This episode of Noble Blood is one of several episodes covering the lives of the wives of English King Henry VIII.
The techniques host Dana Schwartz uses appear very similar to the ones she used in “The Second Death of Marie Antoinette.” There is still only one narrator, Schwartz, and she uses the same slow and almost soothing voice. There is also an obvious attempt at nudging the audience to sympathize with the main character of the story, Catherine of Aragon, which is comparable with the way Marie Antoinette was portrayed in the first episode. While it makes sense that Schwartz would choose for the protagonist of each story to be an appealing character, it struck me as slightly repetitive. In addition to similar characterization, the host also sets the scene again by describing an event that took place before the main topic of the podcast. In this case, she begins with when Catherine of Aragon first arrived in England when she was just 15 years old. She does a good job using detailed descriptions to help the listener connect more with the story, since there are still no interviews or changes in points of view to give the audience a deeper understanding of what is happening. The majority of this podcast, however, was Schwartz providing historical context for the events she talked about. This is a little unlike the first episode I chose because “The Second Death of Marie Antoinette” was more focused on the actual occurrence of events rather than the reasons they happened.
Schwartz was consistent in her introductory scene-setting, but after the first several minutes there are notable differences. For example, although the background music was still useful and indicative of which time period the story takes place, the music in this specific episode is much more subtle. At some points, I could barely hear it. The change in volume of the music was likely to make certain statements more poignant or emphasized, but I failed to see how it was effective. Additionally, one of the most important differences to me was how irrelevant the title of this episode seemed. Anyone familiar with the story of Catherine of Aragon would know that King Henry VIII separated the Church of England from the Catholic Church to divorce his devout Catholic wife, so it makes sense that a podcast episode about Catherine of Aragon would be titled “Divorced.” However, the episode’s story itself has nothing to do with the events surrounding her divorce; it only focuses on Catherine’s life before her marriage to King Henry VIII. This struck me as odd, since many of the novellas and other works we have studied had titles that were obviously connected to the stories. Such a disconnect between “Divorced” and its title made me a little confused, and if I were to create a similar episode, I would either change the title or change the main story so that it is more relevant.
While listening to Noble Blood, I found some narrative choices I liked and some I didn’t. I’m intrigued by Schwartz’s use of an introductory scene to “hook” the audience and reel them into listening to the rest of the podcast. This is slightly similar to the way my group’s adaptation analysis podcast was organized. We gave a brief synopsis of the adaptation before getting into the “meat and potatoes” of it all. I would consider this a smart choice since grabbing the audience’s attention and keeping it is incredibly important.
Overall, I enjoyed listening to another episode of Noble Blood and look forward to listening to a third and final episode later on.
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Hey Khaily! Your podcast, Noble Blood, seems really interesting. It’s different from my podcast in the sense that there is only one speaker throughout the whole episode. I think it’s interesting how you say that the podcast attempts to appeal towards every listener personally. I feel as though this helps keep listeners engaged, as they can attempt to personally relate to the podcast. On top of that, the vivid descriptions of each story helps draw out the scene for every listener. This is something that I could could use in my podcasts, as every summary or scene referred too should be able to appeal visually to all listeners.
Personally, I enjoy listening and learning about historical time periods because I find that history has the power to teach so much. However, I feel like this podcast only appeals to those who take interest in this topic because of its structure. I find it also interesting that the title of the episode seems a bit misleading. You mention how the episode has little to do with the actual divorce, and more so background on one of the characters life. This makes me keep in mind that for future podcasts, episode titles play a huge role in attracting attention. Episode titles are easily misleading, and those tend to draw listeners away because they can feel unsatisfied with the episode itself.
This podcast seems interesting, especially because of how it goes into depth about a time that has long passed. However, I feel as though the one narrator would cause me to lose interest throughout each episode. As you said though, the narrator’s tone and use of background music help keep listeners engaged throughout. I would honestly look into this podcast and maybe recommend it to my dad!
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Hi Khaily! Your post was really interesting to read, and I was wondering if there were any good history-based podcasts out there, so I’m glad to know about this one! The podcast I’m listening to, This American Life, generally includes a minimum of five different voices in each episode, and I would imagine that only having one voice, especially combined with it being on the slower, softer side, might make it a little hard for the podcast to really hold your attention.
Initially, thinking about a history podcast, I would expect it to try and be as unbiased and factual as possible, so I was surprised that Noble Blood wasn’t shooting for that. I wonder if the writer(s) of the podcast chose to make it more biased towards Catherine because taking a side makes it easier to get listeners emotionally engaged and lends a kind of narrative to the episode, rather than it just being a stream of information.
As far as the title, I do have a likely explanation! There’s a sort of mnemonic device that lots of people use to remember what happened to Henry VIII’s wives that goes “Divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived.” I’ve never thought it was much use personally because to know what happened to which wife, you already have to know the names of all of the wives in order, but to each their own. I was wondering if the title was a reference to this, and it seems that it is–I looked at the Noble Blood website and the five episodes after this one are titled, respectively, Beheaded, Died, Divorced II, Beheaded II, and Survived. I feel like a regular Sherlock.
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Hey Khaily!
Noble Blood sounds like a very interesting podcast. Historically oriented narrative podcasts seem like a good way to learn a lot about how to tell a story effectively.
I found it interesting how there is only one narrator, many of the podcasts I have listened to have featured more than one narrator. The podcast I am listening to, Crimetown, features two narrators who often play off one another, especially with analysis. A single narrator sounds like it would work very well to get the listener immersed in almost a storytelling experience.
The historical nature of the podcast, especially in regards to interviews, might share some unexpected commonalities with our Sherlock Holmes podcast analysis. We obviously cannot interview Sherlock or Watson so using detailed descriptions like you mentioned could work well.
The use of music reminds me of how it is used in the podcast I chose to analyze. It sets the scene, setting, and atmosphere for the listener, creating a more involved experience. Even if yours is set five hundred years ago and mine fifty, appropriate music seems like it can make or break a podcast.
With what you mention with the title, I found the title of my specific episode as well to be a bit lackluster. It seemed like the title of yours was confusingly unrelated, and while the title of mine might have been at least accurate it definitely could have been more interesting. A good eye-catching title is the very first place where potential listeners can get hooked. First impressions count.
Noble Blood definitely sounds like an interesting podcast and if I ever want to listen to a historical podcast this would be on my list.
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