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Edmund Blackadder is the title character in the mock-historical comedy series Blackadder, in as much as the series can be said to have a title character: each installment of the series is set in a different historical period, so there is always a different central character, but they're all (except Ebenezer Blackadder) called Edmund (the first one adopts the title 'The Black Adder' and his descendants take it as a surname) and they're all played by Rowan Atkinson.
Blackadder does not belong in any one society. He could be removed from any period and placed in another and be just as cynical. Some suggest he is a modern eye placed in past societies and is therefore able to pick at and dispair the flaws and absurdities of said societies. However, it seems more likely that Blackadder belongs to no period or given society. He would be just as bemused by and critical of modern society as he is by Elizabethan or Regency society.
In the first series, The Black Adder, set shortly after The Wars of the Roses, the central character is Prince Edmund, known as "the Black Adder", son of the fictional King Richard IV of England.
In Blackadder II the central character is Edmund, Lord Blackadder, a nobleman in the court of Elizabeth I of England.
In Blackadder the Third the central character is Mr. E. Blackadder, Esquire, butler to the Prince Regent.
In Blackadder Goes Forth the central character is Captain Blackadder, an officer in the British Army during World War I.
Various one-off specials have introduced other Blackadders throughout history, from the Roman Centurion Blackadicus to a Blackadder in the distant future who becomes ruler of the universe.
Blackadders
- Centurion Blackadicus - Roman Britain (Blackadder Back And Forth)
- Prince Edmund, Duke of Edinburgh, the Black Adder - Middle Ages (The Black Adder)
- Lord Edmund Blackadder - Elizabethan (Blackadder II)
- Sir Edmund Blackadder - Stuart, English Civil War (Blackadder: The Cavalier Years)
- Mr Edmund Blackadder, Esq - Regency (Blackadder the Third)
- Mr Ebenezer Blackadder - Victorian (Blackadder's Christmas Carol)
- Captain Edmund Blackadder - First World War (Blackadder Goes Forth)
- Lord Edmund Blackadder - 1999 (Blackadder Back And Forth)
- Sir Osmond-Darling Blackadder, 'Keeper of the Lawn Sprinklers' - 2002 (BBC Golden Jubilee advert)
- Grand Admiral Blackadder of the Dark Segment - Distant Future (Blackadder's Christmas Carol)
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