In The Seed of Hanged Men, Final Conflict, Book 5 ----- corresponds to the "barricade subplot and nearly everyone dying" part of canon. Everyone returns to the Seed universe's Earth and a final course begins; an anti-war play is staged at Hogwarts, The Year of Great Medlars, written by Courfeyrac (his first and only tragedy) and starring him as Dauphin Francis of Valois, Combeferre as Count Sebastian de' Montecuccoli, James Norrington (Hufflepuff) as Prince Henri of Valois, and Musichetta as Caterina de' Medici. Lady Alistair marries Count de Satigny and his personal troupe puts on a separate production of The Year of Great Medlars at the Satigny estate. After the play (the Hogwarts performance), Enjolras loses his cool being provoked by Montparnasse, tearing off his prefect badge and claiming back the prefecture of Slytherin by force, leading to a declaration of war... The Xeniades Club, the pack of werewolves who turned Grantaire, and the Condesce's army storm Hogwarts, leading to the last stand of AS-SORTED. Grantaire has, while drugged with the Draught of Living Death, a dream inspired by the Lamb Lies Down, from the Chamber of 32 Doors onwards, with himself as Rael and Enj as John, before waking up and dying at the end of the battle, holding Enj's hand... Lunar eclipse.
On the cover of the script of The Year of Great Medlars there is a quatrain written by Courfeyrac in the style of Nostradamus, that spoils the whole play:
A thirsty prince in the August sun...
A cupbearer seized is never fun...
A sister-in-law ruled by envy and greed...
A wish for peace that came true indeed.
The play is significant because it's Courfeyrac's first and only tragedy, in which the author expresses his uncertainties about going to war and about coming of age. Due to taking place in the Renaissance, amongst royalty, the play is written and performed in the style of Shakespeare, though with an exaggerated bent similar to Shakespeare's plays-within-plays (The Murder of Gonzago, Pyramus and Thisbe, et al.) and to the Ember Island Players. In fact, the author of the whole fic saga (StrixAlluka) names Shakespeare and the Ember Island Players as the primary inspirations. As well as the historical event (the Montecuccoli affair, in Tournon-sur-Rhône, August 1536) whose characters mirror those in The Seed and in Les Misérables canon who star in Medlars.
The fruit from which the play takes its title is the German medlar (NOT the Japanese medlar), known in France in the Renaissance as mêle (term used by Rabelais, the first chapter of whose saga Count Sebastian reads aloud to Dauphin Francis --the pentalogy is being written by Rabelais and proofread by the royal cupbearer as the story is taking place, and the characters are avatars of the people the author knows, the heroic prince Pantagruel being a counterpart of Dauphin Francis, and his bromantic pal, the well-read Panurge, of Count Sebastian de' Montecuccoli, the whole epic novel --or fic-- having a pacifistic and free-thinking ideology... Rabelais was writing a real-person fanfic, that became an AU after the tragic deaths of the people who inspired his heroes!--), and still today (the German medlar) as trou du cul (anus, "asshole") and in Shakespeare's English as open-arse (term most famously used by Mercutio --don't forget that StrixAlluka was once Freddie Mercutio!--).
The shape of the German medlar, Mespilus germanica, suggests a dilated anus. In turn, mêle evokes mela (apple in Italian, German medlars being closely related to roses and to apples), and thus, the Forbidden Fruit of Eden: Rabelais' medlars are also described as "easy on the eyes and pleasant to the taste," like the Forbidden Fruit in Genesis.
The whole read about the Great Medlars may sound like a big-lipped-alligator moment, but it is actually a statement that evokes a lost Golden Age, without the courtly intrigues, wars, and poisonings that the characters have to endure (and that lead to their deaths, this being in Courf's own words "a queer Romeo and Juliet", both dauphin and cupbearer being, though praised and popular, called "queer" --in both senses of the word-- behind their backs, and this also leading to their downfall; remaining single at 18 while there are a lot of prospective fiancées, most prominently Bloody Mary, definitely raised suspicions... both leads being, in the play and in real life, doomed to die young, single, and childless, and the peace between France and the Habsburg Empire being signed at the cost of the lives of both queer star-crossed lovers... The play starts with the arrival of Count Sebastian and Caterina de' Medici in Marseille and her wedding to Henry, spare to the throne... and ends with the rise to power of Henry and Caterina --who poisoned her brother-in-law and blamed his cupbearer lover-- after the violent deaths of both star-crossed leads).
The Year of Great Medlars is, thus, the utopia of a Lost Golden Age, when Lent didn't take place in March, the Kalends were found in the Greek calendars (look up "Greek Kalends" on Google; well, it means the same as "when pigs fly;" the kalends were the first day of months in the Latin calendar, but they don't exist in the Greek calendar), one week had three leap Thursdays (Catalan "la setmana dels tres dijous" means the same as "Greek Kalends") due to the Sun having taken a few missteps, the Moon left her orbit and rose in the sky far above the usual, and even the stars were changing their places, for instance Spica moved from the hand of Virgo to the scales of Libra (Courf's own Sun sign).
The ground watered with the pure blood of Abel gave rise to oversized fruits, including watermelon-sized (Quaffle-sized) German medlars (three of which could fill a bushel), easy on the eye and pleasant to the taste (just like the Forbidden Fruit), that caused their eaters to swell in various body parts and start lineages of "endowed" superhumans (the polar opposite of the tasteless but lethal arsenic consumed after the tennis match, that causes the tragic hero to waste away). This Golden Age is contrasted with both the Renaissance in which Medlars the play takes place... and with the war-torn Hogwarts at the last year of everyone in The Seed; Courf having foretold his own death (in battle, not by poisoning) and revealing his inner self full of uncertainty about the future.
AN EXCERPT FROM THE PLAY
CATERINA (MUSICHETTA): "For years I played chess, day after day, with Pope Clement. He taught me all the strategies... Throughout their lives, all my guardians have seen me as a simple-minded pawn. But they all overlooked the most important thing about pawns..."
SEBASTIAN (COMBEFERRE): That a pawn might become a queen?
CATERINA (nods): Exactly... I was so disappointed when I found out that I had married the wrong prince, who, moreover, is in love with another. A lady old enough to be his mum, and as tall as a giraffe, who happens to have a trick up his sleeve...
SEBASTIAN: What "trick"? I barely know Mme. Diane de Poitiers...
CATERINA: She suctions him. She has a very muscular pussy, which she uses to suck his member, with her nether mouth. No other woman can do that. Anyway, when life gives you lemons, you have to take advantage of the situation... Fix someone's drink, get them out of the picture. A Medici of Florence, even if she is a little maiden, knows what to do. Before this summer and this war are over, that person will get thirsty and consume the wrong drink... and we will have our way.
SEBASTIAN: Do you mean Diane... or do you mean him? Let me tell you something I have been fearing to tell you: all this time I have joined his entourage as the mole you wanted... and gotten to know him. Now I am his squire, his cupbearer, and his secretary. And his confidant, who keeps all his secrets. I am His Royal Highness's right-hand man. And we have become friends, maybe more than friends... there is something more.
CATERINA (stroking her poison ring): Then, I'll have to put you two out of the picture... Single and childless at 18, and that reveal... He may die single and childless at 80, but I prefer him to disappear the sooner the better, this very summer to be more precise. I am so sorry, Sebastian, but I did never expect you to be a turncloak... I will have to change my strategy, change it so that you two (strokes her poison ring) will be out of the way - forever. You will never see this pawn soon to be crowned the new queen...
