But They Never Would Have Because It Isn’t Who They Are - Blog Posts

Their relationship in this show kills me. It’s just sooooo sad.

John references knowing Edward for 40 years. They have been to war together. They have been consistent and dependable for each-other in a vitriolic, deceitful, unstable world. They have been partners, a two-man team, a package deal.

Its kind of funny the way they stick to each-other’s sides like two school boys who have handshakes and secret code names and shit. Its starkly contrasted with the other dynamics between the politicians, which are all so stale and fragile (as you would expect from colleagues in a workplace where you kind of always have to be prepared for someone to betray you or for you to have to betray them).

Which emphasises the purity and innocence in their initial relationship, its very naive, especially from Edward’s side.

Edward refers to John as “like a brother” a very intimate and vulnerable admission especially from a man so often cold and aloof. John’s response is to remind him of his relationship with his actual brother and how he doesn’t want his and Edward’s relationship to be compared to Edward and Thomas’s. This is obviously deeply ironic, as their relationship ends up just like Edward and his brother’s. One feels like the other has backed themself into a corner which they cannot get out of and they prioritise their career, their family and ambitions over the other (bit more complex for Edward and Thomas but thats not what this post is about lol).

John’s desperation for him and Edward to still have a relationship after his betrayal is such a childish little hope, so immature and stary-eyed for a rat in the belly of the beast.

I wonder how different it would have been had they not had that argument on the staircase. I think John felt repeatedly ignored and belittled by Edward and this was his last straw.

John is a very emotional and arrogant character. He is hotheaded and I think if his ego hadn’t been affected he wouldn’t have done what he did, regardless of his opinions on Edward’s skill at the job.

Moreover, I think its interesting they share the same flaws in many ways: they both believe that they have the abilities and vision that others lack and that only they should have the top position, they are both very prideful and oblivious to the things around them (Edward to the threat of Thomas and John to the threat that he is encouraging in Mary).

The familiarity with which they speak to each other even when enemies is so poignant. They know each other so well. They are each other’s oldest friends.

I think their relationship is a representative of a theme most clearly demonstrated through Edward Tudor’s character: the death of innocence and truth at the hands of power.

And of course they both go down the same way. Of course they are reduced to squabbling children fighting over the shiniest toy. Of course they become what they have resented in each other because they have always been the same really. Edward stabs John in the back for position. John ignores Edward’s advice and the evidence around him of his own failure and plows relentlessly forward as Edward has always done. Of course this is what kills them both.

John killed Edward. Edward tried to kill John. They both are executed as traitors. All of their scrambling and scheming comes to nothing. The snake eats its own tail. The beast is doomed to consume itself in its entirety ect. ect.