Books vs. the Show (2015)

[Milz]

So they exchanged one shot gun wedding for another. Jim didn't knock up Jinny before they were married in the books, but he does in P15. I was disappointed.

 

Also P15's Elizabeth wasn't able to telegraph to the viewer that she figured out that Ross and Demelza slept together. Pity. Demelza 'won' that meeting in the book with Elizabeth scurrying out of Nampara.

[NumberCruncher]

So they exchanged one shot gun wedding for another. Jim didn't knock up Jinny before they were married in the books, but he does in P15. I was disappointed.

 

Also P15's Elizabeth wasn't able to telegraph to the viewer that she figured out that Ross and Demelza slept together. Pity. Demelza 'won' that meeting in the book with Elizabeth scurrying out of Nampara.

 

Really?  I got the distinct impression that Elizabeth knew what was going on between them in this version.  The expression she makes after catching the look between Ross and Demelza spoke volumes, IMO.  She then immediately jumped out of her seat and couldn't get out of there fast enough.  It may not have been scurrying but it was definitely in haste.

[Llywela]

So they exchanged one shot gun wedding for another. Jim didn't knock up Jinny before they were married in the books, but he does in P15. I was disappointed.

I know, right. It makes for an interesting comparison, I suppose. In Book 1, Jim and Jinny are fairly major characters, both given extensive POV chapters; they carry an entire four-year sub-plot all of their own, which takes them from shy young sweethearts to a long married couple expecting their third child when Jim is arrested, with the drama of Jinny's stalker and the knife attack in between. P75 removes the stalker sub-plot and condenses their storyline, but still spreads their story out over several episodes, allows time to pass, so that we see them engaged, see them married, see Jinny fall pregnant - are told that she has already lost at least one child. We spend enough time with them to know and care who they are, even if their storyline is shortened. P15 cuts their story right back to the bare bones, compresses four years of this couples' lives into just a couple of months - it cares about them only because Jim's imprisonment and Ross's reaction to it are a major plot point that must be included, but is unwilling to grant them any more screentime than can be helped. We are not encouraged to know and care for them in their own right, only tangentially through Ross.

 

In general, P15 seems unwilling to allow any sub-plots to overlap and interweave the way they do in the books and P75, instead separating them out into a storyline-of-the-week, which...I'm sure there were solid practical reasons for handling it this way - perhaps to do with seasonal structure and employment of supporting cast, but it makes for a rather choppier experience of the story as a whole, and also makes it harder to appreciate the passage of time. It loses the richness of the original tale.

[Milz]

Really?  I got the distinct impression that Elizabeth knew what was going on between them in this version.  The expression she makes after catching the look between Ross and Demelza spoke volumes, IMO.  She then immediately jumped out of her seat and couldn't get out of there fast enough.  It may not have been scurrying but it was definitely in haste.

 

Ross hardly looked at Demelza in that scene. The only thing that looked like they had sex is that they looked like they just finished rolling in the grass.

 

 

We are not encouraged to know and care for them in their own right, only tangentially through Ross.

 

In general, P15 seems unwilling to allow any sub-plots to overlap and interweave the way they do in the books and P75, instead separating them out into a storyline-of-the-week, which...I'm sure there were solid practical reasons for handling it this way - perhaps to do with seasonal structure and employment of supporting cast, but it makes for a rather choppier experience of the story as a whole, and also makes it harder to appreciate the passage of time. It loses the richness of the original tale.

 

It's the most tangential of tangential. All we know about Jim is some guy who Ross likes for some reason---likes enough to find a cottage for him and Jinny, likes enough to give him a job at Wheal Leisure, likes him enough to go to the Bodrugans, likes him enough to go to Truro. other than the very superficial "Ross is a nice guy" idea, we don't know why.

[CTrent29]

Quote

The actress portraying Elizabeth just doesn't project the fragility and untouchability that were the prime source of the fascination she held for these men.

 

Elizabeth's fragility was at best superficial.  She was a tough person.  No wonder so many characters . . . and readers underestimated her.

 

 

On the other hand, I have never been impressed by how Ross and Demelza's so-called courtship and wedding was handled.  Not by Graham in the 1945 novel, not by the 1975 series with that faux pre-marital pregnancy and not by the 2015 version that followed the novel.  Not only that, I found how Graham handled it in the novel a bit skeevy.

Edited November 10, 2016 by CTrent29

[Elivesta29]

So I have a question. I haven't read the books, but I thought I read that the Rosina character from season 2 married Demelza's brother in the books? When I read that I assumed that was why they introduced her last season - as she wasn't very important to the series. Is the Morwenna character replacing her(perhaps she too is a book character, I'm not sure). I just wonder if anyone could clear this up for me?

[Llywela]

1 hour ago, Elivesta29 said:

So I have a question. I haven't read the books, but I thought I read that the Rosina character from season 2 married Demelza's brother in the books? When I read that I assumed that was why they introduced her last season - as she wasn't very important to the series. Is the Morwenna character replacing her(perhaps she too is a book character, I'm not sure). I just wonder if anyone could clear this up for me?

Hello. Well...Rosina does eventually end up marrying Sam, but not for a long, long time yet to come; Sam's primary romantic interest hasn't been introduced yet. Drake's fate is tied up with Morwenna from the start - she is a book character, yes, and quite a major one for the next novel or two. Rosina was initially introduced in the novels for the same reason she was in the show, to be part of Dwight and Caroline's story - she might be only a secondary character, but she had quite a major impact on Dwight and Caroline's story, with a subsequent knock-on effect on Ross and Demelza.

[LJones41]

This episode was a TRAVESTY.  It's apparent that Debbie Horsfield has no intention of faithful to Winston Graham's 1973 novel, "The Black Moon".  Why?  I don't know.  But transforming Elizabeth Warleggan into a drug addict and a bad mother?  I have never seen anything so ridiculous and disgusting in my life.  Has anyone read any of the novels, including "The Black Moon"?  I'm beginning to wonder.  And the fact that Andrew Graham isn't protesting this makes me wonder if he is receiving cash to agree with everything that Horsfield and the BBC are doing to his father's novels.

 

As for Demelza . . . I no longer care.  If I have to read or hear about how "wonderful" she is or a "force of nature", I'm going to reach for the nearest trash basket and throw up.

Edited June 26, 2017 by LJones41

[LJones41]

How interesting that so many fans are willing to accept these recent changes made by Debbie Horsfield . . . especially at a time when Elizabeth's character is being demonized to beyond recognition and Demelza is being portrayed in a better light than she was at this point in "The Black Moon".

 

But you know what?  I'm not really surprised.

Edited June 26, 2017 by LJones41

[Llywela]

27 minutes ago, Jacks-Son said:

Not having read the books and going only by what I've seen in P75 and so far of P15, I don't know how this series diverts completely from the books. However, I think some divergence is normal for films adapted from books, especially from books written in 1945. From the little I've read about the books, not the actual books themselves, Demelza was 13 when Ross first met and kidnapped  her. They also didn't marry for another four years. Surely, those were necessary changes to move the story alone and make it palatable for current viewers. How do you think those original events would have played out in this day and age? All film versions of a book must take into account different viewpoints from storytelling and directors.

Ross did not kidnap Demelza, in any version of the story - certainly not in the novel. He rescued a starving child from a fight, fed her and offered her a ride home, then when he learned that she was frightened of going home to another beating from her father he offered her a job, pretty much on a sudden impulse of pity, which she accepted. Her father protested because he wanted her back home to raise his younger children for him, but he had been abusing her badly - we are told that she carries the scars of some of those beatings for the rest of her life. She chose not to go home, she chose to accept the job offered to her. Ross didn't kidnap her, he gave her a way out - and although at 13 she wasn't quite old enough to legally make that choice without parental permission, which was why her father made such a fuss, she was only weeks away from her 14th birthday, when the arrangement did become legal. And for her it was an escape, the opportunity to build a new life in a safe environment. She was not kidnapped. She went into service, like so many other young girls of the same age.

The show certainly aged Demelza up in order to introduce the romance much earlier, but that isn't the change book readers tend to complain about. The absolute hatchet job done on certain other characters and their storylines is what provokes criticism (you can see from the posts above that people are not complaining about Demelza's age, but about character actions and motivations), but personally I'm trying to keep my own thoughts on that subject to the book-reading threads rather than bring them in here to the episode threads.

[Jacks-Son]

I'm trying to find the webpage that described Demelza's journey to Nampara as a kidnapping. (I'm not referring to her father's claim) However there is an article that claims the author was livid with the P75 changes to his novel, and most especially the way P75 depicted Demelza as "slutty".  Here's the article:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2984357/Why-Poldark-writer-hated-BBC-s-slutty-Demelza-Creator-furious-promiscuous-portrayal-servant-based-wife.html

[nodorothyparker]

It's been awhile since I read the first book, which I really do love, and I wouldn't call it a kidnapping either.  I can see how it could be considered a matter of perception though, because even in the 1700s you really weren't supposed to carry off other people's children as domestics, no matter how badly the parents might be mistreating them.  If I remember right, Ross eventually smooths the whole thing over by making arrangements to send Demelza's wages to her father since she's still considered a child and as such can't enter into any sort of employment situation without parental approval.

As I know we discussed last season, I've had more than my own share of issues with how thoroughly modern they've made Demelza at times in giving her go go girl power speeches and letting her act like she has more legal choices available to her than a 18-century Englishwoman realistically would.  I did feel like they were treading the line in this episode of idealizing her, especially with whichever brother remarking on what a wonder she is.  But then I remember these brothers haven't seen her in several years and would be unused to her in the role of a gentleman's wife giving orders and making decisions, so I suppose YMMV on that.

[Llywela]

I've been posting my spoiler-ish thoughts in the Now, Then and Before thread, but would this one be a better fit? I see that most of the book-readers I know are just posting freely in the episode threads, rather than attempting any book-reader conversation elsewhere. Still, I have bookish thoughts about episode 3x04, so I'm going to post them here.

If I remember rightly, the grain ship charity was Caroline's idea in the book, not Ross's. If I'm remembering that rightly, it's yet another example of the show taking a strong scenario away from a female character and giving it instead to Ross, lest we forget who is the hero around here. We've already seen this happen last season with Ross giving Caroline the idea of anonymous charity, instead of vice versa in the books, and just the other week when Ross got to charge off to seek news of lost ships, instead of Verity being the one Caroline first turns to for news, which is what happens in the book. Also, I don't recall the purchase of the grain ship being such a cloak-and-dagger melodrama in the novel, smuggling it in and making George think it was contraband - it isn't nearly so dramatic in the book, just a straightforward act of charity.

I'm enjoying Drake and Morwenna - and Geoffrey Charles, always my favourite Poldark.

[nodorothyparker]

I honestly didn't think there was all the cloak and dagger stuff with the grain shipment either, and I vaguely remember something about Wheal Leisure being shuttered for not being profitable enough.  But nothing about George doing it as a purely retaliatory thing.  I'm a little fuzzy on anything that isn't about the prison rescue effort in France in this section of the books though, so I'm hesitant to comment too much on that without going back and looking.

I did enjoy the couple of Easter eggs we got in this episode, with our first real look at a very big-eyed Hugh Armitage and Drake bringing Aunt Agatha a basket of frogs because she said she likes them, only learning then that George hates them and has already had them removed from the property.

[Clawdette]

I went back to the book for a quick skim regarding the efforts to help the poor. Ross and Demelza are discussing how to best help the folk and decide to enlist Caroline's help, since she is now a landowner. She takes up the cause but it was at Ross's urging. 

[Jacks-Son]

4 hours ago, nodorothyparker said:

George hates them and has already had them removed from the property.

Yeah, I think it was his first official act as landlord of Trenwith. He had to mark his territory like the little "kitten" that he is. So, so petty. Little boys love their frogs and turtles and to deprive a child of such joy is incredibly trite. My youngest used to collect "roly-polies" when he was little. I would find them in his pockets all of the time.

@SilverStormm. I ran across this picture and I thought it was a great picture. If it belongs in another thread, I will gladly delete it and post it where you think it's appropriate. If you don't think it's appropriate in any of the threads, pleas let me know and I will delete it. I just think its a nice reminder that the actors are NOT the characters they portray. We all know this, but sometimes we forget. Anyway, here it is.

Edited July 4, 2017 by Jacks-Son

[Llywela]

6 hours ago, Clawdette said:

I went back to the book for a quick skim regarding the efforts to help the poor. Ross and Demelza are discussing how to best help the folk and decide to enlist Caroline's help, since she is now a landowner. She takes up the cause but it was at Ross's urging. 

Thanks - I'm sure though that the grain purchase was her idea, having taken up the plight of the poor with a vengeance, once suggested to her, in her desperation for something positive to do.

Since I so often complain about changes made to the story, I will add that I really like what the show is doing to show us Dwight's ordeal in France. He doesn't appear in this book at all until nearly the end, so that at this stage all we get to 'see' is the perspective of his loved ones back home, worrying about him and feeling hopeless. We don't get his side of the story until much, much later. I can see why Graham played it that way, keeping readers in the same position that Caroline and Ross are in, not knowing, able only to cling to whatever scant hope they can find, but I do appreciate the alternate approach taken by the show here to juxtapose their anxiety with Dwight's actual dire predicament - which has the added benefit of keeping the actor in play, since he's under contract!

[Llywela]

On 19/06/2017 at 9:55 AM, Llywela said:

It is to Verity's house in Falmouth that Ross first takes Dwight when he is rescued, and it is to Verity's house that Caroline rushes when she learns the news, because she isn't prepared to wait a moment longer. I'm wondering now if that part of the story will also be changed now - in fact, I'm going to predict here and now that they'll have Ross's stolen boat put in directly at Nampara cove instead of going to Falmouth!

Quoting myself to note that I was absolutely bang on the money with this prediction, unfortunately. Apologies for the double post, but unfortunately not many people seem to want to talk about book v show comparisons, which to me are the main point of interest at this point, given that I've found this adaptation more disappointing than not on the whole.

Well, I have actually enjoyed most of this season so far, but while I see from the episode thread that most people seem to have really loved episode 3.05, I did not, quite emphatically so. I know I bang on a lot about book v show and people are probably bored of reading it - heck, I'm bored of saying it - but these changes matter. They matter because they impact on the characters, and who they are - even small changes can alter our entire perception of a character. Like Caroline - Caroline in the show is barely recognisable as the same person as the book, because she isn't the same person. She's had all her agency, all her activity stripped away from her to strengthen someone else's story, which didn't even need strengthening in the first place. Keeping her passively sitting at home, ignorant of Ross's rescue effort - Caroline, who in the book played such an active role, not only funding the mission but helping to plan it. Caroline, who upon learning that the mission had returned got straight onto her horse and rode twenty miles to Falmouth in the pouring rain to be reunited with her ailing fiance, rather than wait as Ross had asked. Oh, how I regret the hatchet job that's been done on her and Dwight's story - so many beautiful scenes and such nuanced character development, all irreparably stripped away from them, so that we get all the bare plot points but none of the meaning or deeper characterisation. How can any writer justify looking at a story in which a spirited, independent-minded young woman of means takes her future into her own hands by actively helping to plan a military expedition, and then turning it into a story in which that same young woman sits passively at home like a helpless damsel in distress while the action man who has taken it upon himself to save her plots with another woman to keep her completely ignorant of the very mission she should be helping to plan? "Oh, she mustn't be told about this thing that directly concerns her, keeping her ignorant is for her own good" - paternalistic claptrap, what is this, the 1960s? How can any writer justify turning such a dynamic and pro-active female character into such a naive, passive blank slate?

Ahem. Sorry for the rant. Apparently I feel rather strongly about this. It's just that although both adaptations naturally enough focus on Ross and Demelza, whenever I read the books I am all about Dwight and Caroline, and I'd so longed to see their story done well here...I seem to be doomed to disappointment. I thought I'd reconciled myself to the fact that the writer doesn't seem to really understand the characters in this story at all, but this is one of my favourite books in the series, and Ross's expedition to France one of my favourite sequences - I had such high hopes that this adaptation would do it more justice than the last, but alas it was not to be. Both adaptations have fallen into the trap of emphasising the action hero aspect, whereas in Graham's novel it is a massively introspective experience for Ross, who spends literally weeks sitting around on a French ship asking himself over and over if he's doing the right thing, examining his own nature and finding it wanting, fretting and worrying about all that he's risking, and so on, before abandoning plan A and going off half-cocked in a hijacked fishing boat rather than wait any longer. Here, the whole thing seemed to be over and done with in about three days flat - show really has has screwed the timeline all to hell and back! Well, that's been true since season one, of course, but the point was emphasised here. Heck, the show had Dwight deliver baby Valentine before going off to sea and then get captured, imprisoned and rescued all before the kid has had his first birthday - in the book he was in the prison camp for almost two years, rather than a scant few months, which is why he's such a physical wreck when he gets home.

I did like the cute call back of Caroline recognising the symptoms of scurvy, which was how they first met, but that scant 30 second scene is a pale shadow of the beautiful reunion scene they get in the book, at Verity's house in Falmouth.

So much else about the timeline has also been screwed up, I hardly know where to begin. Far from being on the cliff anxiously awaiting Drake's return, Morwenna should have been safely married off to idiot Ossie while he was away in France. We haven't yet had the sequence in which Drake was gifted a bible by Geoffrey Charles and then arrested for theft by George because of it, which in the book was what prompted Ross to invite him on the mission to France in the first place - I would complain that the show had him stowaway rather than be invited, but I'm too busy being grateful that at least someone other than Ross was allowed to show some initiative for once! And I can't get over how fast news seems to travel in this 18th century community! Perhaps everyone is psychic, that's the only way they could get news from across the Channel so fast. They certainly seem able to teleport around at will.

Or perhaps it's just that the show is not very good at showing the passage of time.

And I haven't even mentioned the death of Captain Henshawe yet. I can understand why that choice was made - using a character we're already very familiar with allows the audience to engage with the loss - but it also makes Ross look selfish and irresponsible, to take with him both his business partner and his mine manager - in the book there was no way Zacky Martin could have made the trip, his health was too poor after the harsh winter, so he was left in charge of the mine. Henshawe didn't go on the trip either. Book!Ross made a point of taking with him only men who had no dependents, all of whom volunteered for the mission because Dwight had previously helped them. The man who died on the mission in the book was the same man whose life Dwight had saved after the mine collapse.

I would go on, but it's getting late and this has been enough of a rant as it is - sorry, I did mean it to be a more measured comparison of show to book! I will end by saying that I have really appreciated the scenes of Dwight in prison in Quimper, I think it has really strengthened his story to see what he was going through in real time, rather than merely seeing the end result and hearing the details after the fact. It's just a shame the timeline has been so painfully compressed and that the merest outline of the plot was taken for this episode and then turned into a different story entirely.

Edited July 10, 2017 by Llywela

[nodorothyparker]

They inexplicably shipped Verity and little Andrew off to Lisbon to be with Captain Blamey a couple of episodes ago, so we knew that part was going to have to be rewritten.  Do we know if they've just written Verity out entirely?

I don't mind the rescue we got, changes and all, but your criticisms are definitely valid.  I haven't been thrilled with how passive this version of Caroline was in comparison to her book counterpart either.  We see her sending off and receiving letters and mentioning that she's heard this or that, but that's been about it. Book Caroline is so much more active, although we know some of that is from her own sense of helplessness because she's not Dwight's wife yet and so isn't considered someone deserving any special consideration for news.  And of course I see from next week's preview they're going to have to get creative to demonstrate what appalling shape Dwight is in since the actor can't reasonably be expected to have sickened and starved.  True that Ross specifically picked men who didn't have families or dependents, but the show has done the condensing of characters typical for TV.  So it was either take the handful of characters we can put names to or spend an hour watching Ross sit in a boat full of nameless extras we don't care anything about.  It does change the rescue mission a bit, but I don't know what the fix would have been.

Oddly right now, my most surprising reaction is to the introduction of Hugh Armitage to the larger canvas.  

Spoiler

Knowing what's to come, I found myself actually feeling more than a little pissed at him standing there praising Ross as his savior and promising that he'd make the most of his second chance at life.  I really didn't expect that.  While I do quite like Ross and Demelza's story, I've never been a shipper caught up in the grand romance of it so I don't even think that's it.  I actually do sort of understand the coming storyline in the context that book Demelza was a starving abused 13-year-old when Ross rescued her from that dogfight and that they both at various parts acknowledge that Ross basically My Fair Ladyed Demelza into the adult she became.  She married at 17, never having gotten the chance to harmlessly flirt or be wooed.  I just couldn't get past the fact that these people brought him home despite not knowing him, that he stood there and watched how tightly knit a family they are and how much they grieved the loss of one of their own and will still act the way he will.  So maybe knowing the books isn't always a good thing after all?

[Llywela]

7 hours ago, nodorothyparker said:

They inexplicably shipped Verity and little Andrew off to Lisbon to be with Captain Blamey a couple of episodes ago, so we knew that part was going to have to be rewritten.  Do we know if they've just written Verity out entirely?

I'm presuming so, because it was at that point that I predicted Ross would bring Dwight straight home to Nampara Cove rather than going to Verity in Falmouth, which proved to be correct. I'm guessing they chose to write Verity out because she does play a much reduced role in the series from now on - but I'd much rather have seen her allowed to be as active and involved in the show as she was in the book, both at the start and the end of Dwight's imprisonment story, rather than dominating his capture story with a made-up sub-plot about Andrew Blamey also being missing (an addition which turned Verity from active to passive, damsel-in-distressing her, in effect) and then being written out in implausible fashion - taking an infant on a dangerous voyage in wartime, through enemy infested waters, really? I really don't think that was necessary. She could have stayed in Falmouth and been visited there by other characters on the two occasions she is involved in the book, and then when they said their farewells to her and thanked her for her help, that would have been her exit, no voyage to Lisbon necessary.

Quote

Book Caroline is so much more active, although we know some of that is from her own sense of helplessness because she's not Dwight's wife yet and so isn't considered someone deserving any special consideration for news.  

That right there was one of the reasons I protested against the show marrying them ahead of schedule - it has a huge impact on their story, and it does matter. It's like seeing a version of Pride & Prejudice in which Elizabeth marries Darcy in secret after bumping into him at Pemberley, so that the whole of the rest of their story has to continue play out from that point, yet no longer makes sense in the same way, because the altered sequence of events impacts upon future character actions and motivations, so that their story becomes distorted, trying to twist to fit in all the necessary plot points without the proper character motivations to achieve them. And sure, you could make some kind of story out of all that, but it would no longer be Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice! The sequence of events in the novel was written the way it was for a reason. I know a TV adaptation has to make changes and has to compress things to a certain degree, but some of these changes have been completely unnecessary and have done a lot more harm than good.

As far as Hugh Armitage goes

Oddly enough, it didn't bother me so much that he was standing there watching their display of family and community, because even in the book he knows full well how close they all are, and acknowledges that he owes his life to Ross, yet still chooses to woo Demelza, so despite the addition of the scene on the beach, his part of the story feels very much in keeping with who he is in the book.

[profdanglais]

Hello, I've not posted on this forum before, but am inspired to now because I need someplace to vent about the way this show continually insists on using a sledgehammer to make its points, then taking that same sledgehammer to beat all the nuance out of its characters. The latest victim is poor Demelza (again!) whose affair with Hugh Armitage is no longer about her, but instead about how mean Ross doesn't appreciate her. And why does everything have to centre on Ross? George is so obsessed with him it's a wonder he finds the time to be a successful businessman. I also wonder that they haven't given him a moustache to twirl, with how comically evil his character has become. 

What really upsets me though, is Morwenna. Her story was the most heartbreaking in all the books for me. Sex on this show has never been explicit, and I do appreciate that, but they could have done more to show how traumatised Morwenna was by marriage to Osborne. And I'm sure they won't do justice to Osborne trying to have her committed because she refuses to sleep with him. Will they show her threatening to kill her baby if he touches her? Morwenna's story is a powerful demonstration of how terrible life could be for women in the 18th century -- married against their will, forced by law to have sex whenever their husbands demanded it, no rights or legal standing outside their marriage, no doctors who could understand much less treat the psychological effects of years of sexual and emotional abuse. It's an important story to tell, and so far this show is not doing it justice. 

It's like Debbie Horsfield is so intent on the events of the story that she completely fails to understand the characters. 

[Llywela]

4 minutes ago, profdanglais said:

Hello, I've not posted on this forum before, but am inspired to now because I need someplace to vent about the way this show continually insists on using a sledgehammer to make its points, then taking that same sledgehammer to beat all the nuance out of its characters. The latest victim is poor Demelza (again!) whose affair with Hugh Armitage is no longer about her, but instead about how mean Ross doesn't appreciate her. And why does everything have to centre on Ross? George is so obsessed with him it's a wonder he finds the time to be a successful businessman. I also wonder that they haven't given him a moustache to twirl, with how comically evil his character has become. 

What really upsets me though, is Morwenna. Her story was the most heartbreaking in all the books for me. Sex on this show has never been explicit, and I do appreciate that, but they could have done more to show how traumatised Morwenna was by marriage to Osborne. And I'm sure they won't do justice to Osborne trying to have her committed because she refuses to sleep with him. Will they show her threatening to kill her baby if he touches her? Morwenna's story is a powerful demonstration of how terrible life could be for women in the 18th century -- married against their will, forced by law to have sex whenever their husbands demanded it, no rights or legal standing outside their marriage, no doctors who could understand much less treat the psychological effects of years of sexual and emotional abuse. It's an important story to tell, and so far this show is not doing it justice. 

It's like Debbie Horsfield is so intent on the events of the story that she completely fails to understand the characters. 

Amen, friend! This is what I've been banging on about since about halfway through season one. So much so that the frustration got the better of me halfway through last week's episode, and I turned it off and am no longer watching!

'So intent on the events of the story that she completely fails to understand the characters' is exactly it. Every ounce of nuance has been stripped from the story, and the development removed from every character who isn't Ross - not to mention all the positive activity that has been taken away from a variety of characters, most of them women, so that Ross can have all the glory instead, primarily I suspect because his faults are also being exaggerated, so we might forget that he is the hero of the story if other people are allowed to be heroic too. I hit my breaking point last week and I don't think I will watch again now I've made that break.

It was the hatchet job done to Dwight and Caroline's story that did for me in the end - if Morwenna's is being treated likewise, I'm glad I stopped watching already! And it isn't so much that I object to a novel underdoing changes to make the transition from the page to the screen, I fully understand the necessity of doing so - but those changes have to be in keeping with the original story and characters, and that's where this adaptation is losing me, because so many of the changes made are actively damaging to the original story and characters, utilising plot points as bald plot points while simultaneously stripping them of everything that gave them meaning in the source material.

[Glaze Crazy]

I just finished reading the two books this season is drawing from and I'm feeling the loss of the internal struggles Demelza, Morwenna, Osborne and even Ross were going through during this part of the story. I know that film can have difficulty in getting across what the characters' thoughts and motivations are but how the show in moving forward in the story is losing any empathy I have for WHY Demelza, Morwenna, Osborne and Ross made their choices and how they came to grips with those actions. This week's show was a hot mess in this department. Demelza looks like she's encouraging Hugh because she's pissed at Ross. Ross, instead of the book's version of having an ongoing conversation with Demelza about Hugh's attentions to her (and Demelza's conflict about it and her desire to both keep Hugh at arms length but continue to be a friend) is apparently completely clueless that this other man is falling in love with his wife. This will make Demelza's upcoming actions more for spite of Ross that something she kind of gets backed in to due to her naivety and good faith in Hugh.

Book Morwenna never acknowledges to anyone how badly Osborne treats her but here she spills it to Demelza, so we know that's going to get back to Drake at some point. (I haven't read any further books yet, so if it eventually goes that way I'm currently not aware of it) Osborne's upcoming transgressions with Morwenna's sister looks to be being set up to have different motivations than the book, where there he seemed to find himself accidentally on some kind of slippery slope at the start of his obsession with her. On the show it looks like Osborne is so full of himself he thinks every woman would love his awesome self. Although the book did show Osborne as a pompous ass in general I got the feeling that his affair was both exciting and horrifying to him, as a religious man. Of course the pompous part of him did blame the sister and not himself for it.

I know they teased that audio for next week of Ross saying he still loved Elizabeth and I hope it was a misdirection. I like how Book Ross struggled with his actions on their chance encounter at Aunt Agatha's grave and his decision to not tell Demelza about it, even though it was really a lot of nothing, since he had no way of telling it without being able to make clear to Demelza that it was more of a wake up call for him than a desire to leave D for E because of "love." Again, much more nuance is able to be told in the book vs. film.

Glad I read the books and still like the series a lot, but I'm sorry that some of the characters' motivations and emotions are getting lost in the translation from book to screen.

Edited July 25, 2017 by Glaze Crazy
spelling.

[nodorothyparker]

Morwenna's story is one of the more horrifying examples in literature I can think of of how bad arranged marriage could go in general and for women in particular.  I found myself feeling pretty relieved this episode that they skipped ahead in the timeline and didn't force us to watch that horrifying wedding night while still making it clear that for her it's an unending soulless drudgery of sex on demand with a man who's physically repellent to her.   I couldn't believe though that she would tell Demelza of all people in a public setting that Whitworth is "a monster."  How does she see that playing out knowing that it's likely to get back to Drake at some point and that his previous involvement with her came dangerously close to ending with his neck in a noose?  The thing that always struck me about her story though is how nearly every character except Whitworth at some point sees and internally comments on how terrible she looks, how withdrawn, how despondent she is but they're all pretty powerless to do anything about it.  Again, I know it's TV and characters tend to voice a lot of things that only happen in their heads on the page, but it was really very jarring.

It's obvious in the episode thread that we're all struggling to decipher the motivations in Ross and Demelza where Hugh's concerned because the show really has muddled that.  While I can sort of buy Ross's lashing out because he's grieving and he's feeling conflicted, it looks on the surface like he's just being an ass just because it's time again and driving her to Hugh.  That completely distorts the story that Demelza is confused and overwhelmed by Hugh's attention and having trouble figuring out where to draw the line because as I did say in the episode thread, she completely missed out on being courted and pursued as an equal by marrying Ross so young and spending her first years of married life basically being grateful to him for it.

It seems like they're really compressing certain plot points now, which really isn't helping.  With Agatha dropping the paternity bomb, we're pretty much at the end of Black Moon and already barreling through The Four Swans with only two episodes left for the season.  I can't figure out where the logical break is going to be between now and next season that isn't going to confuse several of these storylines any further.

[Clawdette]

I think they may very well break this season with the scene of Demelza and Hugh on the beach, giving in to their passions.  That will create angst in the non-book fandom during the hiatus.   We know that next season is going to include part of The Four Swans and I think the first episode(s) will deal with the aftermath from the liaison.  

I,  like Glaze Crazy, am very disappointed into how this adaptation is handling the Ross/Demelza/Hugh triangle.  This is one occasion in which none of the characters are behaving in true book fashion.

[skyways]

You guys are lucky. I simply gave up. Contrary to the books this adaptation is too simply drawn - like everyone's actions are too straight forward and obvious. I like my characters having hidden depths so I can try to decipher their motives through the actions shown me on the screen. This is the best way I can describe my annoyance with this version. I am no longer watching but I find this comment section more enlightening.

Edited July 26, 2017 by skyways

[LJones41]

I just finished both versions that covered the first four novels - "Ross Poldark" to "Warleggan".  If I must be brutal, I have mixed feelings for both the 1970s series and the current one.  Both series were so bent upon portraying Ross as this hero with a few flaws and Demelza as a borderline Mary Sue that I found myself getting very annoyed.  Neither version handled Ross' encounter with Elizabeth with any real honesty.  And both versions made changes to Graham's saga that made no damn sense.

 

I don't know what to say.  I just don't know.

[Llywela]

I agree, LJones41. I think each adaptation has its strength, but neither one really gets to the heart of Winston Graham's writing, and neither one can claim to be at all faithful to the source material, they simply make different choices about what to change. I also think that cramming two books into each season is a mistake - there is no way to do justice to the material in so short a time, and all the corner-cutting does a lot of damage to the story and characters.

[profdanglais]

I'm so glad to hear I am not alone in my frustration! @Llywela sorry to hear you have been driven to quit the show entirely. I have to admit that I am basically hate-watching it these days. 

@Grashka you make some interesting points. I agree that Drake and Morwenna were a bit flat in the books. Interestingly, I've noticed that the earlier books were more, 'prudish' let's say, in their writing. The romantic and sexual feelings of the characters were described pretty obliquely, whereas in the later books it's much more explicitly stated. Book!Drake and Book!Morwenna could perhaps have benefitted from a bit more oomph in the description of their relationship. But I'm glad Graham didn't try to tell the story of Morwenna's marriage too much from her point of view. I'm not convinced he could have done justice to the POV of an abused woman, and also having so much of Osborne's POV really reveals what a vile person he is. 

As for this week's episode--yet again we see how everything has to centre on Ross and be Ross's idea. But for him to suggest to Elizabeth that she have another 'early' baby is actually monstrous, given Elizabeth's eventual fate. It makes sense for her to conceive the idea herself and to be desperately determined to carry it out to save her marriage, but for her to do it because Ross told her to... well that makes Ross ultimately responsible for her death. Again, Debbie Horsfield makes these decisions without considering their repercussions for the character. 

[nodorothyparker]

I haven't seen the episode yet so I obviously can't comment on how it's portrayed but Ross does make that suggestion in the book.  Or at least he suggests muddying the likely conception and due dates of a future child.  I've always chalked that up to none of these people having a good grasp on medical matters or the danger, the state of medical practice being what it was at the time, more than actual ill intent.  (Between this series and the Outlander series, you see that average people and even doctors of the 1700s believed some pretty whacked out things that sometimes killed more people than they saved.)  

Elizabeth is still the one who makes the choice to take extreme measures when that doesn't work out.

[profdanglais]

I don't remember Ross being the one to suggest it. Going to go reread that scene...

[profdanglais]

It appears I owe Debbie Horsfield an apology... Book!Ross did suggest another premature baby to Elizabeth. I remember now that her pregnancy was outed earlier than she wanted, so she had to try to induce early labour to keep up her pretense. Mea culpa. 

[Llywela]

6 hours ago, profdanglais said:

It appears I owe Debbie Horsfield an apology... Book!Ross did suggest another premature baby to Elizabeth. I remember now that her pregnancy was outed earlier than she wanted, so she had to try to induce early labour to keep up her pretense. Mea culpa. 

I think you can be forgiven, given how much form she has in giving Ross credit for things that were done by other people in the books!

[Nash]

As I've commented on another thread - I've compartmentalised the books and both TV series from each other and am simply going with P15+ as Sunday night TV. 

It was good to see top class weapons handling by the Nampara Fusileers during the prison break; so just cocking the musket loaded it eh? Ahem. Wouldn't get away with that if Mr Sharpe was about. 

Good pic in the thread above; it may be beer holding posture but looking at Jack Farthings forearm, he looks more of a blacksmith than Drake Carne does!

My theory which I'm making up as I type is that the overiding premise is that Ross is The Hero of The Production. Thus the books are getting bashed out of shape to keep that premise flying; he's a hugely flawed character that lost a lot of my sympathy after what in P15 became a night of passion as opposed to what it was - rape. I've read the books since I was 13 and he's one of my favourite characters but - I'd convict him. Oddly the blokes I know who watch P15 are far less forgiving than the ladies who watch it. Curious. 

[Ceindreadh]

On 31/7/2017 at 2:12 AM, profdanglais said:

It appears I owe Debbie Horsfield an apology... Book!Ross did suggest another premature baby to Elizabeth. I remember now that her pregnancy was outed earlier than she wanted, so she had to try to induce early labour to keep up her pretense. Mea culpa. 

I thought that book Ross merely suggested that if she had another child then she should muddy the dates. Not that she should deliberately have a child just for that purpose. 

[Nash]

Right now I'd say her problem is getting George, to........"cooperate" with that idea.....

[LJones41]

I had a major problem with Series 3.  What I didn’t like were the changes that Horsfield made from “The Black Moon” and “The Four Swans”.  I didn’t care for Elizabeth’s addictions (so unnecessary) and the fact that her encounter with Ross at the church didn’t include her angry rant at him for the rape.  Horsfield’s changes also made George a lot worse than he actually was.  I didn’t care how she portrayed Geoffrey Charles and Ross’ relationship, which barely existed at this point in the saga.  The two cousins didn’t become close until Geoffrey Charles became an adult.  Around this time in the story, Geoffrey Charles was a lot closer to Drake Carne than any other adult.  I didn’t care how Horsfield handled Dwight and Caroline’s marriage . . . or the fact that they got married before he had departed for war.  I certainly didn’t care for how she ignored the conflict in their marriage that stemmed from class differences.  In fact, Dwight and Caroline’s marriage was a clear sign of  how Horsfield had jumbled up the plots for both novels.  And I didn’t care for that one bit.

Edited August 7, 2017 by LJones41

[Nash]

It's been a long time since I read most of the books but thank you for expressing a thought that's been nagging at my mind - was George really this vile in the books? They do seem to have ramped that up in P15; in the books iirc Carey was much more business minded, seeing George's feud with Ross as a distraction 

[nodorothyparker]

George is definitely less of an ACME safe dropping sort of a cartoon villain in the books.  He's perfectly happy to hurt Ross or anyone associated with him if the opportunity presents itself because there definitely are old resentments there but even then he's not Jan Brady sitting around obsessing about Marcia! Marcia! Marcia!, er, I mean Ross, every minute of every day.  Book George really does manage to have more of an inner life and business and political pursuits that have nothing to do with Ross at all.  Book Uncle Carey has his spots when it becomes very obvious he really hates the gentry of the old social order and enjoys taking them down a financial peg or three when he can, but his primary interests are always going to be the Warleggan bottom line to the point that you can see him practically eye rolling at some of George's excesses or attempts to buy their way into the aristocracy.  The couple of times throughout the show when show Carey has ranted about Ross or shared in George's obsession with him have felt particularly foreign because Ross is such clearly small potatoes in the larger Warleggan picture.

[profdanglais]

Yeah, Book George is a far more interesting character because he has more in his life than just Ross. I get that TV is a different medium and you have to show people's thoughts, but the way George is portrayed as being obsessed with Ross is just so extreme. The same could be said for the Carne brothers. In the books their interaction with Ross and Demelza is relatively limited. Could we not have one scene with them that isn't filtered through Demelza? Doesn't she have small children to take care of? How is it that she can spare the time to walk down to Drake's smithy every day and have a chat? 

[nodorothyparker]

Good point about the Carne brothers.  I've been a bit taken aback this season that seemingly every episode has shown the brothers heavily intertwined with Poldarks' daily lives or Ross and Demelza suddenly acting like they, too, are yeoman farmers tilling ye olde fields side by side with the working folk.  Particularly when in the first book the brothers show up, Ross and Demelza do have more than one long discussion and a bit of ruminating on how Drake and Sam's presence at the mine and in the community will muddy all the distinctions that Demelza has worked to carve out for herself to be recognized and accepted as a gentleman's wife.  It takes her awhile to figure out a happy medium on that front.  She still sees them, but not at the same time or gatherings where she's hanging out with Caroline, for example. and while, yes, they're there on Ross's charity there isn't the same familiarity or expectation that he's going to be setting them all up and a marriage to Morwenna too and whatever else they can dream up.

I realize TV tends to compress time and distance but the book smithy is more than six miles away, all the way past the other end of Trenwith land.  It's far enough that nobody has time to be trotting back and forth every day or for Demelza to be hanging around enough to be immediately recognizable as the blacksmith's sister.

[nodorothyparker]

Because I finally got around to watching the season 3 ender and am feeling ranty about it, can I just ask WTF happened to the writing in the Hugh Armitage affair with Prudie pushing Demelza into it by claiming that she saw Ross and Elizabeth going at it graveside at the church and what's good for the goose is good for the gander?  Holy hell.  Gone is all the delicate writing in both Ross and Demelza acknowledging that he'd rescued a starving abused 13-year-old, raised her up, and basically My Fair Ladyed her into the wife and adult woman she became and that she was so grateful that she'd never had any conscious free choice to choose anything different.  Gone is all of Demelza's confusion and giddiness in being courted as an equal and being treated as something worth pursuing, or her sorrow over his impending loss of eyesight and the waste of his youth.  Instead, we just get round 217 of Ross giving her a short dickish answer about something because his head is elsewhere and her reacting to it by snitting back at him about what she thinks happened with Elizabeth, thanks to Prudie slurring a misunderstanding worthy of Three's Company in her ear.  Why?  Is it really too difficult or complicated to depict one of the biggest trials of their marriage as written, one that will continue to be a trial and affect actions and their regard for each other well into the next book?

I don't mind so much that the show is zipping through the Reader's Digest version of the gross Morwenna-Osborne marriage but I guess they felt they needed to have her vocally acknowledge to the baby that her threat to kill him if Osborne doesn't leave her alone is an empty one so we won't think badly of her.  It seems like a minor thing, but I always appreciated the ambiguity of us not knowing any more than Osborne how serious she was, along with the honesty of her not seeming to ever feel much of anything at all for that child.   Her life is a horror show of sex on demand from a man she finds repellent, she's depressed, and she hasn't been physically well since before the birth.  Women have checked out from children for less.

[Clawdette]

I am the only one among my family (daughters, sister, and nieces) who has read the novels. Therefore, my viewing experience is very different than theirs but they have enjoyed what they've seen depicted on screen.  I just hate that they are missing the rich complexity of relationships and come away with a skewed interpretation of why (and sometimes how! - I'm looking at you, Prudie) things happen.  Season 3 in particular would have benefited from a different screen adaptation, in my opinion.

[purist]

I was re-reading the books while I was watching seasons 1 and 2, but didn't have time to do that for season 3. As a result I really enjoyed most of season 3 as pleasant Sunday-night viewing with pretty people and gorgeous landscapes.

The Prudie-encourages-Demelza-to-bone-Hugh storyline was incomprehensible, however, and the reduction of Caroline's role from 'action woman' to 'sweet and slightly mischievous wife' bugged, but otherwise I was OK with it. The scenes of Dwight in the French prison were good, and the Drake-Morwenna love affair was satisfying. Jack Farthing (and the script, I suppose) managed to give George some depth amidst the moustache-twirling, and Christian Brassington was excellent as the disgusting Ossie.

@Llywela, I'm sorry you had to stop watching. I feel your pain!

[LJones41]

I have to admit that I have mixed feelings for both adaptations of Graham's novels.  Whereas I feel that the current adaptations of the first three novels are better than the 1970s adaptations of the same novels; I feel that the 1970s adaptations of "The Black Moon" and "The Four Swans" are better than the current adaptations.  As for the 1953 novel, "Warleggan", I feel that both the 1970s adaptation and the current adaptation . . . suck.

[LJones41]

Quote

If there would have been enough room for Agatha to move into Nampara, then Ross/Demelza's children should have their own rooms/beds.   On that note, I'm really surprised that Verity never showed up after Agatha's death; she surely would have been on the invite list for her party, and equally shocked/devastated as Ross about her death and lack of tombstone, etc.

 

Considering that Ross had invited Aunt Agatha to live at Nampara in the first place . . . and that Drake and Sam stayed there, why wouldn't there be room at Nampara for her?  I think Winston Graham had created this situation with Agatha remaining at Trenwith with George and Elizabeth as a means for Agatha to tell George about Valentine's conception.  Baisically, the whole situation smacked of a plot device to me.

Edited August 21, 2017 by LJones41

[LJones41]

Ross is a landowner, not some middle-class farmer.  Nampara is an estate with a manor house.  It's not as big as Trenwith or other estates in the neighborhood, but it's not supposed to be some kind of middle-class farmhouse.  How can Ross and Demelza be "house poor"?  If that was truly the case, why would Ross even bother to suggest that Aunt Agatha stay at Nampara in the first place?  

One of my biggest problems with this production is its portrayal of the Nampara manor.   The manor looks like a farmhouse for a middle-class farmer or a quaint little cottage.  I didn't expect Nampara to be as big as Trenwith.  But I certainly didn't expect it to look like Barton Cottage from "Sense and Sensibility".  Even that dwelling was large enough to have Edward Ferrars as a guest.

Edited August 23, 2017 by LJones41

[Nash]

I don't know but i dont recall the book Nampara as being much of a manor; more of a large well appointed farmhouse (albeit in need of sympathetic restoration). 

I think I read that that was one reason (amongst others) that Demelza was a good choice of wife for Ross, she'd learnt how to run what was really a farmhouse. 

[Llywela]

Nampara is an estate, yes, but not one with a manor house. Nampara was always written by Winston Graham as a farmhouse - and one that was never really finished, moreover, and wasn't maintained properly for years. It isn't big, and certainly isn't a manor. Trenwith is the Poldark family estate and manor house. Joshua was the younger brother - he was given a bit of land and had a bit of success with the mines he opened, so he built himself a house to take a wife home to. But what he built was a house, not a manor - he never had the wherewithal for anything of the kind.

[Ceindreadh]

2 hours ago, Llywela said:

Nampara is an estate, yes, but not one with a manor house. Nampara was always written by Winston Graham as a farmhouse - and one that was never really finished, moreover, and wasn't maintained properly for years. It isn't big, and certainly isn't a manor. Trenwith is the Poldark family estate and manor house. Joshua was the younger brother - he was given a bit of land and had a bit of success with the mines he opened, so he built himself a house to take a wife home to. But what he built was a house, not a manor - he never had the wherewithal for anything of the kind.

It wasn't just the lack of money as the lack of inclination after his wife (Ross's mother) had died. 

At this point in the books, Nampara was being renovated bit by bit, so liveable space might still have been scarce.  

And even with the space, keeping two kids in the one room means one less room to manage.