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Sanditon - Blog Posts
JOMP Book Photo Challenge || November || 4 || Gives Me the Giggles
Jane Austen
I really liked the second season. Esther always my queen. I start to falling in love of Fraser since the very first second. Again I like the second couple more. But I really hope in season 3 Babington appears at least in one last scene.
I can't believe Mark Stanley is not in Sanditon anymore, I was hoping to see more scenes of Lord Babington and Esther. Well, I hope they let them keep the happy ever after ending, please!
Let's talk about how Lord and Lady Babington stole the whole show, i just fall in love with them !
“In joy or sadness, flowers are our constant friends. We eat, drink, sing, dance, and flirt with them. We wed and christen with flowers. We dare not die without them. We have worshipped with the lily, we have meditated with the lotus, we have charged in battle array with the rose and chrysanthemum. We have even attempted to speak in the language of flowers. How could we live without them? It frightens one to conceive of a world bereft of their presence.”
💐 The Book Of Tea, Okakura Kakuzō (1906).
🎥 Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel (1987), Howard's End (1992), Pride&Prejudice (2005), Marie Antoinette (2006), Atonement (2007), Bright Star (2009), Anna Karenina (2012), La Belle et la Bête (2014), Emma (2020).
📺 North&South (2004), Anne With an E (2017), Sandition (2019), Bridgerton (2020).
📼 @greengableslover
🎶 Evergreen, Richy Mitch & The Coal Miners.
“I’ve also known what you’ve lost” - Damn Mrs. Wheatley
Hi! I'm really enjoying your blog, your predictions for S2 and how you analyse the characters! I apologize if you already did this but I'm curious about your thoughts regarding Edward (especially if you think he cares about Esther) and Clara as characters and about the nature of their relationship with each other. Thank you and happy holidays!
Hey, nonnie!
So sorry to take this long to answer your ask. I was so consummed with my fanfic in December and then so tired I didn’t manage to get to these meatier asks sooner. Hopefully, you’re still interested in my answer.
I haven’t actually talked about Edward Denham on my blog before, aside from a little comment in one of my first metas about him and Esther being Davies’ take on Mary and Henry Crawford from Mansfield Park. In fact at the start of the series the Mansfield Park connection is completed with Clara in the place of the innocent ingenue Fanny Price that is to be seduced by the rake with his sister’s support.
One of the coolest things Davies does with Sanditon is that he takes full advantage of our Jane Austen proficency by littering this world with all the familiar Austen archetypes. But just as soon as you begin to lament that this world offers too much of the familiar and not enough of the strange, he pulls the rug from under you and reveals these characters to be something else entirely.
And no one exemplifies this better than Esther. The cold, mercenary harpy bent on swindeling her aunt and ruining a poor girl’s reputation in the process is revealed to be the true victim of this little traingle. A girl who fell in love with a bad man without any chance of escaping him. And the innocent ingenue? Well … Clara is about as far removed from Fanny Price as one can get.
However, the one character that remains unaltered, in fact the character that holds the fewest surprises in the whole of Sanditon is Edward. He is exactly as advertised: the Henry Crawford bent on seducing virginal Fanny, Wickham planning to “whisk” Georgiana away, Willoughby playing with Marianne and then discarding her.
I actually think Willoughby might actually be the closest analog to Edward. Willoughby is, by far, in my mind the worst of Austen’s villians. A true, clinical case of narcisism if there’s every been one.
Willoughby and Edward aren’t dangerous simply because they will use you to get money the way Wickham does or because they want to saw wild oats. They are dangerous because they are perfectly willing to gaslight and use their victims for as long as they possibly can.
They aren’t content to simply go on their merry way once it becomes clear you’ve figured out their true character. They will come back and prod as many times as possible, searching for any weakness which might allow them entry back into your life. Their objective isn’t just material (although both Edward and Willighouby love luxuary when they get it without having to work for it) but emotional as well.
Everytime Esther relents to Edward, everytime she follows his lead, his influence over her grows. Their relationship is all the more damaging and dangerous because she’s stuck in a house with him 24/7.
The worst part of it is, Edward doesn’t trick Esther by making her believe he is better than he is. She sees all his ugliness, his faults, his selfishness and ego. What he does is far worse: he makes her believe she is as bad as him.
He takes this naturally honest, compassionate and intelligent woman and twists her up into a shell of herself. He breakes down her selfesteem to such a degree that while she’s with him, she convinces herself of her own immorality and after she finally manages to leave him, she thinks of herself as worthless for having allowed herself to be manipulated by him. She is in a lose-lose situation either way.
Esther’s relationship with Edward is scary, sad and very, very real in a way that becomes all the more uncomfortable, the more you think about it so it’s hard to talk about love in this context.
The real question is: can someone who is inherently unhealthy love in a positive way? I do think Edward probably loves her but his way of loving is tained by his own twisted personality so it’s not something worth having in any case.
As for his relationship with Clara, on the surface it’s a classic cat and mouse game. But I do think beneath all that is some sort of twisted attraction probably born from selfloathing. They can recognize something of themselves in each other and they end up forming a bond, if their last conversation is any indication:
Edward: The vanquished enemy retreats.
Clara: I was never your enemy.
[…]
Clara: Look at you … Alone and unloved. Trust me. That’s not an easy placeto find yourself in. I will spare you a thought now and then. I know you will think of me.
I do think in a theoretical season 2, Edward and Clara would be back, possibly scheeming together.
Thanks for the ask!
Georgianna and Charlotte’s friendship was my favorite part of season 1, along with Clara and Ester’s back-and-forth.
I will gladly watch more of both shows just for these four characters.
Some parallels.
august slipped away | sidney/charlotte
Season 2 New Characters
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/specialfeatures/sanditon-season-2-casting-news/?fbclid=IwAR2-2spEovIWBpjkfnTvqw9lydF6Bdgtn2kalCJdMUKKLFmgFspCSosa5x8#
Mordred is coming to Sanditon!
WE NEED SEASON 2
Sanditon seems like it might do better on a bigger budget streaming service.
Vote for Sanditon on Hulu
Hulu subscribers, you can vote for Hulu to pick up Sanditon - like they picked up The Mindy Project. You need to log in, then go to Ideas and search for Sanditon. Then vote!
https://community.hulu.com/s/ideas
America wants a second season too! Cozy British period dramas are the highlight of my week over here.
Hello dear Miss Lori! Do you know of any news regarding Sanditon's chances to a season 2? I was sure everything will be fine until I read on twitter that Andrew Davies said that ITV was disappointed with the ratings. And that, if he had known that it would be only one season, he would end it very differently. My heart broke when I read that. If yoz have any consolation, it would be greatly appreciated.
Hey, Miss Nonnie. :)
Honestly I haven’t seen this particular Andrew Davies interview since I don’t spend that much time on twitter. I did have a look on Google and I couldn’t find anything aside from Davies saying that he’d love to do another season.
However, I think the clear indication now is that ITV is waiting on the American market’s reception of the show to announce a second season so that’s my best guess. We are entirely in our American brethrens hands.
I did suffer a bit of a blow in my confidence about the certainty of a 2nd season which was based on the idea that they had built the entire Sanditon town for the show. I felt that kind of investment wouldn’t have been done if they weren’t planning on a 2nd season.
Since then, though, I’ve come to find out a new Pride and Prejudice adaptation is in the works on ITV (why?!?!?) by the creators of Poldark (a dark retelling because … WHY?!??!?!) and I assume they will be using the set for that as well.
However, seeing as there isn’t any news of cast, filming schedule or anything on that yet, it’s still in pre-production so hopefully ITV will give Sanditon another season to fill in the spot in 2020 and prepare the audience for their P&P regency extravaganza.
Thanks for the ask!
Miss Lambe and...
I can’t be the only person who thinks the show might be setting up Miss Lambe with...Sidney Parker?
A lot of British viewers have complained that the show doesn't have a “happy” ending and that they want a second season.
The show is only just now airing in the U.S., so who knows?
Hmmm....that’d be a twist from the usual Jane Austen formula!