Henry V: Difference between revisions

* [[A Father to His Men]]: Though Henry is specifically and significantly a ''[[True Companions|brother]]'' rather than a father.

* [[French Jerk]]: The Dauphin, quite possibly the Ur Example. Some productions, particularly modern ones wishing to undermine the play's jingoism, work against this characterization.

* [[Gender Neutral Narrator]]: The Chorus's gender is never specified, though in Elizabethan times a female version would have been very strange.

* [[Getting Crap Past the Radar]]: The scene in Act IV when Pistol tells the young interpreter that he will rape the French soldier named "Master Fer! I'll fer him, and ''firk'' him, and ferret him". [http://www.cracked.com/article_19271_8-filthy-jokes-hidden-in-ancient-works-art.html Of course, the word "firk" sounds like the other "F word"], almost like a [[Precision F-Strike]] according to Cracked.com.

* [[Original Position Gambit]]: Henry asks the nobles plotting against him what he should do to someone who's committed treason. When they say he should execute traitors, he agrees -- and executes them.

* [[Paper-Thin Disguise]]: Henry as common soldier again.

* [[Real Life Relative]]: Branagh cast wife [[Emma Thompson]] as Catherine.

* [[Rule of Funny]]: In real life Henry would have been able (at the very least) to speak that era's version of French, since it was still the offical language for many aspects of the king's rule, including the language of government and the king's personal correspondance - but it's much funnier to watch him attempt to court Katherine in the broken forms of ''both'' their languages. This is slightly [[Truth in Television]] -- while Henry V spoke French, yes, he and his father were the first English kings since the [[Norman Conquest]] that didn't speak French as their native tongue.