Shakespeare and George R.R. Martin Pt 1 12/12/2020

I put William Shakespeare and George R. R. Martin because I read Martin making a comment how he got his idea for Game of Thrones from the English War of the Roses. Shakespeare's history plays cover the same territory. That I have just the plays from Richard II to Richard III, may also influence my opinion. Especially, Henry VI, Part 3.  

Harold Bloom rates Falstaff  as Shakespeare's greatest creation and re-reading the Henry IV plays and Henry V at 60 I can see Bloom's point. Martin has no character with such a view of life and humanity. I know I read Henry VI long ago. So long ago I cannot recall anything but a sense of tedium suffered while reading. re-reading was not tedious but there is no interesting character until the appearance of the future Richard III. This Richard shows none of Falstaff's humanity. Richard is mayhem and slaughter and Machiavellian ambitions from his first appearance. The character is also unnatural since the facts would have him being 9 years old at the time of the play, Not even Martin's Cersei is so unnatural a monster as Shakespeare's Richard Plantagenet. 

I know the Royal Shakespeare Company did the plays in historical order, so I decided to read them in the order of the kings instead of publication. I had never read them in that  order. This time I got a different view of the storey. Richard II haunts Henry IV. If anything the plays show a decadence in morals from Richard II to Richard III. The decadence ends with Henry Tudor overthrowing the monstrous Richard III.

I think Richard II a flawed character. His weakness allows dissolution of the state. Martin builds his Westeros stories on a king with different but just as fatal flaws. Still, I see Tudor propaganda in the inevitability and good character of Henry Tudor who would become Henry VII  For overthrowing a monarch who is a homicidal maniac revelling in nihilism can only be presented as a good thing, as established the morality of the Tudor dynasty

Do not mistake Shakespeare's Richard III with the historical Richard III. I doubt anyone would have cast doubt on the fictional character's behavior since that would pretty much be treason and treason meant a brutal execution. Historical veracity is not the point of Shakespeare's Richard III. Chronicling the moral fall of the Plantagenets is the point of the character and the historical play,

The Roman Civil War came to mind as I wrote the preceding paragraph. Julius Caesar could have been the one who restored order to Rome except he tried to dither on his role within what remained of the Roman Republic. So, Augustus came along to create a polity with sufficient stability. He becomes the Henry Tudor of Rome. Both share the quality of being undramatic, uncharismatic characters. Please pass along my apologies to Robert Graves.

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