Richard III unexpectedly pretty

ANDREW WINNING / REUTERS

“It doesn’t look like the face of a tyrant. I’m sorry but it doesn’t ... He’s very handsome. It’s like you could just talk to him, have a conversation with him right now."

Based on scans of his recently-unearthed bones, only the coloring was taken from the famous Tudor-era portraits, which historians long-suspected were contrived to make him appear more sinister.

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http://twitter.com/Sabocat Sabocat

Lord Farquaad from Shrek?
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000028488497 Lynda Gutierrez

For a redemption of Richard III’s character, I recommend strongly the book Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey — it was required reading by my first college history professor to show how twisted and skewed our perception of history can get — because after all, history is written by the victors. (And popularized by Shakespeare, in this case!) I’m glad to see Richard getting some good press (finally.)
- Conan Librarian
  
  “history is written by the victors.”
  
  I don’t know about that, the Huns and the Vandals won in their respected times, and yet….
  - bryan rasmussen
    
    everyone always makes fun of them for being illiterate?
  - shay simmons
    
    “History is written by the victors.”
    
    Except in the case of the American Civil War.
- http://www.flickr.com/photos/koocheekoo/ Koocheekoo
  
  Thanks for the book recommendation. I also recommend Sharon Kay Penman’s book, The Sunne in Splendor, for a historical fictionalized account of what she felt is a more accurate story.
  http://www.sharonkaypenman.com/book_page.asp?ISBN=003061368X
- speleothem
  
  Another one that presents Richard III in a better light is Thomas B. Costain’s “The Last Plantagenets.”
edgore

Have we learned nothing from the dinosaurs? I am assuming that Richard III had feathers, just to be safe.
- Conan Librarian
  
  And had tiny arms which were used only for sex…probably.
  - GregS
    
    You’re talking about Richard III, right?
duncancreamer

edit: doh!

I think that’s actually Lord Farquaad
Preston Sturges

The reconstruction is at least as lifelike as the official Kate Middleton royal portrait.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Definitely prettier.
  - Preston Sturges
    
    Somehow Richard got a lot younger and Kate got a lot older.
bryan rasmussen

that is totally not the face of someone that had a kill list.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002204733322 Jared Kaufman

http://youtu.be/olrJwB0XdnM
http://www.facebook.com/will.mclean.31 Will McLean

“Pretty Boy” Floyd was pretty, too.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Hmmmm… not sure about that.
Antinous / Moderator

Although he seems to have been a pretty good king, these R3 groupies are fucking nuts.
- awjt
  
  I only heard about them in the course of all this R3 boning, and now I must say I am appalled that people care so damn much about rewriting shit that went down in the 15th century. Oy! Aren’t there 8 Is Enough reruns they should be catching up on?
  - Wreckrob8
    
    500 years isn’t so long ago in Europe. The Yorkists have already started a petition to have his body repatriated to Yorkshire.
  - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=545951913 Fee Berry
    
    It isn’t that their care that disturbs me, it’s that they care passionately about stuff they haven’t got the data to support… it is an object lesson in turning theories into dogma. The tv programme about the discovery of the skeleton was irritating in the extreme, mainly because they behaved as though there were only one descendant of the platagenets when there are thousands in the UK alone (and many more in the US I think) and the odd woman from the R3 society who was visibly upset that he was proven to have a physical deformity, against the party line for the society. On the other hand…she raised the money, and took them straight to the place where he was buried, so maybe we should forgive her disappointment at finding out the rumours weren’t all Tudor propaganda.
- http://twitter.com/ocschwar ocschwar
  
  He was the first king to warmly embrace new media, you know.
http://twitter.com/Skyhawk1 skyhawk1

Isn’t that the chick in NCIS?
http://celesteagnes.blogspot.com/ Sekino

Huh. That first pic is like a weird mix of Quentin Tarantino and Severus Snape…
- Rich Keller
  
  “Mr. Potter, I am not in the dead nephew storage business.”
  - http://celesteagnes.blogspot.com/ Sekino
    
    150 points for whatever house you’re in!
Gabriel Meister

If only these bones had been discovered 20 years ago — a younger Kyle MacLachlan could’ve played him in a biopic.
MollyMaguire

No overbite!
http://boingboing.net/2013/01/17/utensils-probably-gave-us-all.html
- http://twitter.com/SusanFelicity Susan
  
  He never had one – he is/was slightly undershot.
Joseph O. Holmes

Very cool how they can start with mere bones and figure out that he was cross-eyed and smirking.
- rattypilgrim
  
  Just your generic king’s face.
BunnyShank

Totally looks like hell’s black intelligencer to me.
pjcamp

Jay Leno.
rattypilgrim

The left cheek bone looked higher and the left jaw wider then the right side of Richard III’s skull IMO. I wonder if the detail of the painting shown above is intentionally depicting his left eye larger and bulging and if that’s why he was portrayed with the left side of his face turned away, in the shadows.
http://www.facebook.com/people/David-Witt/1041651388 David Witt

Bah! This is what he really looked like:
http://www.geekman.ca GeekMan

Ah well, we all know that attractive people could never ever be tyrants.

I mean, if high school taught me one thing… oh wait… it’s the opposite…
Halloween_Jack

I don’t think that the older portrait really makes him look sinister; he looks more tired of all these damn lies people keep telling about him. The new one, though, makes him look all like, eh, whatevs.
http://www.legrandbazart.com sigismund

Sam Riley !!! Now I want a black and white biopic directed by Anton Corbijn that will be called “A horse” or something that short.
- http://lemoutan.blogspot.com/ Lemoutan
  
  My Little Kingdom?
Wreckrob8

If Richard III is to be promoted to the status of ‘good’ king, someone needs to be demoted to the position of ‘bad’ king. History is a zero sum game. There are inept Plantagenet candidates, Edward II or Henry VI.
Now all we need is a long lost first folio with a missing 37th play….
Øyvind

“…doesn’t look like the face of a tyrant”
Tyrants have a certain face? Mao was ugly as sin, sure, but Stalin sometimes had a teddy bear look to him, and Tito looked more like a talk show host (when out of uniform). Even more to the point, except the odd moustache, most tyrants and dictators have had little physical in common as well.
Maybe we could have a chart ala the plane recognition charts of the 1950s; how to spot a tyrant?
- http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
  
  Being a tyrant will have a toll on your face. If you’re angry at people all day, you’re going to end up looking angry.
  
  It’s all in the eyebrows.
  - peregrinus
    
    Your chin diminishes, your bones shrink, you get neck-ache from looking up at everybody while looking down your nose, your voice gets louder, your hands move in nutty expressive patterns …
    
    It’s not all easy, being a tyrant.
    - http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
      
      If you feel effected by today’s topic, or are a tyrant yourself and require support, please call 0800 9990011
- Cynical
  
  Teddy bear, my arse. Uncle Joe may have been one of the most genocidal tyrants the world has ever seen, but there aint nothing teddybearish about him:
  http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ltydkfFy1v1qeest9o1_400.jpg
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    So dreamy.
    - Cynical
      
      Genocidelicious.
Capital_7

Well, if you’re not factoring in any expression, I suppose anyone can look innocent. We all look like angels when we’re sleeping.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  I’ve managed to slug every person with whom I’ve ever slept.
  - http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
    
    Is that a metaphor?
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      No.
  - Donald Petersen
    
    Now, that’s no way to solicit future candidates.
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      I’ve never hit anyone hard enough to injure them, just wake them up. I also wake up screaming at the top of my lungs a couple of times every year. Honestly, I get more complaints about the farting.
  - awjt
    
    We wear straightjackets to bed at our house.
jorum

These reconstructions have been shown to be often very subjective.
Last time someone did a test they gave same skull to a dozen different forensic reconstructors and came back with a dozen completely different faces.
- http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
  
  I can believe this.
  
  I’ve actually started to build quite a lot of distrust around this kind of work, archeology as well (I’m afraid to say).
  
  I’ve seen enough archeologists make bold, far-reaching claims, and present them as facts to know that at least some of the field is a bit iffy.
  
  Things like: “There are four people buried here in the middle of nowhere, and one of them is pointing south, therefore this country’s primary theology was Devil worship”. That’s a pretty good format example that can be applied to 80% of archeology claims.
  
  It’s the science equivalent of using a single anecdote to prove a theory.
  - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=545951913 Fee Berry
    
    In the programme broadcast earlier this week in the UK, the proofs offered were carbon dating of the bones, adjusted for the diet unusualy high in protein including fish, which skews it (but is another pointer towards high status corpse); circumstantial evidence of wounds to the body as reported contemporaneously; DNA testing against a known descendent of R3′s sister. The reconstruction of the face was done by the expert from Dundee who features in History Cold Case, and was close enough to portraits, although there is always the suspicion that painters will glamorise a living sitter and demonise a dead one.
    - http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
      
      It wasn’t Time Team was it? They’re the kings of drawing sweeping conclusions from practically no evidence.
      
      They’re probably more accurately described as psychics than archaeologists.
    - http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
      
      It wasn’t Time Team was it? They’re the kings of drawing sweeping conclusions from practically no evidence. They’re probably more accurately described as psychics than archaeologists.
  - Wreckrob8
    
    How archaeologists jump from the physical properties of artifacts to belief systems and ideas is quite mystifying at times. However, without it archaeology is just a collection of indecipherable texts.They take no more liberties than are taken in trying to interpret contradictory written texts.
    
    But I do know exactly what you mean.