Honorifics

Dear Reign writers,

How is it that you write a show about royals and nobility without knowing which honorific suits which rank? I mean, it's clear the show's target demographic is teenaged females who aren't in the least bit bookish, but still... why not do one small thing that could subtly educate your viewers rather than making your show look even trashier than it already does?

Here's a quick primer:

King/Queen: (Your/His/Her/Their) Majesty (-ies), who refer to themselves in the plural (We).
Prince/Princess/Dauphin: (Your/His/Her/Their) Highness (-es).

Anything below that gets tremendously complicated and varies from one royal court to another, but nobody should be calling a Queen "Your Grace" or "Your Highness," and no Queen should be making official/public declarations in the first person.

I won't even touch the issue of your female characters looking like they just walked out of the Nordstrom prom catalog, nor your male characters wearing poet shirts and shiny leather pants, because, well, you do call this a fantasy show, and maybe polyester and pleather is your fantasy... but please, get the basics of addressing a regal personage correct.

On the other hand, thank you for casting Megan Follows and John Barrowman (it's a little sad that Barrowman is one of the few people with an authentic accent, but hey, CBS ain't the BBC), the latter because he's adorable, and the former because it's hilarious to me to see bits and pieces of Anne Shirley in Catherine de' Medici.


Shaking my quill pen frustratedly in your general direction,
Me