epiphanies.

[hyacinthian]

So aragons and I keep talking about Edith from Downton Abbey and I think, much like Terri Schuester, the more we talk about her, the more I keep headcanoning her into a position as my favourite.

I love people with childhood issues.

Comments

Re: THIS COMMENT GOT RIDICULOUSLY LONG, GOOD LORD.

[hyacinthian]

Hahaha, never apologize for length. I didn't stan her until I started thinking about her because she seems so intricate and layered and I love how everything is a microcosm of childhood issues. I just feel like her entire arc is about figuring out who she is and what her role is because everyone in that entire house is seemingly fixated on Mary whilst Sybil is out doing her own thing and I think Edith wants so desperately to be good and realizes that no one pays attention to her that way.

And honestly, I really hope they explore whether or not she thinks she's damned, because I find that fascinating. Because then she's the girl who just wanted people to pay attention to her, who just wanted love because she hasn't gotten it familially, platonically, or romantically, and at some point, that just puts you in this position where you think other people are incapable of loving you. And I love the idea of spinsterhood because often that gets linked somehow to the idea of cloisters and nuns and just being religious, and if Edith thinks she's damned, that just makes everything so much more worth the while. The one time she did try to make people pay attention, her mother had a miscarriage. That girl. I want to know her thoughts.

That being said, I think it'd be wonderful to see her falling in love because I love seeing people falling in love and I think it would be especially wonderful with a soldier because soldiers have to kill people and thus, he would be in the same religious emotional crisis that she's in - in that while they aspire to be good people, in the end, they ultimately have done things that make them incapable of being considered good. Despite their intentions. And if he falls in love with her, if he pays attention to her, she carves out this space outside of her family and outside of Downton, which I think serves as very much a prison for her in many respects, where she can just be herself and realize what that necessarily means.

And her redemption must be tied into her own idea of self-awareness as well as her own ideas of love, and that could be resolved with the soldier/nurse arc and I want it so badly I cannot even tell you.

I know that they will probably kill him (if a him exists) but I just want her to be happy for a little while. Poor girl.

Re: THIS COMMENT GOT RIDICULOUSLY LONG, GOOD LORD.

[marketchippie]

The thing that I think is interesting about her wanting to be good-which is absolutely a thing that she does-is that her conceptions of doing good are very much tied into being a Good Woman. So while her pretty sisters chafe against the society that lets them in, she can't share in their dissatisfaction with the status quo in the same way because she's never known what it was like to be on the other side of the wall. She's never had an easy share in society the way they have, so all she sees is the privilege and not the prison. That's why I think the nurse thing is a good idea, because her in Downton is her in a very self-made prison, very unconscious. She's not shackled to it like Mary, she's not seeking to break free like Sybil, instead her dream right now is to embody the good lady in ways that her sisters (in respective opposite ways) don't bother to be, both because she is constantly trying to find and fill the spaces they leave around them and because she only sees what they're throwing away, not what's shackling them.

So, yeah, get her out-because as long as she's in Downton, she's going to keep setting her sights small, and it is going to keep making her petty, and she's not going to understand what's wrong with the system until she's outside it.

Re: THIS COMMENT GOT RIDICULOUSLY LONG, GOOD LORD.

[hyacinthian]

Well, she really has no marriage prospects unlike Sybil and Mary and if Mary's already 20(-ish), which is prime marriage age, then she's in danger of reaching that age soon and no one has so much as made her an offer, so I think she has no other option than trying to be the Good Woman because she does want financial security and real estate security (i.e. to have a space) and that wholly depends on her getting married. Which has not even been an option for her because no one's offered. And the one time that someone has offered or it looked like he was going to, it became another contest thing between her and Mary, which she lost.

I think Edith is very self-aware and I think, like her sisters, she's aware of how the system functions which is why she knows she needs to figure out a way to work within it. Sybil is young enough to get away with her shit, and Mary is fierce, but also clearly has something going on with Matthew, and (as has been previously proven) didn't really have trouble finding someone willing to marry her. While the Pamuk thing cast aspersions on her reputation, I don't know if it makes her entirely unmarriable, per se. But Edith is sort of on the bubble. If she doesn't get married soon, she's not going to have any opportunities to get out of the house, unless she enters the church because she's already having difficulty securing offers and as she gets older, it's going to get worse.