Hello, I have decided, since there is not much happening in Episode 3 and 4 to warrant 2 in depth analysis, I will do 1 for both.
The episode starts off with a major overreaction from Tut, who has come back “from the dead”. Unfotunately the plotting against the king by the High Priest with hair, Eje chief adviser and Horemhab continues...oh wait. Just kidding. Horemhab is in prison. BFF is dead, Anchesa is devastated. Everything sucks. Also, Tut is limping again. He frequently forgets it but..I mean it is there..that is fine. It’s fine.
So, Anchesa recovers from the loss of her one true love and gets confronted with Seed Girl. The woman Tut brought with him to Thebes, who is his one true love, bla bla. Of course, because showrunners know nothing else, the two of them start plotting and hating on each other (btw, Team Anchesenamun 4ever) During all this Tut has some plans of his own. What is his brilliant, thought through plan? Sending his cousin, his sister-wife’s best friend, to go marry the crown prince of the Mitanni Kingdom. And I have issues with this:
Ancient Egyptian Kings married foreign princesses. They did not send their own daughters/sisters/cousins to another Kingdom. The reasons are not completely clear, but, and this is completely my own theory, it could have something to do with blood purity. If your mother is Egyptian, you are egyptian. If your father is egyptian...you might not be. Cause y’all know...takes two to tango and two to faithfully tango
It was actually the other way around. There is a letter that could have been written by Anchesenamun, could also have been written by her sister, to the Hittite Kingdom asking for a prince to marry and become ruler of egypt. Prince got murdered. This had a negative impact on Hittite-Egyptian relations.(I mean...is anyone else surprised?) The thing is, the letter exists. Egyptologists just don’t know when it was sent and by whom.
Well the Cousin gets murdered, goes with history though, and therefore no peace with Mitanni and Anchesa gets even more pissed. Which in my opinion, is a totally valid reaction.
During the cousin going away to “become mother to a king” (yes, that is a quote from the series. Yes, it is foreshadowing. No I do not want to talk about this yet) and her coming back as a corpse, the power grabbing and murder plotting continues. And there is a plague, because why not. We actually looked it up and there was indeed an illness that caused a lot of death. Although it is not really confirmed what illness it was, the Egyptologist-Medical community is split between leprosy and the bubonic plague. In the series they went with the plague. It is visually more viable.
While the boys are trying to grab power, the girls are competing for the title “Tut’s favorite”, because women have no other agenda than pleasing men. I am so grateful this series reminded me. Oh whatever shall I do, without a man’s approval and love (sarcasm). During the whole “pick me, I am your sister and your wife” - “no, pick me! I am your one true love!” It occurs to me AND Anchesa that SG has no idea about how Harems work. Points for self awareness!!
So here is a quick rundown of the rules.
First: I need to preface this: There is no actual evidence about the way the Harem in Ancient Egypt worked, there is no official rulebook or anything. So we (Sarah, Miriam and I) had a little meeting and talked about it. Together we came up with these rules, who are the most basic and make the most sense:
The Women of the royals household aka Wifes, Sisters, Mothers, Concubines, Children, maybe women and children of ministers all lived in a separate area
Limited access. By limited access we mean only the husbands and sons and maybe some super trusted advisers.
The hierarchy: The Queen and main wife and the Pharaoh's mother (they are in general the ones managing the Harem), are at the top, then follows: the side wifes (women who are married to the pharaoh but are not his consort) who had children with him, the side wifes without children, the Concubines/Mistresses who had children, Concubines/Mistresses without children, the Queen’s children (sons over daughters), the side wifes’ children, the concubines’/Mistresses’ children, the servants. In between the royal children the children of high ranking officers etc.
ONLY the children of EGYPTIAN mothers can be considered heirs. (It may extend to women from Nubia!)
Following all these rules: Seed Girl is at most his favourite concubine, even if he marries her, she will only ever be a side wife. None of her children could ever become heir to the throne. Anchesa actually makes all those points too. Not the hierarchy one but the one about her not being Egyptian.
SG is also a nobody from some village in Amurru, he would not be allowed to marry her anyways. The way I personally see it, wifes are either cousins, sisters, daughters of high ranking officers of the court, daughters of high priests and foreign princesses, while “normal” women and former servants can only become Concubines or Mistresses. Everything else makes little to no sense to me.
While we are on the subject of things that make no sense: What is the role of Eje’s son? He has been there since the first episode, he has had nothing smart to say or do, besides being walking and talking mommy and daddy issues? He befriends Seed Girl...But why? I personally think he is a plot device. A role usually reserved for women to set the protagonist on his way. They usually get murdered to achieve that goal (and introduce the villain, so the hero gets a nemesis)...Wait...Is he going to die? Drive someone into madness? Please let it be this!
I have also learned a good problem solving method from this episode: You don’t know how to deal with a problem correctly? Just burn it! It will work...totally.
That was episode 3+4 or 2, I hope you guys will join us for the last one next week! :)
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