This week’s entry: The Accursed Kings
What it’s about: “The original Game Of Thrones,” according to no less an authority than author George R.R. Martin. The author has claimed his two biggest inspirations in writing his A Song Of Ice And Fire series are England’s War of The Roses (it’s not a coincidence Stark and Lannister are only a few letters off from York and Lancaster), and this series of French historical novels by Maurice Druon, published between 1955 and 1960 (with one final volume coming 17 years later—in your face, The Winds Of Winter). Unlike Martin, however, Druon didn’t need dragons or ice zombies to keep readers captivated. Just the real-life sex, intrigue, and murder among France’s 14th-century nobility.
Biggest controversy: While Druon himself was not terribly proud of his series, insisting the books were written “to make money very quickly,” the series was both immensely popular and critically acclaimed. Martin compared Druon favorably to former Wormhole subject Alexandre Dumas, while The Wall Street Journal’s Allan Massie said Druon evokes historical Paris as well as Victor Hugo, adding, “few figures in literature are as terrible as the Countess Mahaut, murderer and maker of kings.”
But Druon’s books may have no more powerful champion than our era’s own murderous kingmaker, Vladimir Putin. The Accursed Kings’ popularity was so great that the series were among the few Western books to be published in the Soviet Union. Putin grew up on the Russian translations of the series, and once in power, struck up a friendship with Druon. (The author died at the age of 90 in 2009).
Strangest fact: Despite being based on real history, Druon still manages to work in some magic. After King Philip The Fair (The Iron King, per the first book’s title) persecutes the Knights Templar and burns their leader at the stake. The dying man curses Philip, and his family, “to the 13th generation.” That curse plays out over seven books worth of murder and betrayal. In the third book, The Poisoned Crown, scheming Countess Mahaut uses magic to convince now-dead Philip’s son Philippe to free Mahaut’s daughter (and Philippe’s wife) Jeanne from prison.
Thing we were happiest to learn: Magic or not, what really drives the story are mundane, relatable, and human: jealousy, resentment, and revenge. The saga is put into motion when King Philip’s daughter, Isabella (herself queen of England), suspects all three of her sisters-in-law of cheating on her brothers. She teams up with nobleman Robert of Artois, who believes his inheritance was stolen by Mahaut, mother to two of the three sisters-in-law. Meanwhile, Philip’s brother Charles resents that the king’s common-born prime councillor has more influence than he does. What follows is a domino effect of torture, murder, prison, and oddly, a “painful death by means of a poisoned candle,” which Wikipedia declines to explain in further detail.
Thing we were unhappiest to learn: That 17-year wait for the last book was even longer in the English-speaking world. The King Without A Kingdom was published in French in 1977, five years after a wildly successful TV adaptation, but didn’t appear in English until 2015, when HarperCollins reissued the entire series. Wikipedia gives no hints as to why the final book was so long-delayed. The first six were written roughly one per year, and it’s not clear whether Druon planned a seventh book from the start and didn’t get around to writing it, or released a six-book series and decided years later to revisit it.
One plot detail suggests the latter. The sixth book, The Lily And The Lion, ends on a cliffhanger of sorts. In book four, The Royal Succession, Jean I, the newborn heir to the throne, is switched at birth with another baby, who’s then poisoned by Mahaut to put her son-in-law on the throne instead. At the end of Lily, the now-grown child is told his true identity as the rightful king of France. And in the seventh book… we jump ahead 25 years to the reign of Jean II (no relation), and the child from the previous book seems to play no part.
Best link to elsewhere on Wikipedia: Not everyone hailed The Accursed Kings series as classics. Tor.com critic Stefan Raets dismissed The Iron King as “grim-dark” historical fiction. That term dismissively refers to fiction (nearly always genre fiction) “that is particularly dystopian, amoral, or violent,” and piles on misery, often at the expense of story and character development.
Further down the Wormhole: The 1972 miniseries wasn’t the only TV Kings adaptation. A 2005 French-Italian five-episode series starred Jeanne Moreau as Mahaut. Moreau, who passed away in 2017 at age 89, had a long distinguished career, winning Best Actress at Cannes for Seven Days… Seven Nights, a BAFTA for Viva Maria!, a César for The Old Lady Who Walked In the Sea, and lifetime achievement awards from all three organizations. She was also the Cannes jury president in 1975, a distinction she shared with Sophia Loren, the beloved Italian actress.
Loren won the Oscar for Best Actress for 1961’s Two Women, and was given an honorary award in 1991. Forty years earlier, an honorary award was given to George Murphy, a song-and-dance man from the golden age of Hollywood musicals who was later elected to the U.S. Senate, pioneering the well-trod entertainer-with-no-political-experience-to-Republican-leader track. Murphy’s political legacy is mostly limited to establishing the Candy Desk, a tradition in which one desk on the Senate floor is full of candy. We’ll launch an investigation into exactly how sweet it is, next week.
46 Comments
Well at least Vladimir Putin has read a book, unlike a certain US politician/ asset of his
In Trump’s defense, books are for nerds.
So is running a profitable business, apparently.
pffffft, running a profitable business legally is for nerds.
I’m not sure DT has ever watched an entire movie.Or cartoon.
What follows is a domino effect of torture, murder, prison, and oddly, a “painful death by means of a poisoned candle,” which Wikipedia declines to explain in further detail.I guess this is what inspired Terry Pratchett in Feet of Clay, where he had an arsenic-laced candle to play a central part in the mystery.
Catherine de Medici poisoned her son with a book.
The CIA tried to poison Castro with cigars.
So many ways to poison someone.
I have eaten from the Candy Desk, and am excited to hear more!
How is that possible? Are you a Senator?
I’m a fellow in a Senator’s office. To be fair, I didn’t touch the desk – the Senator took a handful, and offered one to me.
We too have eaten from the desk. It was on a bring-your-child-to-work-day tour.
The saga is put into motion when King Philip’s daughter, Isabella (herself queen of England), suspects all three of her sisters-in-law of cheating on her brothers. Isabella herself was no slouch in the ruthless department. With the help of her lover, Roger Mortimer, earl of March, she deposed her husband, Edward II, and imprisoned him (Edward II died during his imprisonment, either on Isabella’s orders or from ill health due to his imprisonment). She then ensured that her 14-year-old son, Edward III*, was proclaimed king with herself as regent, which made Mortimer the de facto ruler of England. Edward III eventually grew frustrated with the Mortimer’s power and overthrew him. Mortimer was executed for treason, but Isabella was portrayed as an innocent victim. Edward almost certainly insisted on that and continued protecting his mother and having her treated with all respect for the rest of her life. But for all that she is still known as the “she-wolf of England”.*Edward III had a 50 year reign that was largely successful and he was a popular king. Significantly it was his two sons, John of Gaunt and Edmund of York, and their lines that led to the War of the Roses.
also, according to the “amazingly historically accurate” film braveheart, isabella had the hots for william wallace.
Braveheart drives me nuts. When William Wallace died in 1305, Isabella was still living in France and decidedly not married to Edward II. Oh yes she was also only 9 years old at the time.
it is hilarious because of the inaccuracy. have you ever watched the history buffs youtube channel where he goes over stuff like this? he is losing his shit all the way through braveheart.
I loved that video.
That’s quite a leap to go from books about French monarchs killing each other to a desk full of candy.
And yet, the segue was perfection.
it’s almost like grrm is a lazy ass writer who has no new ideas
I would have thought that GRRM’s plots were mostly inspired by the existence of rape as a historical phenomenon
If you think your favorite SF/F authors did not use historical or literary references, you might be in for an unpleasant disappointment. I mean, I know you’re just trying to pick a fight with Martin fans there, but you picked a pretty silly way to do it.
By that standard, Shakespeare was a lazy writer.
IF WRITERS WEREN’T LAZY, THEY WOULD CHOOSE ONE OF THE HONEST PROFESSIONS.
There is nothing new under the sun.
Yup, Shakespeare “only” did reimaginings of previous works.
Right.It’s so easy to write a good novel.Stay anonymous, because you deserve to.
TBH, Game Of Thrones books are medieval European history on shuffle, but at least the first 3 books are great at what they are trying to do. Part of the fun while reading the books is trying to think of a historical counterparts of various characters.The next two books, however, are not that great, to put it mildly.
It’s not like Martin has been secretive of the fact that he draws inspiration from history. From the very beginning, he’s pointed out historical events that his fans should research if they want to learn the inspiration behind characters and plot points from ASoIaF/GoT.
Just out of curiousity, can you name one fantasy author that doesn’t draw on history or mythology?
TALK PAGE HIGHLIGHTSThe following references may be useful when improving this article in the future:- “The Iron King by Maurice Druon”. Kirkus Reviews. 20 January 2013. Retrieved 5 August 2015.- White, Julian (7 December 2012). “Book Review: The Iron King (The Accursed Kings, Book 1)“. Starburst. Retrieved 5 July 2015.- White, Julian (22 April 2013). “Book Review: The Strangled Queen (The Accursed Kings, Book 2)“. Starburst. Retrieved 22 October 2015.- Hanley, Sarah. “Imagining the Last Capetians: Maurice Druon, The Accursed Kings”. Film and Fiction for French Historians: A Cultural Bulletin. Retrieved 15 October 2015.- Le Nabour, Eric (September 16, 2005). The Accursed Kings: Historical Inquiry (in French). Perrin. p. 296. ISBN 2-262-02396-4.- Sepulchre, Sarah (5 March 2006). “Les Rois maudits” (in French). AFDS.tv. Retrieved 6 November 2015.- Sansano, Patrick (11 November 2011). “Les Rois maudits with Jean Piat, Muriel Baptiste, Claude Giraud, Louis Seigner, Jean-Luc Moreau” (in French). Lemagazinedesseries.com. Retrieved 6 November 2015.- “Les Rois Maudits 1972″ (in French). Serieslive.com. Retrieved 15 October 2015.- Rheims, Nathalie (25 July 2013). “Nathalie Rheims: Blessed be The Accursed Kings!”. Le Point (in French). Retrieved 15 October 2015.- Pottier, Jean-Marie (13 April 2014). “Have the Heroes of Game of Thrones Taken Everything from The Accursed Kings?”. Slate (in French). Retrieved 15 October 2015.Requested move 26 June 2015The Accursed Kings -> Les Rois mauditsThe result of the move request was: No consensus to move after over two weeks and a relisting period. Cúchullain t/c 14:37, 13 July 2015 (UTC)Post RMI confess I’m a little bit surprised by the above result. Two possible ways forward.One is to challenge the closure at WP:MR. The grounds might be that the “votes” opposing were both primarily based on WP:UE, one of them simply citing it and adding nothing. Discount that second oppose and there’s a rough but policy-based consensus to move.But perhaps a better way forward would be to WP:split the article. The problem seems to me to be that while the original French language and French titled series clearly meets the GNGhttps://www.google.com.au/search?q=%22Les+Rois+maudits%22+-Wikipedia&oq=%22Les+Rois+maudits%22+-Wikipedia&aqs=chrome..69i57.15361j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8there’s also considerable interest in the English language derivativeshttps://www.google.com.au/search?q=%22The+Accursed+Kings%22&oq=%22The+Accursed+Kings%22&aqs=chrome..69i57.6974j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8#q=%22The+Accursed+Kings%22+-Wikipdiaenough probably to warrant an article in their own right.Ideallly (for reasons given in my “vote”) we’d move first and then split, but that’s not a show-stopper IMO.Other thoughts? Andrewa (talk) 15:28, 13 July 2015 (UTC)Well, to be honest, there were some good arguments on either side, and the arguments from support voters weren’t overwhelmingly compelling. No one gave any real evidence as to which version was more common in English language sources, for instance though it’s clear that at this point many exist. You can take it to MR if you really want, but it seems very unlikely that will result in a different outcome. A better option would be to have a look at the sources and see which name really is the common one.—Cúchullain t/c 15:57, 13 July 2015 (UTC)Agree. IMO despite some good arguments neither side addressed the issues particularly well, which seems to me to be a good case for another relisting rather than a close, which is why MR first occurred to me.But I’m more interested in the possibility of a split. There does seem to be a very good case for an article on the French novels, but there also seems to be a case for an article on the English derivatives, possibly even a better case. So, why not have both?But if we were to do that, it seems to me that the existing page history would be better with the article on the French novels. Is that a show-stopper? I don’t think so, but it would be neater, which brings us back to MR.And a case could even be made for disruption if I were seen to have overturned the move close by stealth, for example if, following he split, there were to be a merge or merge proposal back to the French-language title. Which again brings us back to MR.But my strongly preferred option now is for a split, and to leave the history where it is. It’s a perfectly acceptable place for it in terms of our copyleft attribution requirements. That means accepting that maybe the move was a lost opportunity to do things more neatly but not now worth revisiting, and moving on.So I’m seeking to build consensus for this way forward (or at least to see whether there are any strong objections) before formally proposing it. Andrewa (talk) 18:29, 15 July 2015 (UTC)I saw no reason to think a relisting would help achieve a clearer consensus due to how long it was open, otherwise I’d have done that. I have little opinion on the cleanup. I don’t know how a split would help here, aren’t the “English derivatives” just translations of the original books? That’s usually dealt with at the same article.—Cúchullain t/c 19:01, 15 July 2015 (UTC)Hi, I’m the initiator of the RM and I’ve been out of town. As I did explain in the discussion, in working to improve the article I found that nearly all of the acceptable English language sources say something like “…Maurice Druon’s Le Rois maudits (The Accursed Kings) …” which, to me, equates to using the French title but translating it into English for readers. The exceptions are Martin’s piece for The Guardian, which only uses Accursed Kings, and a 2015 Wall Street Journal article and a 2012 book review (both in External links for later use in the article) which use Accursed Kings first (as in “Druon’sThe Accursed Kings (Les Rois Maudits) is in effect a single novel in seven volumes”). So basic Google searches are useless/misleading because both French and English appear in most cases.I don’t think I understand what your suggested split would entail? The only English derivative topics that exist are English reprints. The two TV adaptations were French language and as far as I know were rebroadcast in the UK with subtitles; I haven’t seen a clip or source that even suggests the title card was substituted in English, but even if this occurred I don’t think such rebranding counts as its own notable topic.— TAnthonyTalk 21:54, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
This one’s longer than the article!
The post-RM entry is such a wonderful example of Wikipedia’s editorial culture. Hundreds of words of discussion about whether he should even bother to take any form of action. I love it.And, of course, I also love the classic bit of Wiki-dry-burn where someone decides to dump a bunch of links “which may improve the article.”
Europe in the middle ages, and or medieval styled fantasy is just something I could never get into. Compared with the renaissance, age of discovery, enlightenment, Napoleonic wars, etc., it just seemed kind of dull and depressing. I suspect that 90% of the romance behind it is people reading/role playing and imagining themselves in the role of a King or a Queen or a Lord or a Knight or some other rarefied station in society.
In reality, about 99.9% of everybody would be a serf, living and laboring as a virtual slave on a tiny plot of land, knowing little else of the world besides said plot of land, their labors, and the church, and dying (if you were lucky) in your early 30’s. There was little if any gallantry, romance, and adventure, let alone magic in their lives. Pain, suffering, and strife aplenty, though.
It doesn’t really matter, but as a medieval historian, I think you should consider a couple of things.1). The Renaissance is not a time period, it is a intellectual movement that began during the Middle Ages and its roots extend back into at least the 13th century.2). The “Age of Discovery,” which is really just the “early modern” period was incredibly violent as well and pretty awful for the people being “discovered.” Not saying the Crusades et. al. weren’t terrible, but the violence of the Middle Ages is definitely not unique.3). Yeah, most people idealize all historical periods based on the experiences of the upper class. I mean, 99.9% of the population as agricultural laborers is a little high. Also, your chance of not being some sort of agricultural laborer (serf or otherwise, there were probably more technical serfs in 18th century central Europe than before) probably did not go down after the Middle Ages. Life expectancy for most of the population was likewise fairly stable as we enter the early modern period. Sure, urban populations start to expand (in Europe) rapidly after the late eighteenth century during the Industrial Revolution, but life in those cities wasn’t so great. And this only happened when the population started to skyrocket due to new agricultural technology. It’s worth noting that Europe did not surpass its preplague population apogee until this era.
Serfdom wasn’t all that bad. Clearly you were tied to the land and didn’t have a huge amount of freedom to move, but it’s unlikely someone in that period would want to move anyway, or be able to afford to.Serfdom guaranteed a level of security, protection and rights that didn’t exist in previous generations. Plus, the backbreaking labour only really took place in the summer. Over winter, serfs had a huge amount of free time, hence the explosion in rural crafts, art and music of the period.
Especially the music. Who can forget that classic meldoy from Þe Boys of Beech, ſerfing ſafari
S’wounds!
the early 30s thing is more a mean than a medium average age. if you got past childhood (it used to be something like a third pre-modern medicine), didn’t get struck by plague or die in childbirth, you’d normally survive til your fifties/sixties.And as a peasant you got a lot of time off outside summer. that’s without all the holy days. Holy days were something like two months if not more. Which is way more than americans get.
I read this series a year or two ago (didn’t know the last book was just recently translated)! I think it moves at a much better pace than ASOIAF, with far fewer “main character walking around” chapters, and not many story lines that just go nowhere.
The Old Lady Who Walked In the Sea was a wonderful movie. I’d encourage anyone to watch it if they can.
I’m normally an anti-deletionist when it comes to wikipedia, but I question the necessity of an article for “grimdark”, which is mostly a term of opprobrium.
Martin’s not kidding on that. There is absolutely no mistaking the influence of Accursed Kings on A Song of Ice and Fire when you read the former, although Druon’s prose is a lot more florid. I would just skip the seventh book of the series. It’s only loosely connected to what happened in the previous six, and IIRC basically none of the POV characters carry over.
The first six were written roughly one per year, and it’s not clear whether Druon planned a seventh book from the start and didn’t get around to writing it, or released a six-book series and decided years later to revisit it.C’est avec le tome 6 que s’arrête l’histoire proprement dite des Rois maudits. Dans le dernier tome de son récit, Quand un roi perd la France (1977), Druon raconte, à travers le personnage du cardinal Hélie de Périgord, les débuts catastrophiques de la guerre de Cent Ans avec son cortège de batailles perdues pour la France, les règnes désastreux de Philippe VI de Valois et de Jean II le Bon, les tribulations du roi de Navarre, le règne de Gaston Fébus. Ce tome est complètement distinct des autres, en particulier par son style, narré à la première personne par le personnage du cardinal, sous forme d’entretiens qu’il a au cours d’un voyage de Périgueux à Metz qui le mène à la cour de l’empereur Charles IV. -fr.wikipedia.orgChrist, learn a foreign language and/or how to use Google Translate.
Jesus, I’ve read the first 3-4 of these. Am I well read?????????
To be fair, Murphy is also remembered for inspiring a Tom Lehrer song. (The most worthwhile thing he ever did.)
When I saw the title, I fully expected to read about the Merovingian kings of France. Imagine my surprise
Jeanne Moreau ruled in Bunuel’s Diary of a Chambermaid.