lavender_sage

I've had the idea for this for a while, but now it's been long enough since I've written anything about Downton Abbey that I can no longer remember if I've said something like this before. This post features some of the characters I've written about a lot in the past, but also some new ones. Indeed, I don't think I've ever written about so many characters in one post before. If I didn't know better, I'd think I missed Downton.

As always, I'll start with Thomas. In season 4, he goes on a mission to find a woman who will be his "friend," help him with his schemes, and generally be his spy upstairs. It goes about as well as we expected, as well as most of his plans, and I remember thinking as I was reading about the season, how stupid of Thomas/Fellowes to 1) think that anyone could replace O'Brien and 2) think that anyone would be intimidated by someone as marginalized and universally disliked as Thomas. Since then, though, it's occurred to me that while Thomas's plan is doomed to fail, you can see why he though this might be his best bet for changing the family's and other servants' perception of him. The reason why Thomas is so disliked is, unquestionably, because he's done so many cruel, selfish, ill-advised things. That's true of most of the men on the show, but what makes Robert, Bates, and Branson (to make a manageable list) so imminently forgiveable if not the fact that they each have a woman (or women) who forgives, supports, and advocates for them?

I've sure I've already made this point with respect to Anna and Bates, and I think it was Gascon who said that Anna is almost wholly absorbed by her husband before he even becomes her husband, but since this is the most obvious example of a woman redeeming a man, it bears mentioning again. Throughout the first three seasons, she has taken his selfish, callous choices--leading her on and lying in season 1, leaving without any explanation in season 2, assuming she's given up on him so easily in season 3--and turned them into proofs of his noble and unselfish nature. Yet, for all she does for him, he has no gratitude; indeed, it is she who is grateful to him for continuing to value her after she's been raped in season 4.

Cora is similarly devoted to Robert; she doesn't even flinch in season 3 when he confesses that he's lost not only his own money but hers as well. The only time she displays any anger or disappointment towards him is when he sides with the knighted doctor whose bad advice causes Sybil's death. Even then, after two delightful episodes of wonderfully snarky comments directed from Cora to Robert (and how can anyone talk to that man in any other way?) he gets bailed out by another woman: his mother. I had always wondered how a woman like her--so clever and confident--could have raised a son with so little knowledge of, or respect for women. That episode makes it clear, however, that, after her own amusement, nothing means as much to Violet as her family behaving correctly, and as usual, it's the woman's behavior that's in need of correction.

Sybil and Branson's relationship is the exception that proves the rule in this respect. When they return to Downton after their marriage, it is her behavior that is deemed exemplary while his is denounced as selfish, but that is likely because she is already headed in the same direction as Anna with regards to her husband. She has no objection to being abandoned while pregnant because her husband is in trouble with the law for reasons he does not even fully explain to her. In spite of the fact that she immediately forgives him and continually advocates on his behalf to her family, he shows very little interest in her opinions--"you're very free with your musts." Certainly, he holds her in enough reverence after she's dead, but even his grief feels like Sybil pleading for sympathy for him from beyond the grave.

I have been primarily concerned with husbands and wives, but really each straight man on the show has a network of female supporters, mostly related by blood or marriage. Mrs. Hughes is the exception, because though she is not a wife, mother, or sister (to anyone we meet) she is a tireless advocate for most of the men on the show at one time or another. Again, though, she's the exception that proves the rule. The biggest problem with Thomas's ladies' maid buddy scheme is that, on a show obsessed with marriage and kinship, he is looking for a friend. His relationship with O'Brien shows how much Fellowes values friendship.

Even more troubling is the value (or lack thereof) that the show places on romantic love outside the bonds of heterosexual kinship. In all of the above cases, the love the men have for their wives is very selfish. They take all their wives offer--which is everything they have, including their personalities--and give them little in return but the (very dubious in all three cases) promise of protection and stability. Thomas's love for Jimmy is unselfish (indeed, self-sacrificing) and he asks nothing in return, and this love is presented as it's own damn reward. Heterosexuality is not only a privileged position on this show; for a man, it's a redeeming quality in and of itself.