#Thomas Barrow

[queenmelancholy]

Character Study of Thomas Barrow

From The Chronicles of Downton Abbey: A New Era by Jessica Fellowes and Matthew Sturgis (2012):

Excerpt from ‘Foreword’ by Julian Fellowes:

Interesting to know that Thomas’ character is based on a dresser in Julian’s past, in a way it really comes full circle 😭

And of course Carson is a ‘really lovely man’ lol

[bitletsanddrabbles]

Island of the Procrastinating Brain

I swear, my brain is actively trying to drive me insane.

Back in 2022 it came up with a plot for @alex51324 's "Island of the Gays" where the Duke of Crowborough comes to the Island because, well, by this point the man's less of a human being than he is a walking bundle of neurosis. I got through a couple of scenes before my brain got tired and stalled out, but I still have a good frame work. Every once in awhile, I come back and poke at it and get out a few more sentences. Maybe even a paragraph or two.

Yeah, have I mentioned I'm not a fast writer?

And Phillip does NOT want to deal with his issues and Thomas does NOT want to deal with Phillip, which, okay, FAIR, but that's kinda the point of the whole thing. But in the meantime my brain still wants to write Phillip on the Island, so what's it done?

Come up with a sequel, naturally!

And it really, really wants to write this sequel despite the fact I can't do it properly until I've written the first piece, which neither my brain or my characters seems interested in, because they are all PUNKS, but my brain will NOT stop thinking about this hypothetical sequel which, at this point, will never be written.

So I'm just going to write out the summary for the thing here, in case anyone's curious and wants a laugh, because I can and maybe it'll galvanize the lump of grey cells in my skull to be productive. Maybe. Not holding my breath.

Things you need to know before going into this:

Random.org has decided that Thomas is married to Peter Fitzroy for this one, which is kinda important for Thomas's characterization.

Phillip only kinda counts as human at this point, but he's actively trying to fix that. The results are mixed.

It was inspired by a couple of polls I ran when I was trying to figure out where I was taking the first piece (hey! I have the last scene written!) and the suggestions that Phillip might like working in some sort of architectural field (believe that was from @o-rchidae) and that he wind up married with an older working class bloke who would not take his shit.

Right then. Let's go.

-

Okay, so, this takes place a couple of years after the Walking Disaster of Crowborough arrived. At one point he was tapped to help with building or repairs or some such and he realized he liked it, so he's taken to studying books on building and architecture and has joined up with the local work crew. The problem is, he's basically teaching himself out of books and then applying it to real life, so he keeps getting ideas about "Say, why don't we do this thing THIS way?" and while it'll seem like a reasonable idea, there is, in fact, a very good reason NOT to do it that way, but because a) he's a Duke and b) a bunch of people hate him, on general principle if nothing else, everyone just goes "Oh, okay, sure" and the do it that way and…it fails. And the people who hate him laugh and it's obvious that EVERYONE knew it was a bad idea and he gets frustrated, but he wont' say it, because a) Duke and b) boys don't cry.

And this goes on for awhile.

After a bit, though, a new guy shows up who has lots of experience building things. It was kinda his job before he got here. He is educated in the ways of Building Things and knows what's up. He's also at least ten years Phillip's senior and has limited patience for upper class twits, so when he joins the crew and is informed there's this know-it-all-Duke who's always demanding they do things his way (by which we mean 'making suggestions that everyone just goes along with'), even though it's stupid and wastes time and resources, this guy goes "Pff, not on MY watch!"

And sure enough, the next time Phillip makes one of his suggestions, instead of "Yeah, sure, okay" he gets "We're not doing that." Why? "'Cause it's a stupid idea that won't work." WHY? "Because (insert full explanation of why the thing wouldn't work)." And Phillip stops asking and the rest of the crew cheers and laughs at how the old guy sure showed him and they anticipate an end to the questions.

THIS TOTALLY BACKFIRES.

Instead Phillip, who had actually been kinda slowing down on the suggestions over time, is making ALL of the suggestions, ALL of the times, and arguing every last aspect of the suggestion with Old Timer before giving up. The crew can't put up a fence without an argument. Old Timer starts calling Phillip 'Phil'. Rather than tell him to stop, Phillip just starts calling Old Timer by a similar nickname, which Old Timer ignores, because not giving in to his own trick, oh no. There's talk of starting a police department in case they murder each other.

After this has gone on for awhile there is a Big Dramatic Plot Twist and the Old Timer goes out into the woods for something and…doesn't come back in a timely manner. He stays gone long enough for people to get worried and mount a search. To everyone's shock, Phillip wants to come. He's quite insistent on the point. They finally agree to put him in Thomas's party because he and Thomas "get along now" (read: Thomas has spent enough time with Peter talking him down that he can tolerate Phillip's presence under the right circumstances as long as he doesn't say anything). The parties go out and before long, Thomas and Phillip's party has the good luck to find Old Timer. He's accidentally been injured badly enough he can't walk and crawling through the woods is not easy going. The manner of this accident wasn't a super obvious bad idea, but that could maybe have been avoided with a bit more thought, perhaps, with luck. Most of the party just nods and goes "Yeah, sounds about right, could have happened to anyone."

…Phillip flips straight out and starts screaming at Old Timer for being an idiot who could have got himself killed. And then storms off a ways into the woods, back toward the village, leaving everyone else wondering a) the best way to get the injured man back home and b) what the heck just happened with the prissy little Duke. Thomas gets deputized to go find out what Phillip's problem is. There is protesting involved, but he finally gives in because he'd like to be home by dinner, thank you very much.

Phillip has, by this point, stopped to have a smoke, which both gives Thomas an opportunity to catch up and, thankfully, a scent to find him by. Thomas asks him why on earth he's so upset that Old Timer is hurt since the two of them hate each other and everyone figured Phillip would LOVE it if the other man died…

And that's when he finds out that everyone's had that relationship all backwards. Phillip doesn't hate the Old Timer, oh no! He loves being called 'Phil'. He absolutely adores the fact that when he asks "Why don't we do this?", rather than just go "Yeah, okay" and waste time and resources doing something HE KNOWS WON'T WORK, the Old Timer says 'no' and, over the course of the argument, actually EXPLAINS why not, which means Phillip ACTUALLY LEARNS THINGS. The more he argues, the better he becomes at building things and he doesn't have to try and decipher what some book is telling him or guess what the book might be leaving out and he LOVES IT and if the Old Timer had died, how would he learn things then? When Thomas points out that he'd learn just as much - maybe more - if he just asked the Old Timer to teach him things rather than argue, Phillip low key panics because what if he figures out Phillip WANTS to learn and stops talking to him or refuses because he doesn't like him at all?

By this point Thomas is a) trying to remember if he was ever THIS paranoid, and praying he wasn't and b) wondering what on earth to do with a Duke who is clearly in love with a crusty old working class codger, but hasn't figured it out yet.

He decides to tell Rouse and make it HIS mess to deal with.

Phillip and the Old Timer eventually get married and get a cottage of their own and Phillip about dies happy at the idea of a home that he actually owns instead of something that he's the custodian of for the next generation who will be the custodians for the generation after that and so on.

[sarcasmisfluffy]

Thomas Barrow is cat coded in this way too. Found him in the trash and adopted him

[galebucky]

Thomas Barrow smoking ❤️‍🔥

[tinymintywolf]

ive been watching downton abbey with my roommate 🤡

[rowanoftheunknown]

People said the queer coded villain was tired but I ask my fellow friends, romans and countrymen to remember Thomas Barrow. No man has ever nor can they ever serve that much evil cunt swag and all for a show whose median age demographic would probably be in the 60 range. Nobody has ever or will do it like him.

[klazje]

i always feel like a gay little freak when i talk abt downton abbey irl to like. old women. they’re always like “oh…you’re favorite is thomas? the gay evil footman…?” YES THE CUNTY GAY EVIL FOOTMAN. god why is that so hard to understand.

[manyrandomfandoms]

tw: brief mentions of miscarriage and suicide attempt

the dichotomy of the level of stakes in each episode of Downton Abbey will always be funny to me. Some episodes are like

“Thomas is on the brink of being fired for being gay”

“it’s the actual World War I”

“Sybil could very well die in childbirth”

“Bates has been arrested for a murder he didn’t commit”

“one of the staff caused a MISCARRIAGE of someone from Upstairs”

“Thomas has been found half dead in a self-inflicted bloody bathtub”

And then other episodes are like

“Will Carson let the staff go to the town fair”

“who will win the flower competition”

“The cooks dropped the chicken on the floor”

“Sybil is wearing pants”

“Branson is still fraternizing with the Downstairs”

[theashesofthefirststar]

Women can be evil if they’re funny about it and men can be evil if they’re gay about it.

[ebenelephant]

when usually well-groomed male characters are in emotional distress and their hair is hanging about their face bc the product has come out <3

[much-brighter-ink]

My favorite part of Downton is actually when Thomas's job is almost over after O'Brien outs him and Robert is like "I explored many men's bodies back in my day at Eton... anyways CRICKET. WE MUST HAVE CRICKET" and it's never mentioned again

[kaaaaamii]

Thomas Barrow:

it just reminded me so much of him

[kidcataldo]

Thinking how future historians in the downton abbey universe will wonder if the crawleys were actually murderers, bc there’s just an excessive amount of deaths on record to make any of it look innocent

And like an entire subreddit would exist to prove lord grantham was some type of mob boss in the aristocracy, who killed anyone who wronged his family. The descendants of the granthams are constantly in the media trying to disprove these theories, like “no great grandad was just a guy… we think” but they don’t really have any solid evidence to disprove any claims bc the family took those secrets to the their graves

It’s so bad that people wholeheartedly believe he was the one who sunk the titanic and caused World War I

[sarcasmisfluffy]

I need to stop hurting myself with these

[galebucky]

[barrowdearest]

you know, at this point I’m just asking one thing of the new downton movie, and that is to see Thomas be a rich gay in America and have him throwing gatsby-like parties and just be a bitch to everyone because he can and because he deserves to be a little (a lot) mean about finally getting a good life

special points if he manages to give Carson a heart attack