The White Queen: A Review

Over the past week, Dr. Skull and I have been watching the BBC series, The White Queen.

I highly recommend this series, especially for those of you who are looking for a non-rapey alternative to George Railroad Martin.  All the political intrigue here, none of the rape and very little of the misogyny -- which is to say, realistic, not imposed misogyny.  Also, women are main characters in this series, and women are actual characters as well.  I cannot tell you what a delight it is to watch a series in which women are just simply treated as people, doing things.

The White Queen is -- like George RR Martin's series -- more or less the story of the War of the Roses.

More directly, in this case, and more overtly; but still also a bit AU, in that the White Queen, who is Elizabeth Woodville, wife to Edward IV*, as well as Lady Rivers, her mother, and Elizabeth of York, Elizabeth Woodville's daughter, are all (according to the story) powerful witches who affect the course of the War and, thus, the course of history.

Aside from the magic bits, though, the story sticks fairly close to the history.  The acting is good, and the production values are lovely.  It can be hard for those of you (like me) who have a hard time telling one English-white-person's face from another English-white-person's face to keep the players straight.

"Now which one is this again?" I kept having to ask Dr. Skull.

"That's the Queen's brother."

"I thought he was dead?"

"No, her other brother.  The older brother."

But aside from that!

Well worth a watch, just for the writing and acting and lovely political intrigue.

Availability: For those of you with Amazon streaming, it's available there -- free, with Amazon Prime.  Netflix has it, but only on disc.



*This is the Edward IV who is one of the three York brothers -- Edward, George, and Richard -- King Edward IV; poor George who ends up being executed so ignominiously; and Richard III who is slandered so badly by Shakespeare and everyone else.  They are all characters in this series, which, among other things, will also show you just how badly Shakespeare is misrepresenting what happened during these Wars.  Which -- you know -- we knew.  Political propaganda being what it is.  But still.