Unpopular Opinions

[txhorns79]

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The average man wouldn't tolerate that situation at all, less yet want to marry the woman, and yet they did and Mary herself was only slightly bothered by it all. Mary was written pretty consistently throughout the years; Mary, more often than not, thought she was the shit and she expected everyone else to think so to and to tolerate her faults no matter how rude or obnoxious.

I do find it weird that men always seem to be throwing themselves at Mary, while everyone acts like Edith is basically a step below marrying your sister.  I can only guess it's because Mary has Matthew's inheritance, because she treats men pretty terribly, and I don't know who would tolerate that kind of crap.  

[AndySmith]

Because Mary was an attractive, exciting (by those standards), dynamic person, and fit in well in the world of the aristocracy. Edith was kind of a "woe-is-me" wet-blanket (yes, mileage varies, I know). It isn't like Blake or Tony needed Mary's inheritance anyway.

[txhorns79]

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Because Mary was an attractive, exciting (by those standards), dynamic person, and fit in well in the world of the aristocracy.

I don't know about any of that.  I think Mary's attractive, but I can't imagine she's really worth fighting over.  My understanding of the time period is that people like Tony or Blake would have their choice from many available women just like Mary (because so many of the men had been killed during the war), so it isn't like they need to waste their time over a woman who is content to lead at least one of them on until she chooses. 

[AndySmith]

I can see them going after her. I guess they didn't want just want a warm body with a title, they wanted someone they genuinely liked, and she fit the bill. Which Mary did.

And it wasn't like they really fought over her. For all the talk about "let battle commence", I never felt like there really was a Tony/Mary/Blake triangle.

If anything, Tony was a real dick about it, since he was going after Mary while keeping Mabel as a back-up.

[txhorns79]

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I guess they didn't want just want a warm body with a title, they wanted someone they genuinely liked, and she fit the bill. Which Mary did.

My point was more that Mary wasn't particularly special, and given the shortage of eligible, titled men, people like Tony and Blake would have their pick without needing to put up with someone who plays Mary's games or has her baggage.

[Roseanna]

On ‎9‎.‎8‎.‎2016 at 2:41 PM, AndySmith said:

I can see them going after her. I guess they didn't want just want a warm body with a title, they wanted someone they genuinely liked, and she fit the bill. Which Mary did.

And it wasn't like they really fought over her. For all the talk about "let battle commence", I never felt like there really was a Tony/Mary/Blake triangle.

If anything, Tony was a real dick about it, since he was going after Mary while keeping Mabel as a back-up.

Actually Tony didn't keep Mabel as a back-up but broke his engagement with her. She chose herself not to give hope to get him.

As for that May's suitors "genuinely liked her", I think that one can be sexually attracted to a person one doesn't love, and fall in love with a person one doesn't like (and vive versa).

In my eyes, Tony's scenes with Mabel showed clearly that he liked her a lot more than Mary.  Tony was smitten with Mary but he was never really comfortable with her, except in the early riding scene when she told him about her sorrow over Matthew.  Yet, their relationship was a lot better than Henry and Mary's flirting. 

Of course it may be due to the script or the acting skills or both, but Strallan, Gregson and Bertie both loved and liked Edith (and also Matthew, Tom and Henry liked her) whereas Mary attracted many suitors (plus Pamuk) but she was really liked only by Matthew and Tom. That isn't a fault except that she (or rather JF) hadn't sense to chose Tom.

[AndySmith]

I guess I saw it differently. Tony did keep Mabel as a back-up since he ended up with her after he and Mary called it quits for good (and it take him a while to initially end the engagement the first time with Mabel, so he must have been keeping her on the sidelines, then made the wrong choice). And I can't say he didn't like her Mary, since it was obvious he did. The same with Blake, who came around after the pig incident.

But, mileage varies, I suppose.

[Roseanna]

18 hours ago, AndySmith said:

And I can't say he didn't like her Mary, since it was obvious he did.

I didn't say Tony didn't like Mary at all but that he liked Mabel "a lot more". They had natural chemistry and Mabel's actress had liveliness that Michelle had lost. There were still some of it left with Gillingham and Blake, but none with Henry.   

Edited August 14, 2016 by Roseanna

[AndySmith]

Have to disagree with you again, if he liked Mabel more, he wouldn't have spent all that time chasing after Mary, breaking the engagement with Mabel, etc. It seems he ended up with Mabel since it didn't work out with Mary. And I still think Mary had some nice chemistry with Henry, but mileage varies.

[PBSLover]

What does “mileage varies” mean?  I’ve never heard the term used in this way (about people).

Edited August 14, 2016 by PBSLover

[Babalu]

4 hours ago, PBSLover said:

What does “mileage varies” mean?  I’ve never heard the term used in this way (about people).

It basically means "that's just my opinion, and other people may see it differently, but that's cool." Frequently abbreviated to YMMV = Your Mileage May Vary.

[Roseanna]

21 hours ago, AndySmith said:

Have to disagree with you again, if he liked Mabel more, he wouldn't have spent all that time chasing after Mary, breaking the engagement with Mabel, etc. It seems he ended up with Mabel since it didn't work out with Mary.

 Yes, that was the script said, but seeing how natural Tony and Mabel were together it seemed to me that he until then didn't understand where his happiness really lay. 

That's not uncommon irl.

[AndySmith]

Well, if we can't go by the script, what can we go by lol I don't think he seemed more "natural" with Mabel than he did with Mary. I guess happiness lies with a consolation prize.

Of course, I do wonder why Mabel took him back in any case. I do think she and Mary deserved better than him.

[PBSLover]

When Charles Blake told Tony that he was more comfortable with Mabel than Mary, I thought it was just Julian steering us again as that did not come across on the screen.

As a side note, Andy Smith, your profile picture is awesome.  “In what Blanche, dog years?"

[AndySmith]

Ha! Thanks. Imagine how fun it could have been to have Bea Arthur, in her prime, on Downtown, as the visiting wife of some nouveau riche guy, sparring with Violet?

Edited August 17, 2016 by AndySmith

[PBSLover]

YES!!!  Her no nonsense delivery would have left Violet speechless.  

Bea Arthur as Cora’s mother would have been interesting (dreaming here).  I am a fan of Shirley MacLaine and Paul Giamatti but both were so miscast. I think what happened off-camera was more interesting than what we saw on tv, from what I read.

[txhorns79]

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I am a fan of Shirley MacLaine and Paul Giamatti but both were so miscast. I think what happened off-camera was more interesting than what we saw on tv, from what I read.

I didn't mind Shirley MacLaine, but I agree that Paul Giamatti was a very strange casting choice.  It was like he was acting on another show, and it felt like they over-cast what was a fairly minor role.  

[PBSLover]

Paul has said in interviews that he takes almost everything he is offered.  I think he took the role for the experience of doing something completely different. He made a joke about how quiet the set was.  He had just come from the Godzilla set.  Ha!

[txhorns79]

During the fifth season, I found Carson and Mrs. Hughes to be a cute potential couple.  It was amazing to me how badly the show mucked them up in the sixth season.  I cringed through the entire storyline of Mrs. Hughes having Mrs. Patmore ask Carson if it was his intention to have sex with Mrs. Hughes once they were married.  I kept thinking, "if you are not mature enough to ask Carson this yourself, Mrs. Hughes, you certainly are not mature enough to be married."      

[PBSLover]

4 hours ago, txhorns79 said:

During the fifth season, I found Carson and Mrs. Hughes to be a cute potential couple.  It was amazing to me how badly the show mucked them up in the sixth season.  I cringed through the entire storyline of Mrs. Hughes having Mrs. Patmore ask Carson if it was his intention to have sex with Mrs. Hughes once they were married.  I kept thinking, "if you are not mature enough to ask Carson this yourself, Mrs. Hughes, you certainly are not mature enough to be married."  

YESSSSS!!!!! So incredibly stoopid!! Between that and the overly vicious chambermaid hissing at Lady Mary with her hand out, I deleted the episode on my dvr and have watched only one additional time.  It’s just so bad.

[txhorns79]

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Between that and the overly vicious chambermaid hissing at Lady Mary with her hand out, I deleted the episode on my dvr and have watched only one additional time.

It made me laugh a little, if only because the chambermaid was ridiculously brash, and from the way this show is, you'd think most people in Victorian/Edwardian/1920s England spent their time either being blackmailed or blackmailing other people.

[Amethyst]

On 7/29/2016 at 6:20 PM, slf said:

All of this. Sybil was my favorite character the first time I watched the show and her dying (and in such a crappy way) put a dent in my interest in the show. But seeing Robert "but what about my feelings" his way out of that situation with an assist from Violet put my teeth on edge. As you say, he absolutely helped create that situation and the cost of that was his daughter's life. Sybil's death was only a possibility if they listened to Clarkson, it was a guarantee if they didn't, and Robert put his own feelings and ego ahead of what was best for Sybil. Not only do I not buy Cora forgiving him so quickly but I don't buy Tom getting over that so quickly.

Word.  My real UO about this is that Violet was out of line in asking Clarkson to go along with it.  Cora was absolutely right; Robert put the esteemed fancy doctor over the common village doctor.  But the common doctor actually knew Sybil, which helped him recognize that something was going wrong with the birth.  

Which brings me to Violet.  I thought her going to Clarkson and asking him to go along with her bullshit story was wrong, in every sense of the word.  It's not easy to stand by and watch things fall apart, but Robert made a mistake.  It was his error that put them in the situation, and using Clarkson to clean it up was bogus.  I believe that Robert and Cora would have gotten over Sybil's loss together, but it would take time.  They could have reconciled after the time jump in the season finale, but the writers clearly didn't want to dwell on the sad stuff any longer than necessary, so they concocted that pathetic conclusion using Clarkson as a way to get Robert off the hook.  

I didn't blame Clarkson for saying that he wouldn't lie, but I resented Violet for putting him in that situation to start.  And he didn't owe Lord Grantham anything because Grantham wouldn't listen to him.

Cora had a right to be angry, and while it would be better for her and Robert to grieve together, it wasn't Violet's place to try to fix that.  What also bothered me was that a lie like that could really damage Clarkson's reputation if it was spun badly, something that Violet never considered.  

 

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 They spent Season 3 having him being grateful to Bates and Anna for essentially saving him from the consequences of O'Brien's evil revenge scheme, only to have him turn around the next season to start scheming against Bates again for no real reason. 

Seriously, Thomas going all Snidely Whiplash after Bates saved his career in s3 made absolutely no sense.  Even the worst of people would have steered clear from poking the bear after that.  The whole thing made Thomas look even more like an asshole (and not in a funny way) and Bates look like a dimwit for helping his enemy in the first place.  I didn't even like Bates, but he would have been well within his rights to lord it over Thomas if he'd wanted.  Or use it to blackmail him, although that doesn't go with the saintly appearance he's supposed to have.  The whole experience could have been a good way to evolve their relationship to begrudging allies instead of enemies.

They clearly had no idea what to do with Thomas by then, and he didn't even seem to enjoy his schemes anymore; it was just habit.  As a character, he was never the same once he tried that conversion quack therapy; I guess he realized how close he came to really hurting himself.  But still, bad writing.

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I just really love Phyllis Baxley. I get that people think she's boring, but the way she's forever trying to atone for the past and is clearly hesitant to trust and open up again makes her really relatable to me. 

You're not the only one!  Baxter was one of the best characters they introduced later on, and I think Raquel Cassidy's performance was wonderful.  Besides being a genuinely kind person, Baxter was a calming presence in a house full of drama queens.  I liked how she took full responsibility for what she'd done in her life, but wanted to move on and make something of herself.  She was long-suffering like Anna and Bates, but without the self-righteous veneer.

[AndySmith]

I do wonder if Robert and Cora's reconciliation was sped up to accommodate Dan Stevens' upcoming departure. They kind of had to rebuild the status quo after Sybil died so that right before the Christmas episode everything was all peachy and cricket games and oh look Matthew and Mary can make babies now...and then Matthew dies after his son is born, which made it a nice punch to the gut.

It might have been interesting for dramatic purposes for Robert and Cora to have still had their disagreement and problems up until George was born, they finally reconcile, and then Matthew dies...now that would have been a punch to the gut.

I do wonder how different the show was have been post season 3 had MS stayed.

[slf]

I know it's considered terrible of Mary to not want to mourn Patrick as a fiancee but I not only didn't care, I kind of got it. She wasn't in love with him, she didn't want to marry him, and it doesn't seem like they were close friends. She did admit to Sybil she was sad at his passing. I know Edith thinks they all should've been great friends because they grew up together but I think when you grow up knowing that because you're a girl you're going to be - best case scenario - pressured into marrying the guy to protect your family's estate it colors your feelings. If they had married, Mary would've had to take off her clothes, climb into bed, and let Patrick fuck her even though she didn't want him to. And that would've happened until she either had a son or gave birth to enough girls that everyone gave up hope. Mary being rude and a snob doesn't change the fact that she got a misogynistic and raw deal.

[Roseanna]

On ‎13‎.‎9‎.‎2016 at 7:51 PM, slf said:

I know it's considered terrible of Mary to not want to mourn Patrick as a fiancee but I not only didn't care, I kind of got it. She wasn't in love with him, she didn't want to marry him, and it doesn't seem like they were close friends. She did admit to Sybil she was sad at his passing. I know Edith thinks they all should've been great friends because they grew up together - -

It wasn't only Edith (who had her own motives) but also Robert thought that Mary behaved badly. Cf. Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility where Marianne thinks it's right to show openly her true feelings, positive or negative ones, towards other people, whereas Elinor thinks that one must behave according to the society's rules.

Nowadays social norms are not so tight as they were earlier, but I remember well when MS Estonia sank in 1994. Although our country lost only a few people compared with Sweden and Estonia, most people were shocked, churches held extra services and there was a minute's silence before even hockey plays. No doubt there were also people like Mary, but they understood  to keep their mouths shut in order not to get a reputation of insensitiveness.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_Estonia    

Edited September 30, 2016 by Roseanna

[Roseanna]

Continuing:

After reading Fellowes remarks in the scriptbook, I must somewhat modify my original interpretation. 

From today's POV, it's completely OK to Edith openly mourn her cousin. But in DA's time, like we later see, Violet pretended that she didn't cry but claimed that she wiped her eye because there was something in it. 

Thus, Edith wasn't only genuinely mourning her cousin whom she also loved romantically, but she was also making a scene with her sorrow and Mary's un-sorrow.

All in all, the scenes outside the church and in Mary bedroom were dramatically good because they showed the sisters' different character: Mary was selfish and cold (or pretended to be such and didn't care if others found her such), Edith was envious towards Mary and used every opportunity to show her in the bad light to which Mary responded by belittling her sister, and Sybil was sweet, understanding and perhaps a little naive (she interpreted Edith and Mary's behavior in the best possible way). 

The result was that, whereas both Mary and Edith were introduced in a rather negative light, their relationship was made interesting and thus the main plot line and conflict, besides the future of Downton, was set for the future.            

[AndySmith]

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No doubt there were also people like Mary, but they understood  to keep their mouths shut in order not to get a reputation of insensitiveness.

Yeah but for Mary, she felt like she dodged a bullet. It is possible that had it just been a cousin who died, as opposed to a cousin you just marry in order to save the family home and estate!, her reaction would have been more in line with the others. Well, maybe not as dramatic as Edith's was, but still.

[kili]

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Mary being rude and a snob doesn't change the fact that she got a misogynistic and raw deal.

Is it really misogynistic though? Patrick was expected to marry her even if he didn't love her. They were both going to be pressured into the marriage for the sake of the family estate.  Robert was farmed out to get money for the estate. Cora's parents bought a title for her. Robert and Cora were just lucky to end up loving each other, but that didn't always happen. Aristocratic marriages were all about shoring up estates/lineages and Mary was all about the estate/lineages.

Mary couldn't drum up some sympathy for the childhood playmate who was being forced into the same situation she was and who died a tragic death?

Of course, Mary expected everybody to feel sorry for her not inheriting the estate when neither of her sisters were either. It's all about Mary.

[AndySmith]

Well, we never knew what Patrick was feeling about the whole thing. He might have been looking forward to inheriting the title and estate. Or he might have been dreading it just as much as Mary was. Since we never knew what he felt, it is kind of a moot point.

Just because Robert and Cora had their marriage arranged (and were lucky enough to have a happy ending) doesn't mean Mary can't feel somewhat pissed about being forced ....sorry, pressured into a marriage.

Edited September 30, 2016 by AndySmith

[Roseanna]

On ‎30‎.‎9‎.‎2016 at 10:14 AM, AndySmith said:

Yeah but for Mary, she felt like she dodged a bullet. It is possible that had it just been a cousin who died, as opposed to a cousin you just marry in order to save the family home and estate!, her reaction would have been more in line with the others. Well, maybe not as dramatic as Edith's was, but still.

It wasn't how Mary felt but how she behaved. Weren't royals and aristocrats trained not to show their true feelings and instead always behave in a correct way? Which, however, wasn't Edith's way to show openly emotions. 

Mary either couldn't act like a woman of her class it or (as I suspect) I didn't want to. Which was dramatically good as it began a theme that lasted to the end of the series.  

[AndySmith]

She wasn't behaving that way in public, was she? I think among the family it would have been more tolerated. Not approved, and not outright accepted, but tolerated. And it wasn't like Mary was roving all through the town of Downton telling every other person she saw how she really felt.

I felt like Edith was just as open with her emotions as Mary was.

I mean, royals and aristocrats were trained not to marry the chauffeur, but, life happens and even among the peerage, not everything can be controlled.

[helenamonster]

With regards to Mary and Patrick, while we never met Patrick and therefore didn't know what his feelings on the situation were (or the explicit nature of the situation in general), I think given the gender roles of the time, if he had wanted to marry someone outside the family and make her Countess of Grantham, I don't think there's much anyone else could have done to stop it. I'm sure James, Robert, Cora, and Violet pressured him into choosing Mary (keep it in the family and all that), but at the end of the day, he probably would have had a choice. If he did want to marry Mary and had made  the engagement official, Mary would have been forced to go along with it. Patrick had a choice, however biased or influenced. Mary likely did not.

[Roseanna]

12 hours ago, helenamonster said:

With regards to Mary and Patrick, while we never met Patrick and therefore didn't know what his feelings on the situation were (or the explicit nature of the situation in general), I think given the gender roles of the time, if he had wanted to marry someone outside the family and make her Countess of Grantham, I don't think there's much anyone else could have done to stop it. I'm sure James, Robert, Cora, and Violet pressured him into choosing Mary (keep it in the family and all that), but at the end of the day, he probably would have had a choice. If he did want to marry Mary and had made  the engagement official, Mary would have been forced to go along with it. Patrick had a choice, however biased or influenced. Mary likely did not.

I don't think Mary even needed any pressure. She was raised to believe that marrying well was the most important in an aristocratic woman's life. Remember she said that she would have married Patrick if "nothing better" came. Although we are made to belive that every man fell for Mary, she wasn't a heiress and after two or three seasons she hadn't evidently been made better offers than marrying Patrick. Which was quite good, in the circumstances: to marry a nice young man whom she knew since childhood, live in Downton or near it and in the future become a Countess. And it was an Edwardian age, so after bearing a heir and a spair, Mary would have been free to seek for love and sex in weekend parties.

After Patrick died, Mary's situation changed. If she had became a heiress, she could have married a duke (who, as we know unlike, was a gay, so she was saved from a disaster). But because Robert decided otherwise, Mary still had an option to accept a minor aristocrat (Evelyn Napier) but she chose to flirt recklessly with Pamuk (although she can't be blamed that he came uninvited to her bedroom). 

The conclusion: Mary believed that she was ruled by her head and all what mattered were social and material benefits, but inside her lived another gir who in moments' recklessness she threw all calculation into the wind. Which of course made a good plot.        

Edited October 2, 2016 by Roseanna
correcting

[slf]

On 9/30/2016 at 2:38 PM, kili said:

Is it really misogynistic though? Patrick was expected to marry her even if he didn't love her. They were both going to be pressured into the marriage for the sake of the family estate.  Robert was farmed out to get money for the estate. Cora's parents bought a title for her. Robert and Cora were just lucky to end up loving each other, but that didn't always happen. Aristocratic marriages were all about shoring up estates/lineages and Mary was all about the estate/lineages.

It was. First and foremost men wrote the laws of the day, not women. Secondly, Patrick had a great deal of say. Just as Matthew did. No one could prevent Matthew from marrying Lavinia and no one could prevent Patrick from marrying someone else. Just as no one could prevent Robert from marrying Cora, which he chose because he wanted money to save Downton. He certainly didn't have Violet's approval, she made that perfectly clear repeatedly over the course of the series. He man might face pressure but there was little way to force his hand and absolutely none in the case of the Crawley's, given the way the estate was tied up to the male line. If Patrick had shown up with another woman and said "I want to marry her" and she was awful there's no way the Crawley's would've rejected Patrick because they simply couldn't have, a, and b, even if they could have it would've handing everything over to a distant cousin they'd never met. There's likely no way they would've done it even if they could have.

Patrick held all the cards in that situation.

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Mary couldn't drum up some sympathy for the childhood playmate who was being forced into the same situation she was and who died a tragic death?

Of course, Mary expected everybody to feel sorry for her not inheriting the estate when neither of her sisters were either. It's all about Mary.

Now this is something about Mary that gets overlooked: she did not walk around sneering over Patrick's death to anyone and everyone. She was short with Robert and Edith, the two people who knew what the situation was and wanted Mary to act like her heart was broken. I suspect there was some resentment there. Mary never behaved that way with Sybil, Violet, or Cora, all of whom were aware of the situation and took it for what it was and never made any demands on Mary. 

And Mary did express sadness for Patrick's death. She wasn't obligated to perform grief for Edith, a sister she disliked and distrusted, nor was hs obligated to perform for anyone else. With Sybil she felt she could reveal her true feelings and she did.

As for the estate, Mary inheriting would benefit the whole family, including her sisters. And there were several situations where Sybil and Edith both expected and desired interest in their own matters which for the most part well and truly did not affect their sister. Which is fine, that's normal. I don't think that makes anyone self-centered.

Edited October 3, 2016 by slf

[kili]

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It was. First and foremost men wrote the laws of the day, not women. Secondly, Patrick had a great deal of say. Just as Matthew did. No one could prevent Matthew from marrying Lavinia and no one could prevent Patrick from marrying someone else.

I do not recall anything in the show or in the actual laws of the UK at the time which would have compelled Mary to marry Patrick. If Sybil could legally marry the chauffeur, Mary could marry anybody she liked as well (provided they were not already married). There is nothing Patrick or anybody else could legally have done if Mary had decided to marry Napier or any other guy that caught her fancy. It is even shown in the show where she rejects Mathew and decides to marry another man who she later rejects as well.

Mary was legally just as free to pick her own spouse as Patrick was. Was there the pressure of the expectation of her family to marry Patrick and keep the house in the family? Yes. But that same pressure would have been on Patrick as well.  Both were legally allowed to disappoint their families if they could withstand the family pressure.

Mary felt compelled to marry Patrick because she wanted to retain ownership of the house and the title her parents had. Is it unfair that titles and entailed houses followed the male lineage away from her? No. But is it any more unfair that the oldest gets the title and the house while the other siblings are left to scrounge?  Mary is a keen observer of her own misfortune while oblivious to that of others.

Also, it isn't the laws of the land that created the entail. It is the will of her ancestors (including her Dad who rejected breaking the entail) who decided they wanted the estate to go with the title. They did not want a titled ancestor to be a pauper. Who knows if Robert would had Downton at all if it had not been for the entail (he might be Lord Grantham and being a lawyer (like Mathew) while some third cousin had Downton).

UO: Due to Mary's lack of empathy for others, I have very little for her.

OUO: I wish the series had ended with them losing the house. 

Edited October 3, 2016 by kili

[SusanSunflower]

It was (and is) notoriously patriarchal society ... and inherited wealth was the mark of the gentry (not labor, although discrete investing was not frowned on to my knowledge). A society based on conquest and plunder under the rule of kings and at his whim, has little use of women except to effect a merger between fortunes and estates.  Not particularly "misogynistic" ... due to primogeniture, second and third born sons were equally powerless, and miserably so if the estate was dwindling ... I gather the great estates of England go back at least to feudal days ... 

Marital expectations were also different, which allowed two people who disliked each other (or had not a hint of attraction) to marry, produce an heir and a spare and live comfortably in their independent circles (including their extramarital relations) without much friction.  In many placed, to this day, marrying for "love" is considered an indulgence ... and since marrying for money (like arranged marriages hammered out by extended family) are considered "unthinkable" everyone must go through the charade of being madly in love.... see Charles and Diana for how badly that turns out sometimes.  See any article on arranged marriages to find heartfelt appreciation of spouses met only briefly (if at all) before the wedding day.  Even in oh-so-free America, women often marry hastily rather than end up the "last of my crowd" to tie the knot. Better to be a divorcee with a toddler than never married at 35.  (hobby horse, sorry) 

Edited October 3, 2016 by SusanSunflower

[AndySmith]

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Was there the pressure of the expectation of her family to marry Patrick and keep the house in the family? Yes. But that same pressure would have been on Patrick as well.

Patrick would have gotten the estate no matter who he married.

[slf]

22 hours ago, kili said:

I do not recall anything in the show or in the actual laws of the UK at the time which would have compelled Mary to marry Patrick. If Sybil could legally marry the chauffeur, Mary could marry anybody she liked as well (provided they were not already married). There is nothing Patrick or anybody else could legally have done if Mary had decided to marry Napier or any other guy that caught her fancy. It is even shown in the show where she rejects Mathew and decides to marry another man who she later rejects as well.

So England wasn't a sexist patriarchy in the early 1900s? The were no laws that favored sons over daughters and those laws were not written by men? Did women have equal say? Mary was pressured to marry Patrick to keep the fortune within the immediate family. It wasn't just an issue of disappointing the family. Yes, Mary could've legally married another but I'm not going to pretend she's a late 20th/early 21st century woman brought up with a completely different set of beliefs and expectations living in a more progressive society.

22 hours ago, kili said:

But that same pressure would have been on Patrick as well. 

Yes but as AndySmith pointed out Patrick pretty much takes the pot no matter what. He could take Mary or leave her and still end up an Earl with Cora's fortune. So: no raw deal for him.

22 hours ago, kili said:

Mary felt compelled to marry Patrick because she wanted to retain ownership of the house and the title her parents had. Is it unfair that titles and entailed houses followed the male lineage away from her? No. But is it any more unfair that the oldest gets the title and the house while the other siblings are left to scrounge? 

Felt compelled is sort of understating the situation; one, we're talking about her mother's fortune and her family's home. The home she was raised in. Plenty of people would do what they could to keep that. And I think suggesting Edith and Sybil would have been left to scrounge is a massive overstatement. The very title and house you seem to dismiss as petty concerns are what afforded her sisters the opportunity to make good matches (Sybil declining them besides) and the money given to them by their father. The other girls not inheriting did not mean they didn't benefit.

22 hours ago, kili said:

Also, it isn't the laws of the land that created the entail. It is the will of her ancestors (including her Dad who rejected breaking the entail) who decided they wanted the estate to go with the title. They did not want a titled ancestor to be a pauper. Who knows if Robert would had Downton at all if it had not been for the entail (he might be Lord Grantham and being a lawyer (like Mathew) while some third cousin had Downton).

Perhaps my understanding of the law is flawed and you can help me here: isn't the very law of the land what afforded her ancestor the right to create the entail? And the law of the land is what protected that entail from being broken? (And not only was the entail protected by the law in-show, lawyers nowadays have written about the entail and agreed that there would be no breaking it. I believe this is the exact situation that happened to Fellowe's wife family.)

Edited October 4, 2016 by slf

[kili]

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So England wasn't a sexist patriarchy in the early 1900s? The were no laws that favored sons over daughters and those laws were not written by men? Did women have equal say?

I never said that. The laws did not treat them as equal. I just think that Patrick and her were both feeling pressured and he wasn't the bad guy in the situation.  He too was facing a great deal of societal pressure.  Just because I think in this one situation they were both being pressured and neither was the bad guy should they have married does not mean I think that early 20th Century England was a feminist paradise. Mary had a choice.

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Perhaps my understanding of the law is flawed and you can help me here: isn't the very law of the land what afforded her ancestor the right to create the entail? And the law of the land is what protected that entail from being broken? (And not only was the entail protected by the law in-show, lawyers nowadays have written about the entail and agreed that there would be no breaking it. I believe this is the exact situation that happened to Fellowe's wife family.)

As an avid fan of Pride and Prejudice, entails are a hot topic. In many places in Europe, there were problems with estates being sliced and diced into smaller and smaller pieces such that the farms and estates became almost too small to be sustainable. If you treat all your kids equally and give them an equal share of your land, the land gets broken into smaller and smaller pieces with each generation (people tended to have more than one child for a variety of reasons). So, the idea of leaving the estate to only one person, usually the eldest, became popular. It is inherently unfair, but it was done to support the lineage. People also tended to be somewhat sexist because they usually wanted to protect the male lineage (the eldest male usually inherited, not the oldest child). Entails were set up to make that even more prominent (the eldest male lineage that survived - so if an eldest son's lineage ended up with no males to inherit, they second eldest son's descendants would now inherit).

Now, titles by law did follow the male lineage, but there was no law in the land that required inheritances to follow them as well. It was Mary's own relatives that decided that they wanted to impose an entail. It's a plot point of P&P that the father had intended to break the entail with his son (foiled by the fact he did not have a son). Any father and son combo in Mary's past could have broken the entail. Robert could have broken the entail with Mathew's agreement (and Mathew would totally have agreed to that). But none of Robert's ancestors nor Robert wanted to do that. Robert specifically says that he wants the house to go with title.  Mary his hypocritical about the estate and title because she wants to do everything to preserve it, but she rails against the very thing that was done to preserve it. If it weren't for the entail, it is very likely that either her father wouldn't have the estate or the estate would have been broken down into small bits by now. Entails also prevented people from breaking up the estates to sell (it is in some ways a trust for each generation).

Perhaps I'm a child of my time. I neither expect all my parents money to come to me nor to live in the same house all my life. I have no sympathy for Mary. She could have created a life for herself outside of the house (Sybil and Edith did). But, she starts out all bitter about the damn house her sisters were never going to get either. You don't want to marry Patrick? Don't. Mary could have still have made a very eligible match (just as Robert did with his impoverished estate) based on just her lineage or a love match or maybe even both. "Woe as me. I might not be as rich as my parents."  No sympathy from me. It's not like she was about to be starving in the hedgerows.

UO: I just shake my head at most of Mary's problem and want her to get a life. She had way more choices than she let herself believe.

[slf]

1 hour ago, kili said:

I never said that. The laws did not treat them as equal. I just think that Patrick and her were both feeling pressured and he wasn't the bad guy in the situation.  He too was facing a great deal of societal pressure.  Just because I think in this one situation they were both being pressured and neither was the bad guy should they have married does not mean I think that early 20th Century England was a feminist paradise. Mary had a choice.

No one's said Patrick was the bad guy though. Recognizing that quite a bit more went into Mary's situation that was unfair isn't the same as saying Patrick was a bad guy or wasn't facing any pressure. Though I doubt he was facing much; the family gracefully accepted Matthew deciding to marry Lavinia even though they clearly wanted him to marry Mary. I'm sure someone pointed out to him that it was best for everyone if he married one of the daughters but that would've been the extent of it. He didn't have to marry any of them and lost nothing if he chose not to. Mary lost something dear to her, whatever anyone else might think of it, by choosing not to. Their situations weren't equal. Which is why I said Mary got a raw deal; she did.

1 hour ago, kili said:

It was Mary's own relatives that decided that they wanted to impose an entail. It's a plot point of P&P that the father had intended to break the entail with his son (foiled by the fact he did not have a son). Any father and son combo in Mary's past could have broken the entail. Robert could have broken the entail with Mathew's agreement (and Mathew would totally have agreed to that). But none of Robert's ancestors nor Robert wanted to do that. Robert specifically says that he wants the house to go with title.  Mary his hypocritical about the estate and title because she wants to do everything to preserve it, but she rails against the very thing that was done to preserve it. If it weren't for the entail, it is very likely that either her father wouldn't have the estate or the estate would have been broken down into small bits by now. Entails also prevented people from breaking up the estates to sell (it is in some ways a trust for each generation).

Does the entail being set up the way it was really mean it worked to preserve the estate? Robert almost lost everything more than once and they had little money left by the end of the show. And the show's canon is that the entail could not be broken without an act of Parliament and according to several articles I've read regarding women currently battling entails that remains the case. So it wasn't just a case of Robert refusing, though he admitted he wouldn't even if he could have; it was a moot point. The law didn't allow for it.

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Mary could have still have made a very eligible match (just as Robert did with his impoverished estate) based on just her lineage or a love match or maybe even both. "Woe as me. I might not be as rich as my parents."  No sympathy from me. It's not like she was about to be starving in the hedgerows.

UO: I just shake my head at most of Mary's problem and want her to get a life. She had way more choices than she let herself believe.

We're going to have to agree to disagree w/r/t to Mary's desires and views. I think Mary wanted her home and to be recognized by Robert as his heir, as much as she tried to act like it didn't bother her that he couldn't and wouldn't, and I think both are understandable. Mary never denied she had other options; she considered marry two other men before accepting Matthew. To say it was just about being rich like her parents imo kind of ignores what she ended up doing which was marrying a guy who wasn't exactly rich, downsizing, and doing what work needed to done to save Downton.

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Perhaps I'm a child of my time. I neither expect all my parents money to come to me nor to live in the same house all my life.

No one does? The vast overwhelming majority of families aren't well off enough to inherit any money or property. Hell, the only house anyone in my family ever outright owned was burned to the ground.

Edited October 4, 2016 by slf

[kili]

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No one's said Patrick was the bad guy though. Recognizing that quite a bit more went into Mary's situation that was unfair isn't the same as saying Patrick was a bad guy or wasn't facing any pressure.

Okay, I may have been inferring from a pervious post, but her being forced to marry him and then forcing her to have sex with him until he had the children he wanted sounds an awful like a bad guy to me.

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Though I doubt he was facing much; the family gracefully accepted Matthew deciding to marry Lavinia even though they clearly wanted him to marry Mary.

Mathew proposed to Mary and she made it clear that she only wanted to marry him if he was the next to inherit the house (on her Aunt's advice). That's pretty cold (Mathew was raised in a family where people married for love, not to get money. At that point, it would be very churlish of the family to object to him finding somebody who did want to marry him. 

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Does the entail being set up the way it was really mean it worked to preserve the estate? Robert almost lost everything more than once and they had little money left by the end of the show. 

It did work to preserve the estate in its entirety. The problem was that the estate over time had become unprofitable so family money was required to shore it up. In the olden days, the rich lived off the estates. The income they earned from rent and farming sustained it and gave them income. That land is the core of the entail. They would then go on and invest the excess money in stable investments. But, investments became more risky (especially in the relatively unregulated period during which this show takes place and the kinds of investments Robert seemed to like making) and death taxes were introduced which ate away at the capital they used to support the estates.  Mathew's and Tom's goal with the revitalization was to make the estate self-supporting again. They had to introduce new revenue streams and streamline the old ones (such as consolidating the farms (thanks to modern equipment, one farmer could farm more land more efficiently) and introducing the pigs).  Once it was self-sustaining, they wouldn't need to marry the family sons off to rich women to keep the estate from bankrupting the family.

We see things similar to entails to this day. For instance, I know two different families whose Grandparents owned some land on a lake (each family on a different lake) and have set it up in such a way that the family cannot sell it. It's held in a trust of some sort which each descendant owning a piece of that trust. It would take quite bit of legal wrangling to sell it. Should some of those family members fall on hard times and want to sell the land (perhaps needing a home more than a holiday location), things will get messy. Those Grandparents wanted it kept in the family. How many generations must live according to their wishes?

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And the show's canon is that the entail could not be broken without an act of Parliament and according to several articles I've read regarding women currently battling entails that remains the case.

You probably did need an act of Parliament. At one time, you needed an act of parliament just to get divorced. You are breaking a legal contract. You needed both parties in the contract (current holder and the next to inherit) to agree to break it and there may have been some parliamentary step involved.   Fellowes didn't always get everything right, though. Robert and Mathew could have broken it. George was too young.

Most types of  entails were banned in England in 1925.

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We're going to have to agree to disagree w/r/t to Mary's desires and views.

That's why it is my UO.

[slf]

19 minutes ago, kili said:

Okay, I may have been inferring from a pervious post, but her being forced to marry him and then forcing her to have sex with him until he had the children he wanted sounds an awful like a bad guy to me.

That was the norm. A lot of women didn't want to marry the men they did and didn't want to have sex with them. And many of those men did not care. My saying that wasn't about Patrick, it was about Mary's feelings w/r/t to Patrick. We can debate, I suppose, over whether or not Patrick would've been a bad guy in that situation but since we don't know what he would've done I don't see the point.

20 minutes ago, kili said:

Mathew proposed to Mary and she made it clear that she only wanted to marry him if he was the next to inherit the house (on her Aunt's advice). That's pretty cold (Mathew was raised in a family where people married for love, not to get money. At that point, it would be very churlish of the family to object to him finding somebody who did want to marry him. 

Naturally. I'm not saying it wouldn't been right of them, I'm saying that if you're right and they could've pressured Patrick into marrying Mary then they could have pressured Matthew into marrying Mary. But it honestly wasn't even an option for reasons that had little do with Mary's motivations in rejecting Matthew.

23 minutes ago, kili said:

It did work to preserve the estate in its entirety. The problem was that the estate over time had become unprofitable so family money was required to shore it up.

Do we know when the entail was made? All I recall is Cora, Robert, or Violet saying Robert's father had bound Cora's fortune to the estate so did he make it or just revise it?

Anyway, as I said, my view is that Mary wanting wasn't a bad thing and that she wasn't wrong to see it as a messed up situation. Inheritance never needed to work that way.

30 minutes ago, kili said:

You probably did need an act of Parliament. At one time, you needed an act of parliament just to get divorced. You are breaking a legal contract. You needed both parties in the contract (current holder and the next to inherit) to agree to break it and there may have been some parliamentary step involved.   Fellowes didn't always get everything right, though. Robert and Mathew could have broken it. George was too young.

How could Robert and Matthew have broken it, out of curiosity? Everything I've read says they couldn't have.

Fellowes had trouble keeping things straight. In season one Cora's fortune was completely tied up and in the later seasons he somehow lost almost all of her money. 

[kili]

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Do we know when the entail was made? All I recall is Cora, Robert, or Violet saying Robert's father had bound Cora's fortune to the estate so did he make it or just revise it?

From what I've read, the entail as described in the show is a little hinky for the laws at the time. Normally, they had to be renewed every generation or so due to the Laws of Perpetuity (you can't bind your ancestors to things forever in common law). When you or I buy real estate, we typically buy it as fee simple (strata property (e.g., condos) or lease property are different). Robert doesn't own the estate as fee simple, he owns at as fee tail which means he doesn't have as many rights to it as you or I.

Cora's money is tied up with the estate because (and this is misogynistic) men legally owned everything their wife came into the marriage with. Careful fathers would sign legal documents with the prospective husband ensuring that income from their daughter's money could be used during the marriage, but her children would eventually get the money (capital) and that she would still have access to the income from the money should he die before her. Typically, the wife's settlement money would be used in entail cases such as this to provide some inheritance for the daughters or younger sons. Or to support the wife if the husband died before her. 

In Cora's case, her father did not do that. He likely didn't do that because Robert's father made it a condition of the marriage. In this case, absolutely nothing was set aside for Cora if she became a widow or any of her children who weren't an eldest son. I believe that was actually pretty rare in the class. Even Elizabeth Bennet's unaristocratic grandfather in P&P was smart enough to put that in the marriage contract for her mother.  It isn't so much what Robert's father did as opposed to what Cora's father did not. He did not protect his daughter or his grandchildren financially.

Robert was probably very concerned about Sybil's money when she married Tom and I can't imagine he agreed to the same deal as Cora's dad. In P&P, Darcy's sister almost runs off and marries a cad which would have given him unrestricted access to her inheritance. He would have blown through that money like water. A proper marriage contract would have at least protected the capital.

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How could Robert and Matthew have broken it, out of curiosity? Everything I've read says they couldn't have.

Actually, I'm sorry. He couldn't have. Mathew was the heir presumptive and he could not have done it. Neither could George. There was still the possibility that somebody with a higher claim to the estate could appear such as son Robert would subsequently have. Robert's son could have worked with Robert to break it once he was 21.

[Roseanna]

On ‎4‎.‎10‎.‎2016 at 9:49 PM, kili said:

Perhaps I'm a child of my time. I neither expect all my parents money to come to me nor to live in the same house all my life. I have no sympathy for Mary. She could have created a life for herself outside of the house (Sybil and Edith did). But, she starts out all bitter about the damn house her sisters were never going to get either. You don't want to marry Patrick? Don't. Mary could have still have made a very eligible match (just as Robert did with his impoverished estate) based on just her lineage or a love match or maybe even both. "Woe as me. I might not be as rich as my parents."  No sympathy from me. It's not like she was about to be starving in the hedgerows.

UO: I just shake my head at most of Mary's problem and want her to get a life. She had way more choices than she let herself believe.

I am not so severe but understand that one can't demand from Mary before WW1 something that was possible only a woman with an unusual character (which only Sybil had). In fact, I have in my youth enjoyed several books where a woman abandons her love and makes a marriage in order to save her family's estate (of course she finally falls in love with her husband).

Mary's problem as a character is that she does so little to reach her goal. She mainly sits and waits for that all is given her. Therefore the Pamuk affair is so essential for the story - or rather, without it there would be no story. 

[amensisterfriend]

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You're not the only one!  Baxter was one of the best characters they introduced later on, and I think Raquel Cassidy's performance was wonderful.  Besides being a genuinely kind person, Baxter was a calming presence in a house full of drama queens.  I liked how she took full responsibility for what she'd done in her life, but wanted to move on and make something of herself.  She was long-suffering like Anna and Bates, but without the self-righteous veneer.

I love her! As introverted as she is on the surface, the actress (and occasionally the scripts) conveyed emotional depth to me, and she came off as a really intelligent, soothing and compassionate yet inwardly anxious character. She and Moseley may be my favorite romance on the show...and they were never even together :) 

Other random UOs from rewatching some episodes:

I like S5 a lot more than most people do and S1 a lot less than most people do.

I liked Lord Merton but wish Isobel had ended the series single and happy about it. 

Overall this show consists of great individual scenes and moments for me---there are very few episodes that I have the patience to watch from beginning to end while I rewatch. As much as almost every episode has scenes that make it worth rewatching for me, nearly every one also has scenes that have me hitting the fast forward button.

Like many people, I loathed Carson/Hughes' S6 storyline to the point where it makes me enjoy their earlier scenes less than I used to, but here's the unpopular part: I really don't think turning out to be such an obliviously selfish, sexist, somewhat autocratic husband was especially out of character for Carson, especially given the era and what we saw of his personality throughout the show. 

I would MUCH rather Mary have ended up with Blake than Henry. I have this weird soft spot for Blake :) 

I like the sides of Mary that Matthew usually brought out, but I didn't think Matthew was a well-defined, developed or interesting character in his own right. 

I feel like the actress who played Rose would have been great at projecting the warmth, kindness, idealism, rebelliousness, intense emotion, vibrancy etc. that we were (I think!) supposed to get from Sybil. The actress who played Sybil would have worked for me as more of a haughty, detached character, but as Sybil she just didn't connect with me at all. 

I found Tom more likable in the seasons following Sybil's death than I did through most of S2 and S3. 

The more I rewatch, the less I get Coral. Even her accent and strange way of speaking baffles me ;) I feel like in S1 she was sharper, a little more pragmatic, shrewd and scheming and borderline manipulative. In many other seasons, she seems sweeter and more open but just kind of...spaced out?! I feel like we were supposed to think she was actually a whole lot smarter, more insightful and calm/cool/collected than Robert (and most people are, lol), but somehow I had trouble grasping her real thoughts and feelings on things and who she was supposed to be. 

Speaking of which, I actually like Robert. At least I'm in the right thread :) In real life, I wouldn't, but as a character---and especially one of that era---he worked for me. He felt like a realistic product of his time and lifestyle and, unlike many DA characters, a consistently depicted character with both strengths and flaws.

Similarly, now that I'm mostly recovered from her actions in S6, I've swung back around to liking Mary. Again, she's not someone I'd like in real life...at all :) But I do find her a pretty layered and interesting character and, like her father, a realistic product of her era and status. I'll never like the sides of each other that Mary and Edith bring out and find most of Mary's love life a bore, but I enjoy her around other members of the family, Tom and especially Anna.  

[Constant Viewer]

On 12/6/2016 at 6:55 PM, amensisterfriend said:

I would MUCH rather Mary have ended up with Blake than Henry. I have this weird soft spot for Blake :) 

 

You're not alone, I liked Blake too I thought he would have been a good match. Also, I like the actor since he was in Foyle's War

[TheGreenKnight]

I always thought Blake was going to be the endgame myself. Too bad. I didn't mind Henry as much as others do though.

[amensisterfriend]

This is awesome---you guys will be among the only two or three people to read the Mary/Blake fanfiction that I'll never actually muster the motivation to write ;) Seriously, I get why many dismissed him as the 'possibly gay best friend' type, but I loved how his jovial, laidback openness counterbalanced Mary's..Mary-ness :) I feel like he brought out a more genuinely happy, relaxed, fun loving side of her. I could see them having a Nick-and-Nora type banter and genuine rapport. He was actually one of the show's only 'significant others' who had actual personality to me! 

[AndySmith]

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the 'possibly gay best friend' type

That sound you are hearing is Evelyn Napier saying "Step off, please".

[Constant Viewer]

6 hours ago, amensisterfriend said:

Seriously, I get why many dismissed him as the 'possibly gay best friend' type, but I loved how his jovial, laidback openness counterbalanced Mary's..Mary-ness :) I feel like he brought out a more genuinely happy, relaxed, fun loving side of her. I could see them having a Nick-and-Nora type banter and genuine rapport. He was actually one of the show's only 'significant others' who had actual personality to me!

Blake being at the fashion show is probably what put him in the "gay best friend" category. I also thought he showed the best personality, especially when he and Mary saved the pigs and he smeared mud on her face and got her disentangled from Tony. I think he was also one of the smarter suitors considering his job.  Henry Talbot was awfully cute, but Blake would have been more fun.

Poor Evelyn Napier.  I liked him when he told Cora he wanted to marry someone who liked him just as much as he liked her. I think Mary sensed he was a good person which was why she was always happy to see him even though she wasn't romantically interested in him.