Though
I finished and reviewed Richard III
not long ago, I didn’t get around to comparing it with House of Cards as I’d planned.
Until now! Having read one and
watched the other, the common threads between the two stories are clear, especially
between the two main characters.
Both
Richard and Frank have the whole “smartest, sneakiest guy in the room” thing
going on, further accentuated by their frequent asides to elaborate on their
plans or scorn the stupidity of others.
Obviously, both have their eye on the highest seat in the land and have
no qualms about how they attain it. Plus,
it’s not a simple matter of taking out one person – there’s an entire series of
hoops to jump through, which requires a complex, multifaceted plan of
carefully-balanced wheels within wheels.
I had
to stop and think for a moment about Richard; though he, like Frank, is
certainly fond of intricate manipulations that usually end which his victim
destroying themselves, that’s largely his weapon of choice in his own
play. Earlier in the tetrad, he’s much
more overt in his takedown of his opponents.
He’s openly hostile, relishing in battle and personally killing a number
of his enemies. I realize, though, that someone
needs different tactics for destroying their own family from within than for
crushing an acknowledged foe. There’s no
real call for Richard to play nice with the Lancasters, but he’s part of the house of York. He lives among the people who are in his way –
brothers, nephews, and so on – and can’t afford to just commence with the
bloodshed. So, he gets clever and
underhanded, instead playing them all like chess.
In a
way, I suppose Frank is the same. He can
be more openly combative against the Republicans because they’re the opposing
party (though he still has to conceal his less legal activities,) and the
Democrats enjoy reaping the benefits of his mercenary methods. However, when he’s gunning for the people
above him in his own party, he has to do it subtly. He has to nurture their trust, isolate them
from all voices but his, and gradually undermine them until they’re backed into
a corner and can’t escape.
Not that
the two characters are entirely the same.
There’s Frank’s wife Claire, a partner in Frank’s aims as he is in hers,
and the sense of warped vindication that plays a role in Frank’s desire, not
just to supplant President Walker, but to eviscerate him. The biggest difference to me, though, is
Richard’s much-talked-of physical deformity.
Throughout his play and the ones preceding it, other characters mock his
“monstrous” appearance and cite it as proof of his internal blackness. Frank, on the other hand, looks every bit the
politician. There’s nothing readily
apparent about him that people sneer at.
I almost wonder if future episodes will use his bi-(or possibly homo-)sexuality
to touch on this angle. It’s not visible
or evident, but that’s more the political game of today, isn’t it: secret scandals coming to light and eroding a
public figure’s foundation. It might be
an interesting way to go, especially since the show really doesn’t vilify Frank’s
sexuality (which definitely relieves me) – there are plenty of other reasons to
vilify him. If anything, his scenes of
same-sex attraction seem more honest and less opportunistic than his scenes of
opposite-sex attraction and take tiny steps toward humanizing him. For someone to try and use it against him
would be much like people disparaging Richard for physical conditions over
which he has no control. I can’t decide
if it’d be obvious, irritating, or intriguing, but I’m curious about the
idea. Sigh… how many months until season
3?
