As I noted above, I have read all your posts with much interest, especially those of Ayesha and Inlieu. I have just been watching the Friday episode for the second time to clarify a few points for myself. I shall now put down those points, in no particular order, for you to consider.
1) Roxanne is, if not afraid, at least somewhat nervous of Olympias.
When Olympias says that she has heard that Roxanne refused a beautful gift from Alexander (that three strand pearl necklace is, for some odd reason, displayed in the royal tent, as if it was in a jeweller's window!😆), Roxanne looks decidedly uncomfortable and at a loss for an answer. She should have been left to stew in her own juice and try to find an appropriate response to her mother-in-law, for Olympias does not look as though she will let go without one. But Alexander, stupid chap, butts in at the crucial moment with his jibe about her nazar, and Roxanne is let off the hook. 😡
Roxanne hasn't seen what Olympias is really made of, and I loved the look of discomfort on her face when she realized that
1. Alexander tells his mother everything (or that she finds out anyway)
2. Olympias does not hesitate to ask questions directly
😆
Though Olympias lets her down lightly this time, when she says that she hopes they will both soon speak with the same voice, she is looking only at Roxanne, and under the sweet surface, there is a hidden warning. I am waiting to see what Olympias does if Roxanne goes too far in baiting Alexander. She can be brutal, and she will be direct in her attack.
Morever, I am not sure Sony Olympias likes Sony Roxanne. She must have welcomed the marriage hoping that it would divert Alexander's mind from Bharat, but that has not happened. And now Roxanne is being snippish with the apple of Olympias' eye. She is bound to react adversely very soon.
I can't wait to see Olympias become a mama bear if needed. She's already out of her mind with worry for Alexander's safety now that he's in Bharat. She doesn't need him to be burdened or distracted by all this venomous talk. Moreover, Olympias wants Roxanne to understand how lucky she is to have married her
aankhon ka taara.
2) Following from the above point, why had Olympias been brought to India by the CVs? They are scatter-brained, agreed, but not to such an extent. There is some plot point coming soon where her presence will be necessary. I can't even guess what that could be, unless it is to help Alexander handle this termagant he has committed the folly of marrying. Can you think of some reason?
I agree, she didn't just come along for the ride, there's some plot point for sure. Barring some harebrained scheme the CVs have planned, I can think of a few. She may:
- Show Alexander that he doesn't need to prove his worth to anyone and help restore his confidence.
- Help Alexander see through Chanakya's plot regarding Taxila and Puru and help him refocus on the battle.
- Remind Alexander when things become tough, that the Oracle had said he is meant to be naqaabile shikast in battle.
- Act as the catalyst for Roxanne tying the raakhi on Puru's wrist.
- Ask Alexander to leave Bharat after the battle (whether or not he is defeated) and not continue further.
- Ask him to marry Barsine to get some peace in his life, which might prompt a jealous Roxanne to try and poison him.
I may be totally wrong of course, and the CVs have been known to derail all our reasoning on many occasions.
3) I have been studying Roxanne's face closely to see if I was not being unfair to her: maybe she had a few expressions on show after all! 😆But nope. There was not a single new one. All through the murga scene, she looked exactly the same, and that was the same look that she had during the pearl necklace scene with Alexander the day before. Which is, in its way, quite an achievement!😉
Ha ha! I just think of her as a necessary tool to propel the story forward.
4) Coming to Porus, he tells Chanakya and the rest that Alexander 's real aim in seeking an agreement with Takshashila is to get at him, Porus. Which probably leads to the scene in the precap where Chanakya is telling Alexander that Ambhiraj would be prepared to hand Porus over to him.
In the earlier part of the precap, Alexander is listening to Chanakya talk about the agreement with his head slightly on one side and a somewhat sceptical look on his face that reassured me.😉 But when the second half of the precap came up, and the handing over of Porus was mentioned, that sceptical look had disappeared, though there was no eagerness on Alexander's face. My spirits fell! Let us see what actually happens, for precaps are notoriously deceptive, often deliberately so.
I am trying not to read too much into the precap because they are often misleading!
But this is not my main point, which is this: how does Alexander know that Porus is in Takshashila? Secondly, does he know who Porus is, ie that he is the crown prince of Paurav Rashtra? I think not. So, Porus' assertion that Alexander's main aim is to get at him, Porus, and imprison him sees like kite flying.
Maybe he has done his homework and now knows who Porus is. I find hit hard to believe he'd get so far and not try and learn about Porus' whereabouts.
Alexander might well, after Puru's shenanigans in Persia, really be as keen to get hold of Porus as he is to conquer Bharat. But that desire can have nothing to do with his dealings with Takshashila now, for he cannot know that Porus is near at hand in Takshashila.
Is it possible that Alexander has learned about the history between Taxila and Paurav Rashtra, and that is why he has sent a message to Ambhiraj to surrender? Perhaps he is aware of the possibility that Amhiraj might renege on his agreement with Paurav Rashtra and act to save his own kingdom. Alexander never asked them to hand over Porus. This gift is being offered by Ambhiraj of his own accord so Alexander should be very suspicious of this gesture, if he is using 100% of that shaatir demaag of his.
Normally he would not take too kindly to Ambhiraj handing over an ally in order to save himself and his people from Alexander's wrath. There are many parallels with the Bactria track, so this could go any way.
On the other hand, if he does not know about the currently "good" relation between Taxila and Paurav Rashtra and thinks they are enemies, what would he think of the offer? Probably wonder why Ambhiraj feels the need to capture an enemy to hand over to Alexander without being asked to do so. To ensure that his kingdom is extra secure after being surrendered? No idea. Alexander knows that dushman ka tohfa uski talwaar se bhi zyaada qaatil hota hai, so why would he trust an unsolicited gift that could be a Trojan horse? It should set off alarm bells in his head.
Also, I am not so sure Alexander would be ok with having Taxila hand Porus over in this way because it would be underhanded and would go against his code of honor. The question is, would he be willing to temporarily abandon this code in order to get back at his wife? That would be unacceptable to him and to most of us, I'm sure. What about the thrill of capturing Porus himself, of overcoming this challenge through his own actions instead of relying on a soon-to-surrender king to do this for him? Would that not be against his personal ambitions? As was the case with his anger with Olympias for having eliminated Arrhidaeus from the competition for the throne through sneaky tactics, he would want to win fair and square on his own merit here too.
5) Inlieu, kapti means crooked, full of kapat, ie deviousness. Now Porus asserts that Alexander will extend a hand of friendship (to Takshashila) and then stab (Ambhiraj, one presumes) in the back. I fails to see on what basis he makes this statement.
Far from stabbing anyone in the back, Alexander is fiercly hostile to such underhand dealings, whether within his own family (Olympias and Arrihdaeus) or involving outsiders (Bessus and Darius) . There is no reason for him to abandon this code of conduct when he is in Bharat. It is Chanakya and Porus who are planning a completely devious deal.
Ugh, yeah. I hope Chanakya, upon meeting Alexander and understanding his code of conduct better, would realize the folly of thinking up such schemes and in fact end up doing something to get Taxila to surrender and betray Paurav Rashtra. I also hope he walks away with respect for Alexander and his capabilities.
6) Again, Puru now tells Chanakya that Alexander's main weapon is not spears or swords, but fear. This is of course part of Alexander's tactics, as he notes after the sacking of Thebes. But to state, as Puru does, that he defeated the Persian empire thru this fear is nonsense.
Yes, it is total nonsense. What else can we expect from Puru who likes to generalize everything? It is of course for the benefit of the audience that they are dumbing things down.
Darius was defeated by Alexander's superior military strategy tactics at Issus and Gaugamela, and the latter was one of the most brilliant of Alexander's victories from the tactical point of view.
Moreover, while he is in Persia, Puru is struck by the 18 foot Macedonian sarissa, seeing it as a superb weapon, and by the light armour that makes the Macedonian troops more mobile than others. He did not then talk of the fear factor as Alexander's most effective weapon!
No he didn't, did he? Puru must have known how big an army Darius had and that Alexander managed to defeat him with a much smaller one very decisively. He also knows that Darius had fled. Wasn't he listening to Alexander reading out Darius' letter and then dictating his own?
7) Finally, my dear Taherav, that is not a CGI elephant. It is a real one. CGI is expensive, and a real elephant can be hired for much less, I would imagine!
But the comic aspect of that snippet is that Puru seems to have got this brainwave just then, and he plans to stud his army with elephants as if war elephants could be bought off the shelf in a department store. 😆Training them takes time and effort, and any such overnight induction of untrained elephants into Porus' army would be a sure shot recipe for disaster.
Yes! As I had said in a previous post:
It's not easy to tame elephants out of the blue, and war elephants need very special training in order to be effective. You can't just bring a wild animal and make it participate in the war, it will do you more harm than the enemies will
Incidentally, the 10th century Chozha emperor Rajaraja Chozha (Chola) was an expert in training war elephants.
Shyamala Aunty/Di
PS: After watching this Chanakya in action, I must say that no one can beat Manish Wadhwa's magisterial Chanakya in the 2012-13 Chandragupta Maurya. He sets the gold standard for
Chanakya on screen.
I have only watched a few scenes of that show but I completely agree that his was the best Chanakya.
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