PhoenixRising

Hi, Gwen! Thanks so much for the pics. That's one of my favorite scenes. I think of it as a precursor to season 3 when Lucreiza is the one to sneak into Cesare's bed.

You're very welcome, Gwen. We love having you back!

Oh, the interviews were telling. I love this video of Francois and Holly talking about doing the scene and their characters crossing that incestuous line. And I don't think it freaked anyone out, actually. Showtime even advertised the 'Siblings' episode as "the moment you've been waiting for," as if it were just another romantic love scene. And you're totally right about Game of Thrones. I think it's sparked a trend on television lately.

DGSAFDMD

I remember the "the moment you've been waiting for" commercial BLESS THEM cause honestly there was no lie there?

Also, I don't know if GOT actually pimped up the incest, cause the first incestuous couple from GOT that shows since the pilot is hated by most of the viewers? so is not like the producers were like "oh look how much they like it, we should write one too!"

Coincidentally 3/4 couples started around 2011. I remember Boardwalk Empire's mother and son combo started around the time, The Borgias (although they weren't canon yet), GOT (canon) and Klaus/Rebekah (non canon but during 2011 they were like SUPER CESTY like they were not canon simply cause it was the CW).

BL.Arinna_1982

Yes! And then I remembered the first interview with NJ and how he stated that he'll never gonna play them as an incest couple!

DGSAFDMD

I remember him saying "is never going to happen, they're just siblings and everyone including the cast was like WHAT?

PhoenixRising

OMG, I remember the Boardwalk Empire mother/son thing and I was like, WHAAAT? Damn, it's all over TV now.

Wait, was there an interview where Jordan said that Cesare and Lucrezia would never get together? And the cast(Francois and Holly) were shocked?

LindaL100

I've always had the impression that Jordan himself was never too keen on the incest plotline, and that the reason why Cesare & Lucrezia's incest went as far as it did in the series was because he was mostly influenced by the cast (mainly Francois & Holly), Showtime and the fan response. Most fans loved the incest and Showtime knew that and they clearly pandered to the shippers in season 3, so I suspect either Showtime or the actors or both might have "pressured" Jordan into bending over backwards to please the fans and give the fans what they wanted. But even if that's the case, I still find it ridiculous that Jordan would be so apprehensive about the incest even though HE was the one who romanticized Cesare & Lu's relationship in the first place.

Crystal Clear

^ If Neil Jordan genuinely wasn't keen on the incest plot, then he's a huge hypocrite.


He wrote and directed INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE. This movie had so many incestuous vibes between Louis, Lestat and Claudia.

BL.Arinna_1982

If I remember correctly Francois told him that, that romantic vibe was in all of his writing for them.

PhoenixRising

Hi, Gwen! Yeah, I do remember Interview With The Vampire, but Louis, Lestat, and Claudia weren't technically related to each other, at least not when they were alive. Lestat created Louis and Louis created Claudia, so in vampire terms it was incestuous. But the truth is that the incest actually originated in Anne Rice's novels. In the novel, The Vampire Lestat, the first vampire that Lestat created was his own mother, Gabrielle de Lioncourt. She was only 15 when she gave birth to Lestat and Lestat was 20 when he was turned into a vampire by Magnus, the Renaissance era scientist and self-made vampire who injected himself with vampire blood and later created Lestat as a scientific experiment. So Gabrielle was around 35 and still young and attractive when he turned her. And afterwards, Lestat and Gabrielle became lovers, even though she was his own biological mother, and he was her vampire parent. So Lestat's existence was filled with incest. And you're right, if Jordan objected then why even do this material in the first place?

Hi, Linda! Well, like I just explained to Gwen, if Jordan wasn't into the incest plotline, then why did he do incestuous material like Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles? And he seems okay with doing weird stuff like The Crying Game. And every other dramatization of The Borgias had tackled the incest plotline, including the old BBC series. I think there was a European series where Cesare and Lucrezia even had a threesome with Sancia. Now that's something I'd like to have seen on the Showtime series.

If Jordan felt "pressured" by the audience or his actors, then he really wasn't paying attention to his own writing because even Francois admitted that it was Jordan himself that put all the incestuous subtext into the relationship, going all the way back to the first episode where Cesare and Lucrezia had their Edward/Bella moment lying on the grass, remember?

Crystal Clear

It's true that Louis, Lestat and Claudia were not blood related when they were alive But I liken it to Buffy the Vampire Slayer where you have Spike telling Angel he is like his "grand sire" because Angel turned the woman who turned Spike into a vampire. In death, they are sharing a bloodline because they re-created each other. That concept in itself is incestuous.

And yes, you're right - Lestat's novel relationship with his mother says it all They even did something similar in BUFFY when Spike turns his mother into a vampire to save her from a deathly illness and she starts flirting with him when all he wants is her motherly love

I just think that Neil Jordan is hypocritical in the sense that he already knew the many rumors surrounding the Borgia family before he took on the responsibility of creating a TV show about it, so why play coy about it when Cesare and Lucrezia had anything other than a conventional siblings relationship?

The best thing they ever did in the show was put the two of them together romantically. It confirmed all of Cesare's overly protective behavior towards Lucrezia as the truly romantic behavior that it was.

BL.Arinna_1982

PhoenixRising

Thanks for the gif, Arinna!

OMG, Spike turned his mother? Did I miss that? And did they steal that from Lestat? Oh, and didn't Gunn have an incestuous attraction to his sister who became a vampire on Angel? Man, this is all over the place. And yeah, the whole Darla/Angel/Drusilla/Spike group was totally incestuous.

I agree with you. I think Neil Jordan only really cared about Rodrigo, even though Cesare and Lucrezia's storyline eventually surpasses his, including in the history. And he can't deny that he's the one who put all the incestuous vibes between them in the first season.

I do agree that the show putting Cesare and Lucrezia was great, I just wish the Siblings episode was a bit more consistent, because that bedroom seduction scene showed Lucrezia coming on to Cesare, but then later when Cesare kisses Lucrezia when they're going over the seating arrangements for the wedding, she reacts like she didn't just try to lure Cesare into bed.

BL.Arinna_1982

LindaL100

Yes it was very hypocritical and contradictory of Jordan to say that he doesn't believe the incest actually happened or that he doesn't like the incest, when HE was the one who decided to romanticise Cesare & Lu's relationship to begin with, HE was the one who gave the siblings all these romantic and intimate scenes and dialogues and interactions together in S1, which triggered so many fans to fall in love with the siblings' incestuous relationship. So if you think about it, it was Jordan himself who basically made the fans fall in love with the incest, so he has no one but himself to blame.
But I've come to realise that Jordan is a very confusing and conflicted man, so I've given up trying to comprehend him.

Thanks for the beautiful gifs Arinna

BL.Arinna_1982

Jordan wrote it, but it were Francois and Holy, who made it happen!