DON’T SHOOT ME! I HAD TO DO IT! AND IT’S LONG!! SPOILERS FOR SERIES 3!
I originally posted this on 1st July, but then messed up the cut and did all manner of thick things, so I pulled it, sorted it out and - here it is again! It's very long - sorry - but I'm too dumb to be able to split it into sections. It's mainly a character study of Guy, but with a bit of Izzy chucked in for good measure.
( what I think makes Guy tick - sort of... )
First, brilliant work!
Second, I wonder whether, possibly in secret, the writers actually did see prior episodes and the experience so traumatised them it scrambled their brains and any capacity to write?
Third, whatever period RH is set in isn't mine - more 19th me - but it's my understanding that marrying the daughter of the house at childbearing age was the duty of the male head of the house and the daughter of the house. So, marrying Izzy was not just a necessity, it was also an expectation. And, I can't believe that Thornton was the only abusive husband. I would, in fact, have thought that 'abuse' in our context, wasn't actually relevant then. Rape in marriage has only comparatively recently been addressed in some cultures. So, for a woman to leave her husband would have drawn censure for her actions and not his, whatever they were. Guy's reaction was simply normal. But, I'd be really appreciative to be told if I've misunderstood that bit of history.
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You're spot on with your remarks about marriage - Izzy would have been married off at a comparatively young age even if her father had lived. He would have arranged it to accrue some benefit to the Gisborne family, either in status, protection or influence and she'd have had a dowry which would have given a greater choice of suitor.
Wife beating in the 12th century was nothing unusual - as you say, it's only comparatively recently that the norm has been for more equality within marriage. Nothing in the Izzy marriage was out of the ordinary experience of many other women, which is why I have such a problem on their focusing on it as the hook on which to hang her hatred of Guy. By all rights, he should have marched her straight back to her husband, but of course, this is Guy, so he gets NO CREDIT WHATSOEVER for not doing so. Grrr!!
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Just one thing I've been thinking and in a funny kind of a way what you've said about insecurity hits on it. I've seen comments by people who are angry, or at least unsympathetic, to those of us who are willing to go along Guy's journey of redemption. And, it occurred to me that the reason we do it is because the possibility of redemption and transformation are core to at least Western philosophy. What Guy gives us is that possibility - he makes mistakes (OK, they're pretty big mistakes but we're dealing with panto here). Vasey is Vasey, and Marian is Marian and Robin is Robin. With none of them can we connect with that capacity to be better than we are. It's only Guy who's got that kind of humanity.
Mind you, what worries the merry heck out of me is the very remote possibility that any one of the writers even considered that. Remotely. They couldn't. Could they?
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And - nahhhhhh!
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