u/Efficient-School-609

Starting from Season Two, the writers seemed to realise that relying solely on Dutch spies causing trouble in the palace made the narrative too monotonous, prone to confusing and tiring the audience. So they introduced an "internal threat" alongside the "external threat" – two parallel obstacles to the construction of Versailles. The first half of the season, focusing on the construction workers' strike, had real potential. With a little more depth, it could have been powerful. But the writers, wanting to highlight Louis XIV's political shrewdness, had him easily resolve the dispute with a mere promise of "Les Invalides" – a cheap carrot. They chose not to explore the democratic undercurrents behind the strike, because they knew it was dangerous. Digging deeper would have forced viewers to think about the broader consequences of this history, to question what Louis XIV and the absolutist monarchy he was so desperate to consolidate actually brought to the people. The "Sun King" image the show was trying to paint – and even prettify – would have crumbled instantly.
So the writers came up with a clever little trick in the second half of Season Two: instead of using a champion of the people as the king's antagonist, they chose something every viewer would instinctively see as purely evil – a cult. But this toothless "enemy" led directly to an irreversible narrative collapse.
Why? Because between normal, functioning human society and an anti-social force like a cult, there exists a complete barrier of "otherness". Each side loathes the other's aspirations, sees them as evil, and is determined to eliminate the other. The witch is therefore in history but also outside it. She is fundamentally incapable of understanding the spiritual and material pursuits of ordinary people living within history. So when she stands on the pyre and denounces Louis XIV's greed, calling on the people to rise up against the monarchy, her words cannot resonate with normal viewers. They see it as the narrative of an "other" – and because it cannot be validated, it loses all critical power. Objectively, it protects Louis XIV's image, but dramatically, it's dead weight. A complete narrative collapse.
This farcical use of an outsider's perspective to examine history was already showing signs early in Season Two, in the scenes between the Dutch Stadtholder William (before his restoration) and Louis XIV. They inexplicably become "mirrors" for each other, exchanging long, empty dialogues about their personalities, yet never daring to go deeper – never daring to let them discuss the real merits and defects of monarchy versus republic. The mismatch between their identities and the vapid content of their conversations was perhaps the very starting point of the narrative slide.
Now, onto Season Three. To be honest, I only made it through the first two episodes before losing all motivation to continue. I'll say it bluntly: I started watching the show for the gay storyline – the Duc d'Orléans, Philippe. But by Season Three, the narrative flaws were so severe that I could no longer indulge my "guilty pleasure" or ignore the serious storytelling failures.
The biggest offenders are the two female characters – the Princess Palatine and Madame de Maintenon – and their completely unmotivated personality shifts. Throughout Season Two, the Princess Palatine is a straightforward, easygoing girl who repeatedly states her dislike of gossip and backbiting. Yet in the very first episode of Season Three, she suddenly becomes Montespan's point woman against Maintenon, being the first to publicly expose Maintenon's shameful past – which then triggers Maintenon's own dramatic personality shift. That's where I stopped watching.
For a historical drama written by 21st-century creators, the creative mindset on display here is more feudal than the people living in the feudal era itself. That's what I find intolerable. This "modern feudal psychology" manifests in the indiscriminate instrumentalisation of female characters, producing a gallery of one-dimensional, power-attached archetypes inside Versailles.
Someone will inevitably argue that the court of Versailles is a melting pot that corrupts everyone – that no one can remain untouched. To that, I ask: then how do you explain the Duc d'Orléans? How does he manage to show a clear growth trajectory and a genuine character arc, while being in the same melting pot? The root answer is that the writers simply didn't think it necessary to give any female character such a trajectory. Isn't that the textbook definition of instrumentalising women?
The worst sin a historical drama can commit is to follow abstract historical verdicts and force every character's life story into alignment with that verdict. Louis XIV in this show is a perfect example. Every one of his speeches seems to foresee the positive impact Versailles will have on consolidating absolute monarchy. He constantly justifies his own actions, which is really just the writers using the character as a mouthpiece to emotionally dramatise a posthumous historical judgment. It's didactic and preachy. Real historical figures stumble through fog. They don't know what's coming. They knock on history's door "accidentally", not knowing what lies behind it – good or ill. That's the unknowability of being inside history. The Louis XIV in this show is not a man. He's a prophet. And that's not drama – it's hagiography.

The Narrative Collapse of Versailles – A Review