#and especially if you’ve been in pt since you were theee (like yours truly)
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mmmm i have auditions tomorrow for drama and i’m scared as shit rn-
also concert update! i sucked
#skipper speaks#i’m so nervous rn#the thought of embarrassing myself is a lot rn#plus i am 199.9% sure the drama teacher hates me#so there��s no way i’m gonna get a good part#because even if i was beyoncé levels of talented she would still hate my guts for no reason-#ANYWAY#yeah i’m in the midst of a crisis rn#dancing is hard#especially with props#and especially if you’ve been in pt since you were theee (like yours truly)#woopee
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I'm not buying putting all the blame on Hugh. He's a young fool in love not some master manipulator that you claim he is. He's foolish and a tad ignorant to his surroundings but he's not a bad man. He doesn't even know he's dying yet so he can't possibly know to use that as a manipulation tactic. Pt one
Pt two: I’ve sent in another ask to you about Hugh that’s gone unanswered but I assume you’ve got so many asks it got lost or something. Saying he has no respect for the man he loves while defending the same man who has no respect for his wife is down right infuriating, especially if this whole deviation from the the books happens. Show Hugh is just a love sick pup. Already Ross hasn’t respected her, sure he saved high but he would have left him if given the chance. It was pure chance
Pt theee: and Ross has benefited greatly from the rescue
Hi, anon.
Gonna respond to your points, but I should also flag up that though I reblogged @rainpuddle13‘s post and didn’t offer a dissenting view, because I agree with the majority of what she says, I didn’t originate the post. I don’t think I’ve personally ever claimed Hugh is a master manipulator, though I maintain that he does manipulate Demelza’s emotions.
Putting this all under a read more, both for length and for people to avoid spoilers if they wish.
I’m not buying putting all the blame on Hugh. He’s a young fool in love not some master manipulator that you claim he is
Yes, he’s a young fool. Absolutely. But whether he’s in love or not is a different matter. In the books, as in the show, he actually only meets Demelza a very small number of times, and claims to love her from almost the beginning. He does this despite not knowing the first thing about her. Yes, he grows to know her more, but even so, we’re talking a handful of meetings across a period of 18-24 months, and letters sent from him to her, but not letters in return. I think he believes himself to be in love, far more than he actually is in love. I definitely strikes me as the sort of young man who believes himself to be in love relatively easily. It’s a crush, essentially.
As I said, I don’t think I’ve ever claimed Hugh is a master manipulator, but he certainly does manipulate Demelza, whether it’s consciously or otherwise. He flatters her, he charms her, he writes her poetry. For somebody of Demelza’s character, of her background and life experiences, that amounts to a kind of manipulation. And as to the final manipulation - well, certainly he plays on her compassion then. First he tells her this:
‘…My eyes will not behave. Once they refused to recognize a flag at two hundred yards – now they’ll not do it at fifty. Like any rebellious matelot, they will not respond to discipline.’She stared at him. ‘Hugh, I’m that sorry … But what are you trying to say?’He began to row again. ‘I’m saying I can see the land from here – just. Tell me how we go.’ Demelza continued to stare at him in silence. Her hand had been over the side, and she drew it in and let the drops fall on the seat beside her. ‘But it was to be better! You said that when we first met.’‘It was to be better but instead it is to be worse. I have seen two special doctors in London, one a naval surgeon, the other private. They agree that nothing can be done.’For Demelza the heat had gone out of the day. ‘But even if you are short sighted, there must be naval work ashore, or …’‘Not with this verdict over me. They think I have a short time.’’A short time?—’‘Oh, it is all dressed up in the Latin tongue like ribbons on a maypole, but what emerges is their opinion that there is something amiss behind the eyes and that in six months or so I shall be following in Milton’s footsteps, though without a suitable share of his talent.’
And then, shortly afterwards, this exchange happens:
He said: ‘Demelza.’‘Yes.’‘I wish you’d let me make love to you.’‘Jesus God,’ she said.‘Oh, I know it is – ill of me to say such a thing. I know it is both unfair and indiscreet of me even to utter such a thought. I know it looks as if I am trading on this kindness you are doing to me in an unforgivable way. I know it seems – must seem – utterly despicable of me to attempt, or even to think of attempting, the virtue of a woman married to the man who saved me from prison. I know all that.’She said, stumbling over the words: ‘We had better start for home now.’‘Give me five minutes – if only sitting here with you.’‘To say what more?’‘Perhaps to explain a little of what I feel – so that you shall not think too harshly of me.’She crumbled the fine sand in her hand. Her head was down and her hair fell forward over most of her face. She had kicked off her shoes, and her feet were sunk in the sand.‘I cannot think harshly of you, Hugh, even though I cannot understand how you can say it, especially today.’He brushed the water off his shirt. ‘Let me explain about one thing first. You think this is a terrible thing, asking you to be disloyal to Ross. And on the narrowest terms it is. But – how can I try to make it more clear? By giving love you do not diminish it. By loving me you would not destroy your love for Ross. Love only creates and adds to itself, it never destroys. You do not betray your love for Ross by offering some of your love to me. You add to it. Tenderness is not like money: the more you give to one, the more you have for others.’
This, to me, reads as manipulation. It is a conscious, deliberate attempt to play on Demelza’s inherent goodness, her love, her compassion and her kindness. I do not think it is a coincidence that he had, just a few minutes before, told her that he would be blind soon. He has learned her character, he has understood absolutely that she loves Ross and also that she is kind, generous and giving. He is using that knowledge to convince her to give in to the physical attraction between them, and the emotional attachment.
I absolutely don’t believe he’s a ‘master manipulator’. But I think he does manipulate Demelza. He finds out her character and ‘uses it’ against her (I say ‘uses it’ because I remain unconvinced if he did so in a deliberate fashion or whether it’s unconscious).
He’s foolish and a tad ignorant to his surroundings but he’s not a bad man
I don’t think he’s at all ignorant of his surroundings. He is absolutely 100% clear that his attachment to Demelza is wrong because she is married, and married to the man who saved Hugh’s life. He just doesn’t particularly care. If he did care, he wouldn’t have flirted with Demelza, wouldn’t have flattered her, wouldn’t have written her love poetry. Instead he would have stayed away and made sure they only met in company. Now, whether this makes him a ‘bad man’ or not is up to any individual reader’s discretion. I don’t think it makes him ‘bad’, but I think it’s morally reprehensible for him to be aware of all of the real, valid objections to his attachment - which Demelza herself brings up to him (pointing out that not only is she married but happily so, loving her husband) - and yet not only do nothing to avoid the attachment, but actively pursue it. Particularly in the light of having been saved from Quimper by Ross.
He doesn’t even know he’s dying yet so he can’t possibly know to use that as a manipulation tactic.
In fact, Hugh never uses his illness, when it comes, as a manipulation tactic against Demelza. It perhaps makes her feelings more acute, later on, but it’s not a factor in the actual physical infidelity, and not in the emotional infidelity either.
Saying he has no respect for the man he loves while defending the same man who has no respect for his wife is down right infuriating, especially if this whole deviation from the the books happens.
Ross has respect for Demelza. He absolutely has respect for Demelza. Even within the show, that’s clear. But in the book, this section from Ross’s POV makes his respect for her, and trust in her, absolutely clear. This takes place at Falmouth’s house, in section of the book that it looks like they’re going to cover in 3.08 - after Basset offers the nomination of MP to Ross, when Ross and Demelza have already discussed Hugh and her softness for him:
So he must not take too much account of the way she was blooming tonight. But he suspected there was something different about it; some look of serenity he had not noticed before. Of course any woman likes admiration, and new admiration at that, and she was not different. They had quarrelled once on a ballroom floor – God knew how long ago it was – that time, if he remembered, he had angrily accused her of leading on a pack of undesirable and undeserving men, and she had retorted that he, Ross, had been neglecting her.
This time he was not neglecting her, and only one man, the man she was dancing with, was in any way being led on. Armitage was an honest, charming and likeable chap, and there was nothing whatever to show that Demelza was more than the passive recipient of his admiration and attentions. Ross hadn’t really very serious doubts about Demelza; he and she had been so close so long; but he hoped she didn’t allow Armitage – almost by default – to imagine something different.
(bolded by me for emphasis)
Ross trusts her. He respects her. In the books, they are about as close as they have ever been since their marriage. Now, I agree that in the show the situation is different. The problem in the show is that the reconciliation between them, at the end of s2/beginning of s3, was not as complete and as deep as it was in Warleggan.
Regardless, Hugh is still approaching a married woman, married to the man who saved Hugh. I personally feel Hugh ought to respect that. Fair enough if you feel differently, particularly within the show.
Show Hugh is just a love sick pup
Yep, agree with you there, particularly the implication of ‘pup’ - ie, puppy love, immature love, a crush. He does not, cannot, truly love Demelza, because he does not know her.
Already Ross hasn’t respected her
As I said above, Ross does respect her. Certainly he respects her in the books, but also in the show. For example, leaving her in complete charge of Wheal Grace when he, Henshawe and Zacky Martin (ie, the three managers of the mine) go to France to attempt to rescue Dwight. He wouldn’t do that if he didn’t respect her intellect and common sense. There’s also the respect of recognising, at the end of 3.03, that she has every right to take decisions without him when he’s not there, and that he should support that.
Admittedly, he shuts her out of his decision-making rather more often than I’d like, but that’s not actually a lack of respect so much as it is his habitual inclination towards going it alone. I think, in the show, he doesn’t always acknowledge how capable she is, nor understand that her point of view is valuable, but ignorance isn’t the same as disrespect.
And also, frankly, it’s a fairly typical attitude of the time towards the role of men and women within marriage. It’s a difficulty that’s partly arisen because of this apparent need to ‘modernise’ Demelza, and make her more active and fiery. It becomes difficult to stick to the book in terms of her accepting and understanding his decisions. They have written her as being far more vocal and forthright about (for example) the risks involved in any given venture, but the decision is still made, because Ross’s decisions are often the reason the plot moves forward, and so he doesn’t listen to her, doesn’t discuss things with her, and so it comes over as a lack of respect that I truly don’t think he feels.
sure he saved high but he would have left him if given the chance. It was pure chance… and Ross has benefited greatly from the rescue
Yes, absolutely, it was pure chance. But that doesn’t mean that Hugh doesn’t owe his life to Ross. If Ross had not come for Dwight, Hugh would not have escaped. Full stop. And therefore, given the privations of the prison and, in the show, the inhumanity of the French guards, it is entirely likely that Hugh would have died there.
Yes, Ross has benefited from it. But does that really mean that Hugh should be given a pass on approaching Ross’s wife? Does it mean that, because Ross has gained a level of fame and honour for ‘rescuing’ Lord Falmouth’s nephew, we should not protest the fact that his chance rescuee is making advances on Demelza? A chance rescue is still a rescue. What does it matter what benefit Ross is or isn’t gaining from it?
Now, I will qualify all of this by saying that my opinion is based on the books, and that I am still willing to hold fire on show!Hugh until the end of the series, depending on how 3.08 and 3.09 play out. However, so far, I feel he’s being portrayed with remarkable book!accuracy, so I’m not certain how much my opinion will change. I think it will depend mostly on how they portray Demelza’s side of things. But as I’ve said before, in the books, Demelza doesn’t turn to Hugh because of any neglect on Ross’s part, or because of any dissatisfaction with Ross or with her life with Ross.
On a final note:
I’ve sent in another ask to you about Hugh that’s gone unanswered but I assume you’ve got so many asks it got lost or something.
Was this the ask about my opinion on the differences between show!Hugh and book!Hugh? It hasn’t got lost, but as you know, I do have to pace myself, and it’s a question that I’ve wanted to hang on to until I had enough energy for a proper answer. Which, today, I’ve now used up on this answer! :D I almost never delete asks without responding in one way or another, even if it’s only ‘I’ve talked about this before, check my tag’, so if an answer to a question hasn’t appeared, it’s not because it’s lost, it’s just because I haven’t got there yet. I have some asks that have been sitting in my inbox for months, but they’re not deleted and not forgotten, I’m just eternally playing catch-up because I get so many asks!
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