Or Has The Audience Misinterpreted Scenes, Viewing Them With Shipper-goggles, When The Writers Wanted

There is a castle on a cloud...made of bones.

Master of the dog house.

On my own -- until my family feeds me. 

I could go on, but you get the point.

a celebrity i follow on twitter: le miz but marius is played by wishbone

me, softly but with feeling: holy shit

behold, the goodest boy at the barricade

Edmund: My only....sister. Yep, that’s right... [Starts to sweat]

I love Mansfield Park—there's a reason it's so important to my dissertation—and it's not only for the things that seem appropriate enough, but also the ones that kind of break my brain a little.

For me, the Peak WTF has to go to Edmund (surprise), after his sisters have separately run off with two fairly shitty men. He greets Fanny in a burst of emotion:

she found herself pressed to his heart with only these words, just articulate, “My Fanny, my only sister; my only comfort now!” She could say nothing; nor for some minutes could he say more.

I always think ... well, having Edmund refer to Fanny as his sister that late in the book, while simultaneously disowning his actual sisters, is certainly a choice. I don't actually mind it because I don't read MP for Fanny/Edmund, lol, but I find it interestingly bizarre.

(It reminds me distantly of Lord Orville presenting himself as a brother figure to Evelina in Evelina, but iirc that pretty obviously falls apart further from the end and it's clear that he doesn't really see her that way.)

on this season of the bachelor, the final rose goes to...

But you see it’s not me, It’s not my family In your head, in your head they are fighting With their tanks and their bombs And their bombs and their guns In your head In your head they are cryin’ In your head

- The Cranberries

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!

America wants a second season too! Cozy British period dramas are the highlight of my week over here. 

Hello dear Miss Lori! Do you know of any news regarding Sanditon's chances to a season 2? I was sure everything will be fine until I read on twitter that Andrew Davies said that ITV was disappointed with the ratings. And that, if he had known that it would be only one season, he would end it very differently. My heart broke when I read that. If yoz have any consolation, it would be greatly appreciated.

Hey, Miss Nonnie. :)

Honestly I haven’t seen this particular Andrew Davies interview since I don’t spend that much time on twitter. I did have a look on Google and I couldn’t find anything aside from Davies saying that he’d love to do another season. 

However, I think the clear indication now is that ITV is waiting on the American market’s reception of the show to announce a second season so that’s my best guess. We are entirely in our American brethrens hands. 

I did suffer a bit of a blow in my confidence about the certainty of a 2nd season which was based on the idea that they had built the entire Sanditon town for the show. I felt that kind of investment wouldn’t have been done if they weren’t planning on a 2nd season. 

Since then, though, I’ve come to find out a new Pride and Prejudice adaptation is in the works on ITV (why?!?!?) by the creators of Poldark (a dark retelling because … WHY?!??!?!) and I assume they will be using the set for that as well. 

However, seeing as there isn’t any news of cast, filming schedule or anything on that yet, it’s still in pre-production so hopefully ITV will give Sanditon another season to fill in the spot in 2020 and prepare the audience for their P&P regency extravaganza. 

Thanks for the ask!

Sanditon seems like it might do better on a bigger budget streaming service.

Vote for Sanditon on Hulu

Hulu subscribers, you can vote for Hulu to pick up Sanditon - like they picked up The Mindy Project. You need to log in, then go to Ideas and search for Sanditon. Then vote!

https://community.hulu.com/s/ideas

rereading act 5 of measure for measure to see how i could hypothetically make it a tragedy and i completely forgot isabella cries "And given me justice, justice, justice, justice!" I can literally not recall any other time in a shakespeare work where a single word has been successively repeated four times like that god wow. The escalation the desperation.. to me there is no way to do that line without turning out to the audience and screaming/begging THEM for justice, a call to action from a heartbroken woman grieving a brother who betrayed her

Hercule de Valois

Hercule Valois, aka Francois Duke of Anjou and Alencon, would like to challenge (former) Prince Harry to a literary duel.

If Anjou could write a memoir about his life as the “spare” brother, it would be far more entertaining than Harry’s “Spare.” 

Elizabeth II seems a much nicer grandmother than Catherine de Medici was a mother to her youngest two children. 

{Megan and Harry fans, please disregard this post, this post is for people who know a lot about the Valois family and Catherine de Medici’s children. I don’t know (or care) enough about Megan and Harry to have an opinion on them. I do, however, love to learn about 16th century royal scandals.}