It just makes no historical sense for any version of Adelheid to support Henry the Quarrelsome against her son, even if we assume she hated every vibre of Theophanu's being and was seething in resentment. Her son is her future. At this point he doesn't yet have a son of his own, and like I said, if she backs Henry, then her dynasty is ended, there will be no heritage of her her blood left to the world, and this mattered to a medieval ruler. (By contrast, a scenario where she does nothing in the regency struggle and/or tries to get the regency exclusively for herself against Theophanu would have been possible, if you also assume she trusts in the Quarrelsome not killing little Otto.)
Now I do have a suspicion for the reason for this plot twist, which reminded me a bit of a similarly bewildering (in terms of history) plot invention in the movie Le Roi Danse, which is about Louis XIV and Lully and is deliciously homoerotic, but not only wipes out brother Philippe from existence but lets Anne of Austria, Louis' mother, conspire with an evil cousin of his against her son and back said cousin for the throne. Now firstly, of course in historical reality if Louis had died young Philippe the Gay would have become King, not some cousin, and that's why he doesn't exist in this film (which laudably does not want to vilify a homosexual character). Secondly, Anne wasn't just close to her oldest son, she fought for him in the uprising of the nobility that dominated Louis XIV's childhood. Again, he was her future and justification of life. Backing some Bourbon cousin because Louis is into ballet and doesn't listen to her politically anymore would not only have been majorly ooc for the real Anne but would have made no political sense whatsoever.
In both cases, I think the reason why the authors go for the Mean Mom option is this: buying sympathy for the son. With Louis, it's that all powerful rulers are really hard to sympathize with, and the film starts when Louis isn't a child anymore, so the one time in his life where you can present him as being in danger and threatened is already over. But as with curent day stories about rich men, there's always the mean unloving parent option. Usually it's the father, but even a movie taking plenty of liberties can't keep Louis XIII around, otherwouse one of our main characters wouldn't be Louis XIV, he'd be the Dauphin. So poor Anne has to be it.
Meanwhile, with Otto II., the problem for Tarr possibly was that she wanted readers to like him, to be a worthy spouse. Now Otto II. wasn't a bad guy, but he wasn't, as the podcast points out, as lucky as his father, which meant he didn't have any grand battles or political achievements to feature in the story. And "sided with wife against Mom" alone evne if you write Adelheid as relentlessly mean still doesn't cut it. But if he doesn't just have his cousin but his own mother against him and sends her away after having seen through her plot and defeated it, he's both sympathetic and has accompolished something.
this one has been doing a lot of telling-not-showing... like, I felt that we had to take Aspasia's close relationship with Theophanu on faith a lot.
They don't have many actual scenes together, it's true. I think that's another reasonw hy Theophanu had to be the daughter of Romanos II and Theophano instead of John Tsimitzikes' niece, so that she could have shared her childhood with Aspasia and the reader can buy their closeness with the backstory in mind. Evidently if the two had only just met when Theophanu gets married, Theophanu is the niece of Aspasia's enemy and they still have no more scenes post marriage, their closeness would not work at all.
Re: Eagle's Daughter
Now I do have a suspicion for the reason for this plot twist, which reminded me a bit of a similarly bewildering (in terms of history) plot invention in the movie Le Roi Danse, which is about Louis XIV and Lully and is deliciously homoerotic, but not only wipes out brother Philippe from existence but lets Anne of Austria, Louis' mother, conspire with an evil cousin of his against her son and back said cousin for the throne. Now firstly, of course in historical reality if Louis had died young Philippe the Gay would have become King, not some cousin, and that's why he doesn't exist in this film (which laudably does not want to vilify a homosexual character). Secondly, Anne wasn't just close to her oldest son, she fought for him in the uprising of the nobility that dominated Louis XIV's childhood. Again, he was her future and justification of life. Backing some Bourbon cousin because Louis is into ballet and doesn't listen to her politically anymore would not only have been majorly ooc for the real Anne but would have made no political sense whatsoever.
In both cases, I think the reason why the authors go for the Mean Mom option is this: buying sympathy for the son. With Louis, it's that all powerful rulers are really hard to sympathize with, and the film starts when Louis isn't a child anymore, so the one time in his life where you can present him as being in danger and threatened is already over. But as with curent day stories about rich men, there's always the mean unloving parent option. Usually it's the father, but even a movie taking plenty of liberties can't keep Louis XIII around, otherwouse one of our main characters wouldn't be Louis XIV, he'd be the Dauphin. So poor Anne has to be it.
Meanwhile, with Otto II., the problem for Tarr possibly was that she wanted readers to like him, to be a worthy spouse. Now Otto II. wasn't a bad guy, but he wasn't, as the podcast points out, as lucky as his father, which meant he didn't have any grand battles or political achievements to feature in the story. And "sided with wife against Mom" alone evne if you write Adelheid as relentlessly mean still doesn't cut it. But if he doesn't just have his cousin but his own mother against him and sends her away after having seen through her plot and defeated it, he's both sympathetic and has accompolished something.
this one has been doing a lot of telling-not-showing... like, I felt that we had to take Aspasia's close relationship with Theophanu on faith a lot.
They don't have many actual scenes together, it's true. I think that's another reasonw hy Theophanu had to be the daughter of Romanos II and Theophano instead of John Tsimitzikes' niece, so that she could have shared her childhood with Aspasia and the reader can buy their closeness with the backstory in mind. Evidently if the two had only just met when Theophanu gets married, Theophanu is the niece of Aspasia's enemy and they still have no more scenes post marriage, their closeness would not work at all.