Requiem of the Rose King

Episode 8

While it is not, in fact, possible to bake live birds in a pie, it's very possible to simulate it. The illusion of the blackbird pie is a fairly apt metaphor for everything going on in Requiem of the Rose King: a carefully crafted magic trick that allows those who observe it to indulge in whatever fantasy of cookery they wish. But the truth of the pie is that the thick crust was baked before, the top removed, and the live birds placed inside the empty, already-baked pastry; likewise, Warwick's machinations to seat either George or Prince Edward on the throne are the same sort of empty show.

It's already having some success, temporary though it might be. By putting Henry VI back in nominal power, Warwick is essentially pre-baking the crust of his pie, because he knows what a weak and reluctant ruler Henry is. In fact, it's what he's counting on; when he suggests that Henry go on a pilgrimage, he's really just getting the temporary king to leave the throne under his (Warwick's) care…which, you may recall, is how Richard's father more or less started this whole fight for the crown, by being named Lord Protector and deciding that he could do a better job than the actual king. Of course, York was also a Plantagenet, which isn't true of Warwick, but the basic method is the same – and Warwick is planning to rule from the shadows, anyway, with either George or Prince Edward as his blackbird.

George would almost definitely be the better choice of patsy. Prince Edward isn't quite as gullible as the Duke of Clarence, but he's also got a bad case of Richard, which is thus far preventing him from consummating his marriage to Warwick's daughter Anne. Historically there's some doubt as to whether or not the two ever did so, and that's bad news for Warwick, because an unconsummated marriage isn't a “true” marriage in this time period. And if the marriage isn't real and can be annulled, or at least questioned, he loses his power over the prince. It's a very black-and-white worldview, but one that's behind a lot of the characters' struggles with love and gender in this show. To everyone, Richard included, Richard must be either man or woman; to be neither or both is to be a demonic being. Anne loves Richard as a man. Edward loves Richard as a woman. And Richard feels torn between the two halves of his being, spending his life trying to prove himself to be a man.

The only person who really doesn't seem to care is Henry. In fact, Henry confesses to Richard that he loves him because it is desire itself that scares the king, and as neither man nor woman, Richard is a more sexually pure being. It's a similar view to what Joan of Arc seems to have, or at least to feel links her to Richard, because Joan was branded a witch for, in part, behaving in unwomanly ways, which read as “evil” to her enemies. (And, you know, to break her cultish hold on France.) But she haunts Richard, while Henry pines for him, and in Henry's yearning Richard finds the love that he's missed, even if now he worries that any desire he might feel for Henry will irrevocably taint him in the man's eyes.

All of this sexual purity nonsense is an interesting way to frame what history tells us of Henry's mother, Catherine. During his childhood, Catherine had an affair with a man she'd later marry, the Welshman Owen Tudor, and their grandson would become Henry VII, the first Tudor king. His mother's sexual relationship with a man that is not his father would ultimately lead to the downfall of the Plantagenets' rule, something foreshadowed in Henry's mistrust of sex – and the fact that this episode attributes that to witnessing his mother's affair with Owen Tudor. As reshaping history to fit Aya Kanno's narrative goes, this is a pretty good one, and just one of several instances, as we'll hopefully see as the series goes on.

While Henry and Richard are escaping reality in the fairy tale forest – shorthand in Shakespeare for a place where the rules of normalcy are suspended (see A Midsummer Night's Dream and As You Like It) – Warwick and the deposed King Edward are still cooking up their plots. Which dainty dish will be set before which king when the final banquet is prepared? And who will wield the knife that cuts open the crust, allowing the metaphoric blackbirds to come flying out?

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Requiem of the Rose King is currently streaming on Funimation.