherine: "Stop. I'm very grateful for all the help that you've given but a poisoned Bible, revisiting my husband's madness, death at my son's hands: they all remind me of your blackmail. The choices that you forced Francis to make and all that it cost him."
Narcisse: "Lives were lost, I grant-"
Catherine: "Don't argue with me. Make it up to me and my son."
(Slight tangent because so many people complain she's OOC blinded by the sex/her feeeelings and WHAT???
1. He takes a huge step forward in "making it up to her" by seemingly uncovering (and dispatching) the one who had hatched the poison Bible plot (2x13 and 14). He sneakily turns the situation to his advantage in the end, but Narcisse was being genuinely helpful when he realized that Catherine was being poisoned.
2. When her worst fear (losing Francis as prophesized) seems to be coming true (in 2x17), Narcisse steps in to support and comfort her, like a propergentleman shark. He's no Nostradamus. But I'm not with the people who claim that this is 100% manipulation either, because the narrative itself doesn't support that? There's no smug reaction shot or reveal. the framing is that he finds her attractive, and her intelligence and power are part of that pull. And he took the opportunity when she panicked, as she has done before over this prophecy in S1, so that's not OOC either.
3. (2x18:) She still doesn't fully trust him despite having let her guard down once.
4. It's further revealed in 2x19 she's still having him followed even though they've been lovers for weeks.
5. She blatantly gives him a test of his loyalties in 2x20 right after a little afternoon delight.
Like I think it's been fairly well demonstrated that she isn't blind to what he's capable of at all, even if it's human nature to be swayed by the ones we are intimate with?)
(2x19) No, seriously. It really does seem to turn them both on to be with someone who is both powerful and dangerous. :D
Narcisse: "I have a few ideas about my return to court."
Catherine (amused): "Do you never stop calculating?"
Narcisse: "No. Never."
Narcisse: "You could dispatch the Prince of Conde permanently. It does come with a caveat. A few men would have to die."
Catherine: "Men die every day in France. I'm listening."
Like it's not just being unapologetic about being ruthless. It's that they both think that it's HOT.
And some of the "I see to the dark heart of you" insights are actually important, uncomfortable truths that can help both of them grow?
(2x14)
Narcisse: "Well, I assumed that you were done with... all that."
Catherine: "Men, you mean? Did you think that just because YOU don't entertain women my age that no men do?"
Narcisse: "You judge me unfairly."
Catherine: "Oh, I've seen the women you pursue."
Well, okay maybe this doesn't help Narcisse ~grow so much as expand his horizons, but this venture into using soft power instead of hard is actually working really well for him. And their last interaction makes one wonder if love is really impossible between two older, jaded sharks:
(2x20)
Narcisse: "You needed to do this because your husband bedded every woman he liked throughout your marriage and you came out of it thinking you were unlovable so you used power to make me true."
Catherine: "Don't flatter yourself. It's not your love that I seek but your ALLEGIANCE."
Narcisse: "You have that. But-- as a FRIEND, I warn you: beware."
Catherine: (scoffs) "Of you?"
Narcisse: "Of YOURSELF. Don't be the first to destroy something because you don't trust that it's REAL. Give up this idea that no one can KNOW you and still LOVE you!"
I don't know that anybody else would have been able to address Catherine's Henry issues. Like it cuts right to her most vulnerable core and reassures her at the same time. I was all !!!! at the brutal honesty and compassion of this conversation. (They are also such similar personalities that Narcisse could well be referring to himself in that last sentence. Which is awesome, even if it potentially spells doom for my ship. LOL)
Catherine is still very protective of herself, and wary of Narcisse because well, she's getting in bed with a shark and she knows it. But they accept and appreciate the other and perhaps in the process, themselves. I LOVE that.
3. THEY ARE BOTH HAVING A HELLA GOOD TIME
(From 2x20)
JUST LOOK AT HOW DECADENT THEY ARE. Silk sheets and wine (and plotting to dispose of Conde) in bed in the afternoon. The delightful verbal sparring with clever double entendres! I was despairing at the spoilers that Catherine was going to get a lover this season when she got Ghost!Henry mid-season (giving me horrible Grey's Anatomy flashbacks). Plus check out that butterfly birthmark on his wrist, a callback to the "lover that towers above all others" reference from 2x05. Catherine is the one that got Narcisse after a whole season of ship teasing with younger women. OMG WRITERS I COULD KISS YOU. YES OLDER WOMEN (AND EVEN MOTHERS ZOMG!) HAVE SEX AND IT'S AN ONGOING PART OF THEIR LIVES NO MATTER WHAT MOST MEDIA PREACHES.
However, it seems that they both realize she's determined to keep him at arms' length emotionally. And it looks like the last couple eps are going to be un-peachy for Catcisse this season, judging from the episode blurbs? I'm really happy with what we've gotten though, and part of what I find so compelling about them coming together is that they were inevitably going to be pulled apart by their differing needs and opinions. *sigh* That's the thing about power couples. Also I haven't forgotten Nostradamus' prophecy about Narcisse dying in agony or Narcisse's dark, dastardly words with Antoinne in 2x14.But would it really be so awful for them to rule France after Franky kicks it?
1. THIS IS A MEETING OF SELF-PROFESSED EQUALS.
Oh, Narcisse doesn't know it at first. He obviously had little idea of the kind of power Catherine wielded when he was introduced at the start of S2, seemingly more used to making the king yield to his demands than seeing her behind the scenes machinations. But Narcisse is no idiot. In the space of an episode (2x03), we see him go from trying to use her (as a tool to force Francis to cow to his demands) to grudging admiration of her subtle methods.
(And then after the coronation)
Narcisse: "You bought grain with your Medici money after all. Just not from me. A small amount. hardly enough to solve your son's problems, but... you weren't thinking about your son, were you?"
Catherine (smirking): "Now you're going to tell me what I think?"
Narcisse: "There's a village in the north, not far, not near. Your grain was delivered there: Compliments of Catherine de Medici."
(He smiles knowingly.) "I hear the townspeople are toasting your name. Catherine de Medici, their saviour."
(Catherine touches her breast and simpers as if deeply touched.)
Catherine: "I do what I have to do. For the people."
Narcisse: "You do it for yourself. To ensure that you are loved and protected, by at least some within the realm."
HOW DELICIOUS IS THIS. A man who has enough hard power to 1. figure out Catherine's game, 2. call her on it with zero fear for himself and 3. openly admire her strategy. And she has been advising Mary (and Francis) all along that he is someone to be reckoned with, that he is a noble with enough land, money and influence to refuse an order from the Crown.
Narcisse's access to power has fluctuated over the season but this mutual respect of the other's skill has remained a constant.
(2x09)
Narcisse: "You cannot support this engagement."
Catherine: "Do I look pleased? But I am not a king."
Narcisse: "Pity. You would have made a good one. To what might have been."
(they clink glasses)
(from 2x13)
Narcisse: "Catherine. We are both veterans of the game, are we not? So I hope you'll forgive the question. But isn't it possible that you don't have syphilis-- but that you've been poisoned?"
(She rolls her eyes.) Catherine: "Don't you think I take precautions? My system of food tasters is impeccable."
Narcisse: "I meant no offense."
And by 2x19:
Maybe it's just because I don't like ships with a huge power imbalance (which is almost always weighed heavily in favor of the male, LBR) because there's no real back and forth tug the way there is between equals. And the potential for this power couple working together? Is like Frary plus deviousness and experience (and minus moral scruples and crippling debt). They were both so gleeful at their own deviousness in that last scene AND SO WAS I. <3
2. THEY KNOW AND ACCEPT EACH OTHER, DESPITE (OR EVEN BECAUSE) OF THEIR UGLIER BITS.
They have known each other a very long time, even when they were married to other people. And they both admire how potentially duplicitous, murderous and manipulative the other is. Like it takes skill to get this good at the game?
Honestly I started shipping them from the familiarity they displayed in 2x02 when Catherine seemed genuinely distraught when giving Narcisse her sympathies over the loss of his son. And this scene from 2x03 SEALED THE DEAL. UGH. LOOK AT HOW EASILY FAMILIAR THEY ARE.
They have known each other a very long time, even when they were married to other people. And they both admire how potentially duplicitous, murderous and manipulative the other is. Like it takes skill to get this good at the game?
Honestly I started shipping them from the familiarity they displayed in 2x02 when Catherine seemed genuinely distraught when giving Narcisse her sympathies over the loss of his son. And this scene from 2x03 SEALED THE DEAL. UGH. LOOK AT HOW EASILY FAMILIAR THEY ARE.
Narcisse has had to earn his way back into her good graces after trying to undermine and overthrow Francis for the first ten eps of the season, but I think it's been shown how he went about this. And she's still very aware of exactly who he is.
(2x14)
Catherine: "Stop. I'm very grateful for all the help that you've given but a poisoned Bible, revisiting my husband's madness, death at my son's hands: they all remind me of your blackmail. The choices that you forced Francis to make and all that it cost him."
Narcisse: "Lives were lost, I grant-"
Catherine: "Don't argue with me. Make it up to me and my son."
(Slight tangent because so many people complain she's OOC blinded by the sex/her feeeelings and WHAT???
1. He takes a huge step forward in "making it up to her" by seemingly uncovering (and dispatching) the one who had hatched the poison Bible plot (2x13 and 14). He sneakily turns the situation to his advantage in the end, but Narcisse was being genuinely helpful when he realized that Catherine was being poisoned.
2. When her worst fear (losing Francis as prophesized) seems to be coming true (in 2x17), Narcisse steps in to support and comfort her, like a proper
3. (2x18:) She still doesn't fully trust him despite having let her guard down once.
4. It's further revealed in 2x19 she's still having him followed even though they've been lovers for weeks.
5. She blatantly gives him a test of his loyalties in 2x20 right after a little afternoon delight.
Like I think it's been fairly well demonstrated that she isn't blind to what he's capable of at all, even if it's human nature to be swayed by the ones we are intimate with?)
(2x19) No, seriously. It really does seem to turn them both on to be with someone who is both powerful and dangerous. :D
Narcisse: "I have a few ideas about my return to court."
Catherine (amused): "Do you never stop calculating?"
Narcisse: "No. Never."
Narcisse: "You could dispatch the Prince of Conde permanently. It does come with a caveat. A few men would have to die."
Catherine: "Men die every day in France. I'm listening."
Like it's not just being unapologetic about being ruthless. It's that they both think that it's HOT.
And some of the "I see to the dark heart of you" insights are actually important, uncomfortable truths that can help both of them grow?
(2x14)
Narcisse: "Well, I assumed that you were done with... all that."
Catherine: "Men, you mean? Did you think that just because YOU don't entertain women my age that no men do?"
Narcisse: "You judge me unfairly."
Catherine: "Oh, I've seen the women you pursue."
Well, okay maybe this doesn't help Narcisse ~grow so much as expand his horizons, but this venture into using soft power instead of hard is actually working really well for him. And their last interaction makes one wonder if love is really impossible between two older, jaded sharks:
(2x20)
Narcisse: "You needed to do this because your husband bedded every woman he liked throughout your marriage and you came out of it thinking you were unlovable so you used power to make me true."
Catherine: "Don't flatter yourself. It's not your love that I seek but your ALLEGIANCE."
Narcisse: "You have that. But-- as a FRIEND, I warn you: beware."
Catherine: (scoffs) "Of you?"
Narcisse: "Of YOURSELF. Don't be the first to destroy something because you don't trust that it's REAL. Give up this idea that no one can KNOW you and still LOVE you!"
I don't know that anybody else would have been able to address Catherine's Henry issues. Like it cuts right to her most vulnerable core and reassures her at the same time. I was all !!!! at the brutal honesty and compassion of this conversation. (They are also such similar personalities that Narcisse could well be referring to himself in that last sentence. Which is awesome, even if it potentially spells doom for my ship. LOL)
Catherine is still very protective of herself, and wary of Narcisse because well, she's getting in bed with a shark and she knows it. But they accept and appreciate the other and perhaps in the process, themselves. I LOVE that.
3. THEY ARE BOTH HAVING A HELLA GOOD TIME
(From 2x20)
JUST LOOK AT HOW DECADENT THEY ARE. Silk sheets and wine (and plotting to dispose of Conde) in bed in the afternoon. The delightful verbal sparring with clever double entendres! I was despairing at the spoilers that Catherine was going to get a lover this season when she got Ghost!Henry mid-season (giving me horrible Grey's Anatomy flashbacks). Plus check out that butterfly birthmark on his wrist, a callback to the "lover that towers above all others" reference from 2x05. Catherine is the one that got Narcisse after a whole season of ship teasing with younger women. OMG WRITERS I COULD KISS YOU. YES OLDER WOMEN (AND EVEN MOTHERS ZOMG!) HAVE SEX AND IT'S AN ONGOING PART OF THEIR LIVES NO MATTER WHAT MOST MEDIA PREACHES.
However, it seems that they both realize she's determined to keep him at arms' length emotionally. And it looks like the last couple eps are going to be un-peachy for Catcisse this season, judging from the episode blurbs? I'm really happy with what we've gotten though, and part of what I find so compelling about them coming together is that they were inevitably going to be pulled apart by their differing needs and opinions. *sigh* That's the thing about power couples. Also I haven't forgotten Nostradamus' prophecy about Narcisse dying in agony or Narcisse's dark, dastardly words with Antoinne in 2x14.
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no subject
Date: 2015-05-06 03:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-05-06 04:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-05-06 10:46 am (UTC)OMG SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS POST!!!
:DDD
I'll be back to comment at greater length once I've read it, YAAAY
no subject
Date: 2015-05-06 01:14 pm (UTC)Also yay! I'm wondering if I should just leave the tangent bit out to make it flow better. And to not piss off people if I cross post to tumblr. LOL
no subject
Date: 2015-05-06 09:39 pm (UTC)TROLOLOL I look forward to seeing the post on tumblr! YAY. \o/
no subject
Date: 2015-05-06 04:03 pm (UTC)I loved this scene soooo much. The chemistry throughout that entire ep was A+++, but especially that last scene. I remember Craig Parker saying in an interview that they were both deliberately playing it up hoping that the writers would eventually go there, hee.
the framing is that he finds her attractive, and her intelligence and power are part of that pull. And he took the opportunity when she panicked, as she has done before over this prophecy in S1, so that's not OOC either.
ITA.
And they both admire how potentially duplicitous, murderous and manipulative the other is.
[…]
Catherine is still very protective of herself, and wary of Narcisse because well, she's getting in bed with a shark and she knows it. But they both know she's got teeth too. They accept and appreciate both the other and themselves. I LOVE that.
THISSSSSS. I looooove this dynamic, and for precisely these reasons. It makes the odd moments of vulnerability all the more moving. And I love, love, love when they talk strategy with each other, because you can tell they're both enjoying it SO MUCH. xD Like when they were both squealing with glee over Conde being in a bind, ah ha ha ha.
THEY ARE BOTH HAVING A HELLA GOOD TIME.
Heh heh heh. Heh heh heh heh heh heh. xDDD
From the episode blurbs it looks like the last couple eps are going to be un-peachy for Catcisse this season but I'm not fussed?
Same. Like, it's not the kind of ship where I get upset when it gets rocky, heh, I'm just in it for the ride, LOL.
no subject
Date: 2015-05-07 02:00 am (UTC)"Narcisse is so bad for Catherine."
"I want Catherine to get somebody like that Scottish guy she banged once in S1. She deserves a guy like that."
I'm just like :///// HOW CAN YOU STAN HER AND SAY STUFF LIKE THAT.
no subject
Date: 2015-05-07 08:33 pm (UTC)Heh. Well, I'm suspicious of whether the people making these comments really stan Catherine in the first place…
(And ahh, her Scottish dalliance in S1! That was awesome, ha ha. "It's sauce that makes food worth eating, and women like you that make ~life worth ~living!" LMAO I CANNOT.)
no subject
Date: 2015-05-11 07:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-05-13 12:38 am (UTC)