Line #34 YMMV/TheTudors


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5	%% Bring Complete Monster examples to this thread before adding any: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=6vic3f9h1cy5qivsenw8llok&. Check the FAQ first to see what would qualify characters for the trope, and if there has been previous discussion on the work.
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7	* AluminumChristmasTrees:
8	** While the series has a deserved reputation for playing fast and loose with history, some of the more outrageous events depicted are historically accurate. An example would be the Field of Cloth of Gold summit in the second episode of the first series, where Francis really did beat Henry in an impromptu wrestling match, spoiling the English king's mood for the rest of the conference.
9	** The Treaty of Perpetual Peace in the first episode. A ridiculous application of 21st century mores to the Rennaisance, right? Nope, they actually tried it. However, it wasn't ''quite'' as comprehensive or innovative as it is portrayed in the series: it was simply a nonaggression pact between the major nations of Europe. And it took place a bit earlier than is portrayed.
10	%%* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic:
11	%%** The title theme.
12	%%** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-WRTHiGPyc Anne's coronation theme]].
13	%%** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7Tq2vz2NFo A Howling Wilderness]].
14	%%** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG5YdQTGmc0 The King's Procession]].
15	%%** Trevor Morris' whole score in general is this
16	* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: Thomas Culpepper is shown to attack a random villager's home, raping her and murdering her husband. While this scene certainly happened in real life,[[note]]Probably. This was a real recorded incident and it was certainly ''a'' Thomas Culpepper who did it, but it's not entirely clear if it's the same guy or not.[[/note]] it is completely unrelated to the rest of the show, and is never referred to in any way again. It's particularly strange given that Culpepper and Katherine Howard are actually portrayed somewhat sympathetically, as two people who genuinely love each other but are too young and foolish to recognize how dangerous what they're doing is. Although it's implied that Culpepper started out just wanting to bed Catherine, and fell in love in spite of himself. Love changing someone for the better in the most inconvenient situation for it ever in the 1500s?
17	* BrokenBase: Some Catholic viewers found the series to be too biased towards the Protestant side, whereas there are also Protestants who thought it was too biased towards the Catholic side. On the other hand, the series is not popular with hardcore Protestants due to the almost universally negative portrayal of most of the Protestant characters. It is surprisingly more popular with Catholics and seems to have had more views and buyers in Catholic majority countries.
18	* CrossesTheLineTwice: Getting Cromwell sentenced to death on trumped up charges was fine, plus about what you'd expect for political enemies in the show, but it was probably not in very good taste to get his executioner drunk to the point where decapitating him took five hits of the axe and needed someone ''sober'' to finish the job.
19	* FoeYayShipping: Anne Boleyn marrying Henry was obviously a ForegoneConclusion, but thanks to the chemistry between Creator/HenryCavill and Creator/NatalieDormer, more than a few fans shipped Anne and Charles Brandon despite the historical characters despising each other.
20	* FridgeBrilliance:
21	** Following Katharine of Aragon's death, the last scene of 2.07 sees Anne wearing a beautiful yellow gown, ecstatic that she is once more pregnant. In the time period this show was set in, several historians have discovered that yellow was the color of mourning in Spain. Anne is basically mocking Katharine's death by choosing to wear that gown on the heels of her death. Gets worse when you learn that in reality, ''both'' Henry and Anne wore yellow in public after Catharine's death, and are reported to have celebrated wildly upon receiving the news. It is said though, that in private, Henry and Anne both did weep for Catherine's death.
22	** A popular theory about why Henry found Anne of Cleves repulsive was that he attempted a traditionally English GrandRomanticGesture that didn't take due to the cultural barrier, and he was deeply offended and embarrassed by it. The show implies that this is precisely what happened between them, and Anne quickly blames her lack of understanding of English customs for the king's reaction to her. His asides to Cromwell where he's clearly making up flaws in his new bride are juxtaposed with scenes of Anne describing her disgust with the king, suggesting that Henry realized that his wife was deeply unattracted to him and was trying to save face.
23	* HarsherInHindsight: In 2017, Creator/JonathanRhysMeyers' wife suffered a miscarriage of their second child, causing a relapse of his drug addiction.
24	* HilariousInHindsight:
25	** Creator/NatalieDormer's character, Anne Boleyn, has a gay brother and is falsely accused of adultery. [[Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire Maergery Tyrell]], which Dormer [[Series/GameOfThrones played]] later on, is an {{Expy}} of Anne Boleyn who also has a gay brother and is also charged with adultery, though the latter is only in the [[Literature/AFeastForCrows books]].
26	** [[Creator/NataliePortman Another actress named Natalie]] would go on to portray Anne Boleyn in a [[Film/TheOtherBoleynGirl movie]] based on a [[Literature/TheOtherBoleynGirl 2002 novel of the same name]].
27	** Creator/CallumBlue and Creator/HenryCavill both would go on to be involved with a live-action Franchise/{{Superman}} adaptation after their tenure on the show ended - Blue played General Zod in ''Series/{{Smallville}}'' while Cavill played the ''Film/ManOfSteel'' himself in the Franchise/DCExtendedUniverse.
28	* HollywoodHomely: Anne of Cleves as played by [[http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=joss%20stone&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi Joss Stone]]. Henry seems to be the only person in and out of universe that doesn't find her at least a little attractive. Probably the point: Anne of Cleves was considered quite attractive by most people who weren't Henry, and if you look at the portraits by Hans Holbein the Younger, she even looks a bit like Joss Stone. Henry's reaction was likely more down to his being irrationally temperamental than her actual appearance. In real life, it's quite likely that Henry was already more interested by then in pursuing the 16 year old Catherine Howard, and so needed an out from the marriage. As well as a reaction to her lack of attraction to him - understandable given the state of Henry in real life by this point, but obviously a thing he would take umbrage with.
29	* HoYay:
30	** The composer Thomas Tallis and William Compton.
31	** Later, George Boleyn and Mark Smeaton. During the Season 2 finale, [[spoiler: George Boleyn and Mark Smeaton are accused of treason/sleeping with Anne Boleyn and are executed.]]
32	* LesYay: [[SubText Slightly hinted]] between Queen Katherine Howard and her old friend, Joan Bulmer.
33	* MemeticMutation: Anne Boleyn's reaction to finding Henry and Jane together, thanks largely to the dramatic delivery of the line. “JUST WHEN MY BELLY IS DOING ITS BUSINESS, I CATCH YOU '''WENCHING''' WITH ''MISTRESS SEYMOUR.''”
34	* MisaimedFandom: Similar to BrokenBase, this series seems to have gotten more likes, views and buyers among Catholics than Protestants, despite it being about King Henry VIII and the Protestant Reformation. It doesn't help that even the more typically "villainous" Catholic characters like Mary Tudor, Thomas Howard and Bishop Gardiner still get some PetTheDog moments, whereas the Protestant characters are rather unlikable with a few exceptions.
35	* MoralEventHorizon: After seeing Thomas Culpepper [[spoiler:rape a game keeper's wife and then kill her husband when the man tried to bring him to justice, with ''no'' remorse and instead a tad of annoyance]] what's coming to him can't come soon enough.
36	* {{Narm}}:
37	** The siege of Boulogne, due to a combination of dodgy CGI and even dodgier French accents.
38	** Creator/JonathanRhysMeyers' attempt at acting like an old man in the last two episodes, which largely consists of a hoarse voice about on par with Creator/ChristianBale's Batman, and random pauses that come off more like he's having trouble remembering his lines.
39	** When William Brereton is arrested, the King's men find him stark naked, kneeling before an altar and praying. The guardsmen take it completely in stride, which makes the scene funnier.
40	* OneSceneWonder:
41	** Will Sommers shows up in one episode (played by Creator/DavidBradley) to cheer Henry up after Jane Seymour dies.
42	** Also, Thomas Cranmer's wife in the dinner scene with Cranmer and Cromwell, telling off the top reformers in England for not moving fast enough, and adding a verbal slapdown to the jokes about her being illegal as well as outspoken, "two reasons to hide her." Her lecture finishes with "Now you can put me back in my box!" aka the box she was mailed to England in, that Cranmer still uses to hide her when traveling around the city.
43	** Christina of Denmark has just one scene where, despite being a prospective bride for Henry, she calmly shows her utter disgust for the English king; pointing out that he's not only run through ''three'' queens in ''five'' years, but that she suspects that Katherine of Aragon (Christina's own great aunt!) was poisoned, Anne Boleyn was innocent of the crimes that she was executed for, and Jane Seymour's death from childbed fever was due to Henry and the court being so careless of her health. "Frankly, Sir, if I had two heads, then one would be at His Majesty's service. Alas, I have only this one."
44	* QuestionableCasting: An initial reaction to hearing Joss Stone would be playing Anne of Cleves, casting a singer with no previous acting experience in a difficult part that also involves speaking with a foreign accent sounds like a recipe for disaster. As it turned out, she was very good. Although one still wonders why she was cast as the wife Henry deemed [[HollywoodHomely too ugly for him to be able to procreate with]]. She was initially supposed to play Jane Seymour but had to drop out due to scheduling conflict. (Although, courtiers writing after Henry's death apparently said that Anne of Cleves was the most beautiful of Henry's wives and some people think that Henry became impotent at this point due to weight gain and blamed Anne.)
45	* RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap:
46	** Anne Boleyn. When she first appeared she was hated by most of the fans (for just being Anne Boleyn and a lot of biased history writers paint her out as the villain) but quickly grew into the perhaps most beloved character on the show (at least in its first two seasons). When she met her demise a lot of fans said they didn't want to watch anymore now that she was gone.
47	** Mary Tudor also arrived with a lot of negative historical baggage but her portrayal as a seriously flawed yet very sympathetic character won viewers over. At the end of the show, many fans were expressing disappointment that they wouldn't get to see Sarah Bolger's take on Queen Mary.
48	* RetroactiveRecognition:
49	** In one episode Henry passes a poor woodsman on the road and casually confiscates his wife for the night. The wife in question is Creator/KatieMcGrath, who was working in the wardrobe department at the time, and played Morgana on ''Series/{{Merlin\|2008}}'' and Lena Luthor on ''Series/Supergirl2015''.
50	** Charles Brandon is Creator/HenryCavill.
51	** Henry's elder daughter Mary is Sleeping Beauty on ''Series/OnceUponATime''. Philip of Bavaria, her suitor in the Season 3 finale, is Captain Hook.
52	** Francis Bryan lost the eye patch and got promoted to [[Series/{{Reign}} the king of France]]. Which makes it entirely possible that the actor's two characters met in Real Life, although his ''Series/{{Reign}}'' character would have almost certainly been a child at the time.
53	*** Thomas Culpeper became the French king's illegitimate son in the same series.
54	** Creator/NatalieDormer (who played Anne Boleyn) is Margaery Tyrell in ''Series/GameOfThrones''. And later Cressida in ''Film/TheHungerGames'' film adaptations.
55	*** Creator/DavidBradley (the king's fool, Will Somers), Ian Beattie (a sergeant-at-arms), Ian [=McElhinney=] (Pope Clement VII), and Creator/MaxVonSydow (Cardinal Von Walthburg) also went on to ''Series/GameOfThrones'' as Walder Frey, Meryn Trant, Barristan Selmy, and the Three-Eyed Raven.
56	** Allen Leech, who played Francis Dereham, went on to play Tom Branson in ''Series/DowntonAbbey''.
57	*** Other ''Tudors'' alumni who appeared in ''Downton Abbey'' are Maria Doyle Kennedy (Katherine of Aragon) as Vera Bates, Kevin Doyle (Northern rebel leader Sir John Constable) as Joseph Molesley, and Catherine Steadman (Joan Bulmer) as Mabel Lane Fox.
58	** Jeremy Northam (Sir Thomas More) went on to star as the decidedly more ambitious Anthony Eden on ''[[Series/TheCrown2016 The Crown]]''.
59	* SoBadItsGood: The reason why many people watch this series, despite the many historical inaccuracies done on purpose and the added sexiness. It probably helps that the series is self-aware about it wanting to be a soap opera set in Tudor times than a serious historical drama. Some will also admit they watch it solely for Creator/NatalieDormer as Anne Boleyn as it is one of the highlights of the show - and that is probably helped by the fact Dormer almost went to Cambridge to study history and worked with creator and head writer Michael Hirst to present a portrayal of Anne that was as sympathetic and accurate as possible.
60	* SpiritualSuccessor: Despite being marketed as prestige television and having more historically accurate costumes, many viewers of the 2022 series ''Series/BecomingElizabeth'' have noticed tonal similarities to ''The Tudors.'' Some have gone so far as to call ''Becoming Elizabeth'' a fan fiction sixth Tudors season.
61	* UnintentionallySympathetic: Anne Boleyn. Say whatever you like about her stealing a husband and wanting power but if you really think about it, she really didn't have a choice but to submit to Henry's advances, especially with her family pushing her to bed the king. She was just looking for something with more honor than being a mistress. There's also the pressure put on her when she does become the wife to now be the one who bears an heir. When she struggles, through no fault of her own, she is blamed nevertheless by both her husband and father. She then loses her life over this as well as the lives of those she loved. Her father, who she sacrificed everything to please, shows his true colors to her at the end when he is only concerned over his own life and title and does not even acknowledge his daughter waving goodbye to him.
62	* TheWoobie:
63	** Suffolk in Season 3 turns into an AntiVillain after Henry and Cromwell's ruthlessness becomes too much for him. He's haunted by his actions against the northern rebels, his wife miscarries a child, and even him gaining some last minute happiness with a mistress doesn't alter his Woobie status.
64	%%** Katherine of Aragon. Her daughter too.
65	%%** Anne of Cleves, until Henry divorced her. Then she became the happiest (as well as luckiest) of his wives.

Context YMMV / TheTudors