god talking to nicole about o’brien just makes me so upset because yes the 2011 CS established that o’brien had limits to her cruelty (or rather, re-enforced this bc we already knew this after the S1 finale) and thomas didn’t have any limits yet and that was the difference and that was what was driving the wedge between them but no apparently not according to S3

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bitter o'brien blogging
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WHY DO I DO THIS TO MYSELF NO ONE CARES THIS IS A SOAP OPERA
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i shouldn't be so absorbed in how o'brien development went completely to shit but it was
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A REALLY GOOD THING that happened so naturally in the background and made her really compelling fuck everything
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overanalyzing
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i forgive this show for a lot of things but apparently not this i'm sorry i am who i am
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(i'm not upset AT nicole/tumblr user yobrien btw she is a precious gift 2 society at large)
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sarah o'brien
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tagged for personal oragnization (lmao sicne when does that happen here) and not for like
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release into tumblrs tags at large i don't need that

imageI am so glad you asked. So glad I wrote over a thousand words (I’m so sorry). 

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apparently i really like the sound of my own voice/typing/whatever
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mary crawley
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elsie hughes
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asks
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anonymous
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i'm sorry it's so long
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i really like talking abt the two of them who knows
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also like i am praying for mary n mrs. hughes scenes because i think they could definitely be really strong ones at this point
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it will be interesting to see mary as a mother and mrs. hughes' perception of her as a mother
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(like as contrast to mrs. hughes who mothers children who aren't hers idk idkkk)
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ugh mrs. hughes will probably be preoccupie with weird plots like escorting sickly old men to isobel's house
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overanalyzing
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the duality of mrs. hughes' reserved nature + her really strong drive to help people in tragic situations sort of fits into backstory headca
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okay i am being quiet now one day i will be concise and i'm really excited for that day too

more facts than headcanon, but under a cut to save everyone the headache

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do i ever have new things to say??? the suspense continues
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(spoilers: no no i don't)
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sarah o'brien
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asks
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overanalyzing
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anonymous
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cora crawley

image

putting this under a readmore because I can? in any event, I really hope we never get facts because like a) they’ll probably be inconsistent and b) I’m really picky about my headcanon at this point. 

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sailorsofthemoon
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elsie hughes
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i should probably edit this i'm not going to edit this
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overanalyzing
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i suppose
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erugh
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asks
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you're my favourite thanks for asking

re: mary and interests

Awhile ago I stopped wading into tags and such, but one point I’ve been seeing going around for past few months? or so is that ~Mary has no interests. This is a really confusing point for me because I definitely think you can see that Mary has a fairly healthy set of them. So here’s a post on how Mary has interests, the parallel nature of duty in Downton Abbey, and what I think the general meaning of this show is.

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tbh i definitely don't think i've explained this as well as i could have but
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i just wanted to s ay things?? idk i should just shut up most of the time
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mary crawley
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downton abbey
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overanalyzing

um, so it’s no big secret that a lot of the downstairs plotlines in particular were kind of disappointing for me? so sometimes, for fun, I just like to rehash things idk.

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i'm not tagging this because i don't want to upset people!!
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and also this is like the longest tedious most impossible thing it's just for my own amusement and
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so i can vent things idk
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don't take it seriously don't take anything seriously from me ever
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i just wanted to write s omething
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bye
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overanalyzing

Since we’ve discovered that a current indefinite number of s1 characters are making reappearances, I thought the thing to do would be to go through the options and throw around some of my opinions. Because everyone cares, obviously.

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wow i hope i didn't forget anyone
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i feel like as a fandom downton tends to be really nostalgic
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not just in like a wow we're watching a period drama and it's fun way but like
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'getting back to s1 roots' is a thing that people often want??
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and like superficially we are doing it in a lot of ways
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we open mourning the death of an heir
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we're bringing back at least one s1 char although elizabeth mcgovern used the plural form in an interview so idk
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if that's just to be cryptic or we're getting more than one
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but really i feel like the brilliance of s1 was that every episode followed a formula plotwise and balanced
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an overarching plot with a subplot with a bit of backstory for other chars
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which was v nice
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idk where i'm going with this but i have a lot of faith in s4 anyway
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so yeah
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also this post is ridiculously pointless
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overanalyzing

So a little while ago I finally went through PBS’ s3 bios for the cast. And I was really pleasantly surprised by them, mostly because they affirmed a lot of my own observations and that’s always nice. In particular:

An immoveable standard bearer, Carson may butt heads with his cohort Mrs. Hughes, but he extends great loyalty to her, as he does to the dowager countess, Violet, and always, to Lady Mary.

Now, this really isn’t anything new and I feel like everyone recognizes that these three women are clearly Carson’s sun, moon, and stars (possibly in reverse order but I’m not going to get into that metaphor). But I thought maybe I’d like to talk about why this is and what Carson sees in them and how they’re rather inherently similar. But then I also made a graphic last night with Violet, Cora, and Mary all sitting in a row as countesses (or would-be countesses) of Grantham and I thought that would also be fun to discuss. So, um, since my thoughts tag is mostly a mess of poorly written ideas (especially when it comes to Mary/Hughes parallels that was not written well and really needs to properly be done wow I’ll get on that later) and most of it is cringe-worthy and embarrassing so – let’s add more to that? Yes, great.

I’m going to try and only talk about three-ish things, so this is a sort of grab bag of hopefully short-ish meta thoughts prefaced by this pretentious write-ups and just so I don’t get off track and seem even more full of myself here is a table of contents complete with roman numerals:

i. On Carson (and Duty)
ii. Mary and Violet vs. Cora 
iii. Mary and Mrs. Hughes and Embodying One’s Position
iv. A Summation of Carson’s Love

I really don’t expect anyone to read this because it’s bizarre and incoherent and tedious and long, but um, here we go:

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downton abbey
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charles carson
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mary crawley
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violet crawley
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elsie hughes
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lmao no one is going to read this it's a monster i'm sorry i was just going to make a graphic
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but there are like no fullbody shots of carson and violet together to get a few thousand words instead!!!!
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cora crawley
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overanalyzing
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in which i talk too much about shit no one cares about
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ladies!!!! + carson!!!
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idk all this needs is more thomas and o'brien and you have me in a nutshell
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how the hell do i even write this much about a dumb soap opera
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i'm very sincerely sorry
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no really don't read it i can't even be bothered to reread this mess which probably says a lot
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also erugh always tentative about talking about mary because really i can just defer all of that to smart people like sam who get her more t
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but hopefully this isn't out right wrong
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you're free to debate it though idk a lot of this is just how i over-read into this show and what i take from it
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wow i'm so sorry
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shit writing shit points too fucking long idfk i just kept a lot of things ~~inside~~~
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this is really like personal therapy for myself if nothing else i guess oops

okay, it’s been awhile since I watched s3, but one thing i briefly wanted to incoherently talk about was grief? because what i do remember of last night’s episode is that two of the scenes that were most painful for me were cora’s and violet’s. 

and they’re similar scenes. violet resting against the wall only to walk across the room, toss her veil over her eyes and straighten her back and transform herself into the idea of the matriarch instead of who she actually is and what she’s actually feeling. and then that scene with cora. when mary comes in and asks her if she’s alright, asks her if she wants her company and cora says no, like in the scene with violet, she has her back to the sole spectator (in the case mary, in violet’s it was carson), but her face doesn’t break; it holds a blank expression until mary leaves. then it breaks, then cora lets the façade drop, then she allows herself to express her emotions. 

we see this sort of behaviour with multiple other members of the core crawley family. in fact, every one of them save sybil (isobel and matthew also don’t count because of a separate upbringing). following p gordon’s disappearance, edith isolates herself in the yard to cry and mary is constantly removing herself from rooms or waiting until she’s alone to cry throughout season two. at the end of season one, robert is crying alone. 

some of them openly weep in front of the servants: violet lets carson witness a rare moment of weakness, mary has no reservations about crying in front of anna, robert doesn’t hide his tears from bates, but when it comes to each other, when it comes to other members of the family, there’s this strong push and general trend of being “strong” in front of each other - for each other - instead of sharing and expressing what they’re really feeling. 

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this has been a meaningless post
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downton abbey
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overanalyzing
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but the scene with cora kills me
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anyway this also serves as an interesting contrast/comparison to how emotions operate downstairs
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because that's really different
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but i dont really think there's a point in me talking about this
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IT'S WAY MORE INTERESTING TO JUST FOCUS ON THE MATRIARCHS THO
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and how violet and cora and mary all have this need to BE the countess of grantham in their own way
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i'm shutting up now carry on
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da spoilers
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what a pointless post jfc

i was going to make a graphic and these would be the tags or w/e but I’m very tired and nothing’s working out and I want to talk about this so. monotonous stuff about carson/hughes/christmas special

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one of the few good developments of this episode rlly
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but basically we're back on track
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elsie hughes
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charles carson
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downton abbey
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overanalyzing
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i hope this makes sense because i'm not editing it and i'm about to
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fall asleep at my keyboard
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sorry for the probable rambling and offtrackness and
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overwhelming stupidity etc
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good thing this wasn't a tag post i guess

re: a very carson christmas

Okay, so I feel we’ve played pin the Grinch on Carson again? And while the man has a lot of foibles and is notorious for being anti-fun, that’s actually not how I read this episode. So, um, journey into the centre of Carson’s mind with me and let’s dissect parts of this episode. This is going to be rather short and simple, because there really isn’t much to say.

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downton abbey
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charles carson
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downton spoilers
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i don't really know what to make of carson's
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''i'm not old'
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but pair this off also with
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carson and his inclination to small children
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and carson and his bond with mary and how
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carson is actually a pretty great parent when you get past all these
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overzealous interests in tradition
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downstairs ''parenting'' vs. upstairs ''parenting'' is a really great thing to keep an eye on
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idk it's ~~important to me
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overanalyzing
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real thoughts or sth

but I also really love how the whole undertone of this episode was parenthood (mostly motherhood tho lbr the ladies are who matter). and we had cora still processing her grief for sybil and some reflections on her own role as a mother with violet. and then becoming a surrogate mother for rose, while rose and her mom just couldn’t get it right. and matthew and isobel re-emerged as a thing that still exists and mrs. hughes and branson enforcing this tiptoed around this makeshift almost-not-quite mother/son downstairs/not-quite-downstairs relationship. and carson and the baby and carson frantic over mary. and carson and mrs. hughes towards the staff in general. and we closed with mary becoming a mother while isobel loses her son ahahaha

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these thoughts are so meaningless
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IS DAISY'S PLOT EVER GOING TO RESURFACE AND GO ANYWHERE?
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downton abbey
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was missing my daisy/patmore kick
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downton spoilers
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lol yes the ending was exceptionally gushy and cheesy and i wasn't on board for that but still
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when this show focuses on matriarchs and downstairs families this show is at its best
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overanalyzing
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