Wolf Hall on PBS - North America starts watching (spoilers)

[Fragile Bird]

I was trying to find some of the old reviews from when Wolf Hall was first released, and I think one of the best ones appeared in the New York Review of Books, here: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2009/nov/05/how-it-must-have-been/

While I found the books an absorbing read, I also think Mantel whitewashed Cromwell's character, as you may have gathered already from my previous comments. A number of the reviews mentioned the fact that Cromwell was quite the cruel and brutal man. It might be this review, but it's mentioned that one of his specialties was asking people to turn themselves in, if they were overseas, and to tell people to confess, because Henry VIII was a generous and merciful man. It made the hanging/burning/beheading move along much more quickly.

And I found it interesting that at the end, when he was about to be beheaded, he pronounced himself a good Catholic. I wonder if Mantel will mention that fact in the final book.

The brutality of the vengeance shown in tonight's episode was pretty cut and dried. There are times when it seems like Cromwell is portrayed as someone just following orders, but knowing how many people he tortured and executed I don't think those sad puppy-dog eyes come off as genuine.

I was interested to see that unlike More's death scene, where people stood with their head bowed (as Mantel tells us was the custom at executions), no one bows their head for Anne. The first time I ever came across her story, in the 1969 movie Anne of a Thousand Days, Anne is much, much more sympathetic than her portrayal by Mantel. I suspect Mantel's version is bit more accurate.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

FB,

Despite how avaristicly Anne Bolyne was portrayed in Wolf Hall my entire family found her fairly sympathetic as her hard won power collasped beneath her. That was a subtle and difficult dichotomy to pull off well.

[Zorral]

Thanks to history we knowing how this was going to turn out for Anne even before Wolf Hall began, even so the tension of the fatality that is "Phantoms" was hard to watch.

Next, Cromwell's turn, as we all know.

Henry's aged a great deal in the last two episodes. One noticed it here and there in the previous, penultimate "Crows" but in this one it's a big difference. What a horrid man and human being Henry was. But none of the Tudors were admirable as human beings. Even as a successful and generally well-regarded queen by her people for much of her reign, no one ever portrayed Elizabeth as anything but ruthless -- particularly if one were Irish . . . .