I agree w/ you - the portrayal of both Satyavati & Amba bothers me
Satyavati, contrary to what is thought, had no rights & no say in any of this. Yeah, women were strong, but in that society, their parents got to choose who they'd marry. In this case, even had Satyavati been willing to marry Shantanu independently - something unthinkable then, contrary to the portrayal of Satyavati as Shantanu's girlfriend - her father could easily have vetoed that. Only thing - Shantanu, as a king, could have forced her father to give her in marriage, or seized her by royal fiat.
Amba was a perfectly innocent princess, and had a love affair w/ King Shalva, who she was already planning to choose in her swayamvar. Once Bheeshma captured her, she asserted her right to choose Shalva, but once Shalva pointed out that he couldn't accept her, Amba asked Bheeshma to finish what he had started and marry her. Amba just had one wish that every woman of that age had - to get married, and her ire at Bheeshma was solely b'cos he prevented that from happening. I've never understood why the Mahabharata seems to absolve Bheeshma of any wrongdoing - he was another Ravan, except that he abducted someone yet to be married. Given that when Krishna killed Sishupala, he pointed out the Sishupala had seized a princess betrothed to a different king, I wonder why Bheeshma got a pass on this? Probably an illustration of might being right.
Anyway, back to the portrayal - we know that they are gonna portray Draupadi as being haughty, which is true to script, so it seems like they want to portray this, and portray every other woman as being worse. That's my theory about why they're depicting Amba & Satyavati this ruthlessly.
This portrayal is making this show another KHMK
Originally posted by: .Rinnie.
I know I know... its just the beginning, give it time n all that. Though I loved the old Mahabharat of BR Chopra's, I haven't once compared it to this and have watched this new MB with an open mind.
However one thing that really strikes me is the portrayal of certain characters like Satyavati and now, Amba. According to the original stories of MB, Satyavati wasn't as selfish or ambitious as she is protrayed to be here.
She seems like one of those wicked step mothers outta of a tv serial. Though she may have been selfish n ambitious but she did have respect and was grateful to beeshma for what he scarificed for her. However,here, Satyavati seems least bothered about anything other than her own ambitions and her son.
And here comes, Amba who is shown burning crop fields 😕
I dont remember her being arrogant enough to do such things.
Im all for women being independent, strong minded and so on but I felt by the way they are potraying these female characters, it is heading more toward vampish than woman power.
I dunno... maybe I might be judging too soon however this makes me worried how they will handle the further story with other important female characters. Because MB is filled with so many grey shaded characters who can neither be portrayed as fully black nor as fully white with expection of shakuni and so on.
Other than Im happy with this new MB. 😊
I just hope they dont change too much of the original story.
Jhanak
Shiv Shakti
