Got Controversial Opinion (i Guess?!)

tormund seeing jon at winterfell

My Montage Of Lost Things…

Florence + the Machine “Prayer Factory”

I am having more fun with this than should be allowed

💛🧡💚

I love this so much

💚🧡💛

Perfect casting!

🄼🄰🅁🅈 🅃🅄🄳🄾🅁 🌹

“Known in her youth as one of the most beautiful princesses in Europe, Erasmus said of her that "nature never formed anything more beautiful.” (18 March 1496 – 25 June 1533)

“the Queen [Mary] was to cross over to Boulogne, and the King of France would come as far as Abbeville, it was said, to meet her, and there consummate his marriage with this “nymph from heaven” her beauty and affability warranting the expression. ”

[Calendar of State Papers Relating To English Affairs in the Archives of Venice, Volume 2, 1509-1519. ]

Mary Tudor ( 1495- 1533) was an English princess who was briefly Queen of France and later progenitor of a family that claimed the English throne. The younger surviving daughter of Henry VII, King of England and Elizabeth of York, Mary became the third wife of Louis XII of France, more than 30 years her senior. Following his death, she married Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk. The marriage, which was performed secretly in France, took place during the reign of her brother Henry VIII and without his consent. This necessitated the intervention of Thomas Wolsey, and although Henry eventually pardoned the couple, they were forced to pay a large fine.

“Mary died before Charles, Henry and her remaining sister. Mary Rose was the beautiful Tudor Princess, who lived a fairytale life in a nightmare era.”

Gorgeous!

Your kiss of life has opened my eyes

The place where my heart breaks, you have mended

Your gift of love has given me life

My sorrow and heartache, you have ended…

Part of what makes Sansa successful in the end is because she tries to learn from other people, regardless of whether she likes them or not. There is a lot to be said for the Ceresi’s and Littlefinger’s of the world. Sure she has setbacks, but she learns.

Compare that to say Jon who is destined to make mistakes, or Daenerys who also makes the same mistake in Westeros that she did in Qarth, in Mereen, and other places. 

I was thinking about that conversation in which Jon asked if Sansa admired Cersei. I guess It’s not exactly admiration, but Sansa understands Cersei. She gets that Cersei was abused and suffered a lot and she knows how it’s like to be blamed for your own abuse. Just like Cersei, I guess Sansa has a lot of anger within her. It doesn’t mean she admires Cersei. Still, it’s funny when antis say Sansa became Cersei 2.0 just because of this scene 😂

how could sansa admire cersei? cersei abused sansa, she held her hostage. jon’s comment was deeply insulting and offensive to sansa.

It’s over now the music of the night!

I’m in mourning

Hi! I'm really enjoying your blog, your predictions for S2 and how you analyse the characters! I apologize if you already did this but I'm curious about your thoughts regarding Edward (especially if you think he cares about Esther) and Clara as characters and about the nature of their relationship with each other. Thank you and happy holidays!

Hey, nonnie!

So sorry to take this long to answer your ask. I was so consummed with my fanfic in December and then so tired I didn’t manage to get to these meatier asks sooner. Hopefully, you’re still interested in my answer.

I haven’t actually talked about Edward Denham on my blog before, aside from a little comment in one of my first metas about him and Esther being Davies’ take on Mary and Henry Crawford from Mansfield Park. In fact at the start of the series the Mansfield Park connection is completed with Clara in the place of the innocent ingenue Fanny Price that is to be seduced by the rake with his sister’s support.

One of the coolest things Davies does with Sanditon is that he takes full advantage of our Jane Austen proficency by littering this world with all the familiar Austen archetypes. But just as soon as you begin to lament that this world offers too much of the familiar and not enough of the strange, he pulls the rug from under you and reveals these characters to be something else entirely.

And no one exemplifies this better than Esther. The cold, mercenary harpy bent on swindeling her aunt and ruining a poor girl’s reputation in the process is revealed to be the true victim of this little traingle. A girl who fell in love with a bad man without any chance of escaping him. And the innocent ingenue? Well … Clara is about as far removed from Fanny Price as one can get.

However, the one character that remains unaltered, in fact the character that holds the fewest surprises in the whole of Sanditon is Edward. He is exactly as advertised: the Henry Crawford bent on seducing virginal Fanny, Wickham planning to “whisk” Georgiana away, Willoughby playing with Marianne and then discarding her.

I actually think Willoughby might actually be the closest analog to Edward. Willoughby is, by far, in my mind the worst of Austen’s villians. A true, clinical case of narcisism if there’s every been one.

Willoughby and Edward aren’t dangerous simply because they will use you to get money the way Wickham does or because they want to saw wild oats. They are dangerous because they are perfectly willing to gaslight and use their victims for as long as they possibly can.

They aren’t content to simply go on their merry way once it becomes clear you’ve figured out their true character. They will come back and prod as many times as possible, searching for any weakness which might allow them entry back into your life. Their objective isn’t just material (although both Edward and Willighouby love luxuary when they get it without having to work for it) but emotional as well.

Everytime Esther relents to Edward, everytime she follows his lead, his influence over her grows.  Their relationship is all the more damaging and dangerous because she’s stuck in a house with him 24/7.

The worst part of it is, Edward doesn’t trick Esther by making her believe he is better than he is. She sees all his ugliness, his faults, his selfishness and ego. What he does is far worse: he makes her believe she is as bad as him.

He takes this naturally honest, compassionate and intelligent woman and twists her up into a shell of herself. He breakes down her selfesteem to such a degree that while she’s with him, she convinces herself of her own immorality and after she finally manages to leave him, she thinks of herself as worthless for having allowed herself to be manipulated by him. She is in a lose-lose situation either way.

Esther’s relationship with Edward is scary, sad and very, very real in a way that becomes all the more uncomfortable, the more you think about it so it’s hard to talk about love in this context.

The real question is: can someone who is inherently unhealthy love in a positive way? I do think Edward probably loves her but his way of loving is tained by his own twisted personality so it’s not something worth having in any case.

As for his relationship with Clara, on the surface it’s a classic cat and mouse game. But I do think beneath all that is some sort of twisted attraction probably born from selfloathing. They can recognize something of themselves in each other and they end up forming a bond, if their last conversation is any indication:

Edward: The vanquished enemy retreats.

Clara: I was never your enemy.

[…]

Clara: Look at you … Alone and unloved. Trust me. That’s not an easy placeto find yourself in. I will spare you a thought now and then. I know you will think of me.

I do think in a theoretical season 2, Edward and Clara would be back, possibly scheeming together.

Thanks for the ask!

Character Deep Dive: Augusta Markham

Portrayed by: Eloise Webb Show: Sanditon Season 2

Although Sanditon already has more than its share of strong female characters wrestling with the various manifestations of Regency misogyny, the introduction of Augusta Markham in Season 2 provides a fresh look at the pressures on young ladies of the period.

We first discover Augusta bounding through a field behind a child. As she screams, “this had better be worth it,” we understand she is not chasing the child but instead following along to catch a glimpse of something. That something turns out to be the arrival of the army in Sanditon. Despite Augusta’s seeming exasperation with the eager child, her own interest in the arrival of the army is barely concealed. This tendency to mask her real feelings characterizes Augusta throughout much of the season.

In looking behind this mask, we come to understand Augusta as a young lady faced with the uncertainty and fear of coming of age with neither a nurturing home environment to sustain her nor a social outlet to supply marriage prospects as a means of escape.

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