Originally posted by: BrienneOfTarth
Hello Aunty!
I have been busy doing round the clock duty so I could not reply on your earlier post. I will share my views regarding the last 3 episodes in this post itself.
First of all, the Persian queen is a major disappointment and her constipated expression puts me off!
All three of them are equally disappointing. Barsine has only one expression for the most part, and I see how she was received well as Gandhari, for they hid her eyes! Her face looks bee stung, always puffed up. Drypetis, I am sorry to say, looks like a maid, not a princess, and their mother is a washout. I would have expected royal ladies to put their chins up and face the situation with unbending pride. These women would put any abla nari to shame, with their perennially petrified looks.They do not seem to have the least notion of making the best of the situation Darius had landed them in, not even when they received this manna from Heaven in terms of Alexander's very soft attitude towards them.
Alexander pulled a politically astute move to greet the Persian public with the backing of the Persian royal family. Like I have said somewhere before, having the Persian royalty under his thumb ensures him leverage against Darius and also solidifies his hold on the Persian kingdom and its culture. Smart boy!
The CVs have deliberately left out Sisygambis. the mother of Darius, who loved Alexander far more than she cared for her son- whom she in fact disowned and refused to mourn when he was finally killed by one of his former satraps. She loved him so much that she committed suicide when she received the news of his death.
If that relationship had been shown, no one, not you nor anyone else, could have seen what Alexander did for the Persian royal ladies as merely a political ploy. What leverage against Darius, who cared so little for the women of his family that he took them to the battlefield and then abandoned them to Alexander 's mercy? He would not have cared what happened to them if he could have salvaged half his empire and made such a deal with Alexander. He did make a pro forma request to get his family back, but the key factor for him was the half of his empire. No wonder his own mother despised him so much.
The CVs want to systematically demonise Alexander, whence the omission of Sisygambis. I never expected that!😲
On the other hand Porus sees Alexander as a heartless king who first destroys a city and its people and then comes there pretending to be a benevolent conqueror. In my opinion, he is not wrong. Some may say, it were the Macedonian soldiers who destroyed and plundered but they would hardly be doing so if their king had not permitted them to do in the first place. As Puru said before, yatha raja tatha praja. It is the king's responsibilty to decide whether he will pillage the defeated nation and no matter which of his soldiers do the plundering, it is the king who is accountable for his men. If he lets his men free to loot and rape as they please after a war, it is on his head as much as it is on the soldiers themselves.
That Alexander stops the destruction and launches into a speech of mercy and benevolence, in my eyes, shows that the city's initial destruction served a means to an end for him. He had to ensure the Persian commoners feared him first, only then when they were scared would his second step of an olive branch be grasped by them all quite eagerly. He is after all a good judge of human behaviour.
What I note is that Alexander may stand amidst terrified people assuring them of safety, but his manner lacks empathy that a king must have for his subjects. He is not affected by the dead citizens or ruined city, those mean nothing to him. There is no lament for the loss of lives who are now supposed to be his subjects. Except for an initial order to stop the killings, the new king does not order his men to see to the injured or even try to rescue the dying. He is invested in speaking to the exploited mass to immediately secure his position. His speech focusses on himself, he must be accepted, he is here to be a part of them, he will take them to heights of glory, he invites all to a grand celebration. Had he spoken less and just immediately focussed on protecting the injured and repairing the damages, he would not need lengthy speeches. The persian public along with their royal women, already abandoned by a cowardly king, would have loved this new king sooner.
Three points, and let us not even talk ot the uppity, self-absorbed, over confident twit of a Puru. I want more than anything else to see him come a real cropper, but the CVs will never let that happen to their (not) blue-eyed boy.😡
1) The qatl-e-aam was not planned. It was the direct reaction to the stupid throwing of (blue!) stones by the Persian public. It is only the Indian army that gets hit by bricks and up to 2 kgs. stones in Srinagar and does not shoot down the rioters. To expect the Macedonians to swallow this stupid and ill-considered attack and not retaliate is a non-starter. And the person who orders the massacre is Cleitus, who hates the Persians, and must have been smarting from the way in which he was pulled up by Alexander and prevented from killing the surviving Persian soldiers after the battle of Granicus.
2) At the last two sieges that Alexander had won, the one at Miletus and the one at Halicarnassus, he had spared all the citizens, including those who had opposed him to the end. The Macedonian commanders and troops must have got used to this rule after these two instances, which is why they do not pounce on the Persians right away.
Why then would Alexander have imagined that his men would indulge in such behaviour this time ? And why should anyone imagine that he had planned it that way, bad cop, good cop? His reputation, the khauff-e-Alexander that he had deliberately fostered ever since the sacking of Thebes (though there too he had initially offered soft terms that the cocky Thebans rejected ) should have been enough to frighten the Persian populace. There was no need for this kind of killing to frighten them.
3) You do not know that he did not make arrangements to tend to the injured and the dying. Did they show you what all he did after the battle of Granicus vis a vis his own injured soldiers? It would have been left to Hephaestion and his subordinates to take care of all that.
I think Alexander was already too soft in his speech. He sounded like a politician canvassing for votes. I could never imagine any of the Caesars, or his own father, or Darius I or Xerxes in the territories they had conquered, bending so far to win over the defeated populations they annexed to their empires. A victorious king is assertive and demanding, he does not seek the support of the defeated, he gets it through fear. That was the way it has always been. Alexander really wanted to assimilate the peoples of all the areas he conquered with his own Macedonians, which is what made him unique.
The less I speak about glass and fire the better. Seriously way over the top. But Barsine gets the message and Puru has some secret fun. Though I am glad his companions rebuke him for his outlandish dramatics. Mere mann ki baat bol di! Though it does give a very fantasy hero come to the secret rescue type flair, which is why the Cvs put that scene. 😆
Any time I see Puru with his smug face and cocky expression, I want to land him a solid one. He is even more self-satisfied and arrogant than Alexander, and his cheerleaders egg him on.
Alexander spots the smiling Princess and enacts a drunker ploy to grill the woman. That scene was nicely done. Though I do not understand the purpose of his acting like a drunk in the first place. These women are already terrified of his normal face, he didnt need to act more outrageous to scare them 😆
Why should they be terrified? Don't they have any pride, for heaven's sake? What more do they want him to do, bend and kiss their feet? I think he was irritated at Barsine hiding something important from him, which he realises was linked to the fire in the bazaar, and he wants to teach them all a lesson about how he could be if he so chose. It is a mild lesson, come to think of it, seeing that they are completely in his power.
Barsine is hopeful of a rescue but shortsighted and selfish, willing to depend on someone else to rescue her but lacking courage to face her problem with honour. She is willing to save herself and leave her people to Alexander's hands. As a princess, I find that irresponsible and disappointing. She would be no less cowardly than Darius if she flees leaving her people to an uncertain fate. Barsine comes across as the passive aggressive type with her sullenly avoiding the king's gaze, not giving a straight answer and not sucking up to him. Way to make yourself a target there princess! Not too bright of you.😆
I can't stand Barsine, and I am devoutly glad that there is to be no Alexander-Barsine romance. Now at least one can hope for a decent Roxana!
Uske upar, she has a connection to Bharat. The Bharat that is Alexander's obsession. Come to think of it Bharat is Puru's obssession too😆.
So now, we have an obssessed Puru and an obssessed Alexander both heading for the same destination. Barsine better watch out or she might become collateral in this game of obsessions. 😆
On a side note, Vishuddhi ke dil mein baj gayi hai pyaar ki ghanti after being bachaofied again by Puru. I can smell the tragedy coming her way.
Not yet. Do see my post about last night's episode!
Thats it for now. Love, Ankita.
