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George Lucas wasn't the first one to start a franchise in the middle of things--or at medias res, if you want to get all fancy about it. Star Wars was so popular that Lucas just had to go back and give us the prequel for the original 3 films. Some critics think Shakespeare did the identical thing: he wrote Henry VI, Parts two and 3 first, and after they were such crowd pleasers, he moved back and did a Part 1.

Nowadays, we group Henry VI, Part 3 with other history plays known as the "first tetralogy," beginning with Henry VI, Part 1, and ending with Henry VI, Part 3 and Richard III. This tetralogy is all about the Wars of the Roses (c. 1455-1485), a string of English civil wars fought between two branches of the Royal House of Plantagenet: the Lancasters (whose heraldic symbol was the red rose) and the Yorks (whose heraldic emblem was the white rose).

As Henry VI, Part 3 opens, York and his posse have only beaten the Lancastrian King Henry VI in one conflict, and they all head back to London for another battle... of phrases. There's a big debate about who deserves the crown longer, and it is not decided for sure until the end of the play. There's a lot of fighting in between, of course, to settle the score.

If all this has you needing to hit the snooze button, think again. Shakespeare spices up "history" with a little fiction. He's the master of focusing on the hot stuff and blowing it out of proportion for striking effect. In Henry VI, Part 3, Shakespeare took the best bits of action during the Wars of the Roses, condensed them, cut all the boring stuff, and fictionalized entire interactions to create something totally entertaining.

If you've hung around Shakespeare long enough, you might recognize that those components crop up in some of the other plays. Anyone remember Lady Macbeth (a ruthless woman afterwards power), King Lear (a feeble king totally over his lifetime), or Iago (a villain mastermind we like to hate)? They all get their start here, if you're on the lookout for them.

Okay, Henry VI, Part 3 may not be as mind-blowingly awesome as some of Shakespeare's later plays, but Shakespeare is kind of like pizza: even when he's not at his best, he is still pretty awesome. Think of this as a draft for some major literary masterpieces. As drafts go, we are totally not complaining.

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