#cinderella grand duke

[briskapollo]

Part 2 of Project Kingdom Hearts Yearbook + Operation Shut Up is live currently on my YouTube 🙌

https://youtu.be/UjdfBsk117Y?si=wVzhtOn53s73Bjn9

[romancemedia]

Cinderella III: A Twist in Time Promotional Stills

[disneytoonland]

[sanktpolypenbourg]

Probably just another symptom of me getting more boring as I age but I feel this fcker is turning into my favorite character in the old 'Cinderella' movie:

Especially, like - try to see things from his perspective. He knows nothing of fairy godmothers and singing mice and vehicles turning into pumpkins, he isn't seeing any of that, from his perspective magic is still very much not real. As far as he's concerned, all that is real is people around him being batshit crazy.

From his perspective all he knows is that he got a volatile tyrant for a boss and he's experiencing the weirdest two days of his professional life

[verreprincesse]

Amy Mebberson - About - Amy Mebberson - Comics & Illustration

[seventailedwolf72-blog]

[disneydarlin]

Disney's 1950 Cinderella: The Grande Duke —Aesthetic

The Grande Duke's Character & Personality

The Grand Duke is the King's prim, yet fussy majordomo who's charged with overseeing imperial matters. He's dutiful to his job out of loyalty to the crown and fear of losing his head to the ill-tempered king. The Grand Duke presents himself as dignified and intelligent. He bases his point of view in realism and logic. As a result, the Grand Duke acts as the voice of reason. Beyond this, he's often forcefully rushed into doing demanding tasks. Due to this, the Grand Duke can be fairly short-tempered and often disapproves of the King's actions. Regardless, he does care and express concern for the royals.

[crownprincessoftherusalkas]

Cinderella (1950); The Grand Duke's Realism

The generous lampshade hanging on the part of the Grand Duke is a hilarious addition to the story, dare I say even necessary.

The Grand Duke, while played as a comedic character, is also the voice of the audience that points out those certain plot points of the story that people always get stuck on.

When the king thinks he can set up the prince with the right girl in the right circumstances and guarantee the prince will fall in love, the Grand Duke is there to point out "not necessarily."

Right when Cinderella arrives, just before he notices, the Grand Duke is picking at the king for thinking that life works out as a fairytale would.

Then when the prince vows to only marry the girl who fits the slipper, and the king sends the Grand Duke to try it on every maiden, he points out "this slipper may fit any number of girls."

Of course, all of this logic is handily shoved out the window with magic, and possibly (hopefully) the supernatural concept of soul mates or destiny

But as most of the classic Disney Princess movies are wrongfully accused of setting a bad example of retelling fairytales, the presence of the Grand Duke does a great service in dispelling that argument, by pointing out the unrealistic tropes (while not being annoying/obnoxious about it).

Heck, he may even be subverting a trope himself at the end of the movie when he seems to recognize Cinderella as she walks down the stairs to try on the slipper

[tyashj]

The only thing I hate about the cinderella 2015 movie is how they made the grand duke a villian. In the 1950 one he was my favourite with his comedic timing. He was so kind to ella in the shoe fitting scene. Why they had to ruin him like that??

[notsafe4worms]

On the fifth day of Wormas,

my true love gave to me

Five Disney kings,

Four wormermaids,

Three french men,

Two girls in love,

And Wormariah Carey in a pear dish.

all posted days

[star-ocean-peahen]

After watching Cinderella (the original animated movie, which was my favorite as a child), it strikes me how it solves many common problems people have with this fairy tale. Like:

Why did they try to identify the mystery girl using her shoe size? Because the bullheaded king's only clue to her identity was the shoe the Grand Duke picked up off the steps.

Why didn't the prince recognize her by her face? Because his father wouldn't involve him in the process at all, and wasn't the one going around trying to find her.

Why did the prince want to marry a lady he only met that night? Because his father was going to force him to marry someone, and he genuinely liked this woman.

Why did Cinderella want to marry a man she only met that night? Because marriage was her best and most secure way to freedom. Fucked up, but you can't say it's unrealistic for the setting of a fairy tale. She also genuinely liked him.

If they're using the slipper to find her, wouldn't it be more sensible to search for the person with the other slipper? Yes. The King is purposefully nonsensical and the Duke is purposefully terrified enough of him to carry out his orders to the letter. Furthermore, they end up doing that in the end anyway, because the Duke's glass slipper is shattered, and Cinderella brings out the one she has to prove her identity.

Why didn't the stepmother and stepsisters recognize Cinderella at the ball? Because they were dancing too far away, and then left the party to dance in private, which was possible because the King wanted very badly for his son to hit it off with someone and tried to arrange the best conditions for that to happen.

Why didn't Cinderella save herself? Because in real life, abuse victims should not have to shoulder that responsibility, and usually can't. In real life, you need and deserve an external support system. Asking for help, in this kind of situation, is very important. She is saved by others because she is loved. Because she is not alone. Because she has friends who love her, and want her to be happy and safe and free. Because in real life, people who want to help someone who is suffering are like the mice. We can't pull out miracle solutions, but we can provide companionship and if we're in the right place at the right time, we can help the person find a better life.

Why didn't the fairy godmother save Cinderella from her abusive household, or try to help her sooner? Because she's magic, and magic can't solve your problems. Quote: "Like all dreams, well, I'm afraid it can't last forever." This (and Cinderella's dream of going to the ball) is a metaphor for pleasurable things in bad circumstances. An ice cream won't get rid of your depression, but it will provide you with momentary happiness to bolster you, as well as the reminder that happiness in general is still possible for you. Cinderella doesn't want to go to the ball so she can get away from her stepmother and stepsisters, or so she can meet someone to marry and leave with. She wants to go to the ball to remind herself that she can still have things she wants. That her desires matter. This is important because the movie does a very good job of illustrating Lady Tremaine's subtle abuse tactics, all of which invisibly press the message that Cinderella doesn't matter. While going to the ball and fulfilling her dreams may not be a victory in the material sense, it is still a victory against Lady Tremaine's efforts.

Why is Cinderella's choice to be kind and obedient framed as a good thing, when you are not obligated to be kind to your abuser? This one walks a very fine line, but I think the movie still makes it make sense. Lady Tremaine never acknowledges her cruelty. She always frames her punishments of Cinderella as Cinderella's fault. Cinderella is interrupting, Cinderella is shirking her duties, Cinderella is playing vicious practical jokes. Cinderella is still a member of the family, of course she can go to the ball, provided she meet these impossible conditions. Lady Tremaine's tactics are designed to make Cinderella feel like she must always be in the wrong and her stepmother must always be in the right. If Cinderella calls her stepmother out on her cruelty, or attempts to fight back, Lady Tremaine can frame that as Cinderella being ungrateful, cruel, broken, evil, etc. If Cinderella responds to her stepmother's cruelty defiantly (in the way she's justified to), she's not taking control out of Lady Tremaine's hands. Disobedience can be spun back into her stepmother's control. She wants Cinderella to be angry and sad and show how much she's hurting. So since Cinderella is adapting to her situation, she chooses to be kind. Not only because she naturally wants to be and it's part of her personality, but because it is a form of defiance in its own way, and it allows her to keep a reminder of her agency and value. Her choice to be kind is her chance to keep her own narrative alive: she is not obeying because her stepmother wants her to and she has to do what her stepmother does, but because she wants to. It's a small distinction, but one that makes all the difference in terms of keeping her hope and identity. (Fuck, I wrote a whole paragraph about how this doesn't mean you can't be angry at people who hurt you or that you need to be kind to deserve help, and then deleted it by accident. Uh. Try again.) Expressing anger and pain is an important part of regaining autonomy and healing. Although it is commendable to be kind while you are suffering, it is NOT required for you to get help or be worthy of help. If Cinderella's recovery was explored beyond "happily ever after" she would need to let herself be angry and sad to heal. Cinderella is not only kind because it comes naturally to her, but because it's her defense against the abuse she's suffering. Everyone's story and experiences are different, and one does not invalidate the other.

Bonus round for answers that aren't part of the movie:

Why didn't Cinderella run away? Where would she go? Genuinely, in hundreds-of-years-ago France, where would she go if she snuck out of the window with a change of clothes? With her step-family, she's miserable and abused, but she's fed, clothed, and in no danger of dying or being taken advantage of by anyone other than her stepmother and stepsisters. Even if she escapes and manages to find financial security, her stepmother might be able to find her and get her back.

Why didn't Cinderella burn the house down with them inside it/slit their throats in the night/poison their food/etc.? Because that's a revenge fantasy, and this story is a fantasy about being saved. There's nothing wrong with making Cinderella into a revenge fantasy. That's perfectly fine, as long as you acknowledge that the other type of fantasy is also a valid interpretation. (I mean, the original fairy tale features the stepsisters getting their feet mutilated and all three of them getting their eyes pecked out, so go for it.)

Why isn't Cinderella more proactive in general? Because she's a child who has been abused for the back half of her life, who has had to be focused on survival because. you know. she's an abused kid.

How did she dance in glass slippers? Gotta agree with you there man, that's weird.

[romancemedia]

At the Ball + Prince Charming goes to rescue Cinderella

[merp-blerp]

Random things about Cinderella (1950) I noticed/want to say after doing a psych project on it

I love the foreshadowing they do with the clock striking midnight when Cinderella is startled by the morning clock and she says "Even he orders me around." I never noticed it that way before.

The reason why no one recognizes Cinderella at the ball is because A) she seemingly wasn't allowed off her stepmother's property, so no one in town had ever seen her before or since she was a child, and B) when she gets there the prince immediately introduces himself and dances her away from everyone. The duke even pulls a curtain to separate her and him from the guests so they can dance alone. Almost no one gets a good up-close look at her except the prince.

I've said before on here that I think the prince in this movie was meant to be more of a symbolic personification of Cinderella's freedom rather than a literal character, and I still think that. However, I find it interesting that everything we know about the prince is told through others, not him. He doesn't get to be known. The only person he ever even gets to speak to is Cinderella. He also has a bit of character (relayed by others). His father laments that the prince is growing farther away from him the older he gets, he avoids responsibilities, and suggests that he's a hopeless romantic. It's also worth noting that the prince has no idea the ball is for the purpose of setting him up with a wife. He supposedly was led by the king to believe it was a welcome home ball, as he was away from home before (the ball invitees don't seem aware either until the night after the ball when they do the slipper fittings). [EDIT: I forgot to mention that I sappily like to interpret this as Cinderella, his eventual wife, being the only one who ever truly knows him, as he assumedly isn't close to the king or anyone else, so this is reflected in the fact that even us, the audience, don't get to know him like Cinderella must. Probably not the intention, but it's cute.] He also doesn't have severe facial blindness, he probably would've recognized Cinderella without the slipper but A) it was the king who thought of the whole slipper-fitting idea; all the prince supposedly said was that he'd marry the girl who wore the glass slipper, and B) He is explicitly not the one to do the slipper-fitting. The grand duke does it. But even the grand duke seems to recognize her before she gets the slipper on (he saw her up close briefly while she ran away and chased after her).

Also, as Cinderella runs from the prince, the other maidens there crowd him, so he can't get to her to stop her, but they only stop him to converse with him about how "lovely" she is, not because they want him, which is kinda wholesome. Again, no one was there to try and marry the prince because no one knew that's what the ball was for to begin with except the king and duke.

Cinderella is definitely very kind, but she knows the treatment she gets from her family is not right. She speaks somewhat passive-aggressively about them when they're not around. I like that touch.

When her stepfamily teases her over her excitement that she could go to the ball because she's eligible, she asserts that she's still a part of the family. Even though she's being abused, it's a type of abuse where she thinks her family must value her in some way. I think when her sisters ripped her dress apart was the moment she realized she wasn't a part of the family after all and that she wasn't loved/valued.

Lady Tremaine was so different from other Disney princess villains at the time. Allow me to go on for a bit. Compare her to the evil queen or Maleficent (who are also great). They have a very booming presences and everyone knows they are monsters, it's just that no one can stop them until the end of their stories. But Lady Tremaine knows how to fool people by having a motherly disposition. Not in a nurturing way, but in a stern, tough “love”, almost “calm” way. She never yells at anyone (just raises her voice) or acts traditionally evil in the way the evil queen or Maleficent do. More bite than bark I guess. For example, when she lets the step-sisters rip Cinderella’s dress, she simply tells them to come along afterwards and tells Cinderella goodnight like a mother might, but without affection with it, like a covert dig; she doesn't visibly get cross with Cinderella, but what she’s doing is still abuse. Even Cinderella seems to see her as a mother in one way or another before the dress ripping (I don't think Cinderella ever calls her "Step-Mother" again after the dress-ripping she allowed her sisters to do). She's very covert in her villainy. A very good depiction of an abuser. The only other Disney villain I can think to compare her to off the top of my head is Scar from the og Lion King when he was around anyone who wasn't the hyenas, but even then he dropped the act eventually after becoming king. Lady Tremaine never really does.

I also like the detail that after the ball when trying to tell the step-sisters about the shoe-fitting, she asks Cinderella, “Where are my daughters?” excluding Cinderella from being her daughter even though she should be. She really only sees her as a maid.

Cinderella's pink dress has a lot of bows, and at the beginning of the film, we see her when she was younger and the dress she wore as a child also had bows and was in a somewhat similar style. Her childhood dresses were probably taken away by Lady Tremaine when her dad died. Makes me wonder if Cinderella redesigned her mom's dress with her dress from youth in mind, as she certainly hadn't worn a nice dress since she was a kid. And if so, what would that mean? Was she just feeling nostalgic? Or had her sense of style not matured since childhood because she had been made to wear nothing but rags for who knows how long? Is her only frame of reference to what her own personal style is based from her childhood dresses? I just think it's kinda intriguing. The pink dress always felt explicitly young for Cinderella.

Cinderella's voice is so cute. Not just her singing, but her voice in general. Ilene Woods, love of my life apparently.

People often complain about Cinderella marrying the prince the day after the shoe fit, but Disney's version never specifically states that the wedding is the day after the slipper scene, it just comes right after it. Who's to say how much time there was in between scenes. There are versions that do say that it was the next day, so I guess people conflate different versions together in their heads. This is why it's important to watch films with your brain on before criticizing them for things they didn't do.

I never thought too deeply of it, but when Cinderella sings the words "So this is love" she really is (re)learning what love is. It's a realization. She likely hasn't felt love from another human being since her father died. Or rather she thought she was loved in some way, but then realized she wasn't when her dress was ripped. So now, with the prince, she has a better understanding of what it's like to be properly loved. Imagine hating this girl. 🩵

[artist-issues]

Screentime For the Prince

You know how in the original Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, each character's true nature is revealed by what they choose to treasure?

You know, Grumpy treasures safety because his true nature is vulnerable, the Queen treasures beauty because her true nature is ugly, and Snow White is the only one who's treasure is as true as her nature: pure love?

And how the Prince only gets around 5 minutes of screentime, and in those 5 minutes, proves that he A) treasures Snow White's true nature of pure love and B) keeps his promises?

Well, I was thinking. In the new Live Action, they're basically writing in a different male character in place of the Prince and not focusing on any kind of love story. So it's not actually "Snow White." But what would a good, faithful, beautiful adaptation of Snow White look like? (You know, one that actually does adaptations correctly--like Cinderella 2015?)

What should they be doing with the Prince?

I have a general idea below.

I mean, they can't introduce him in the same way they did in the classic animation. Obviously modern people aren't used to so much nuance in their big-screen fairy tales anymore; 5 minutes of screentime isn't enough, we prefer Mr. Darcy & Lizzie Bennet-levels of couple-building interactions, at least. And that's okay.

But it means we have to fill in a lot of the blanks about where this Prince comes from and why he values Snow White's "pure love nature" so strongly.

So I figure, in my head, it might look something like:

The Prince (let's call him Walther, German for "Walt," since basically everybody who worked on the original movie agrees that it was Walt's big brain child, and the popularized "Ferdinand" is not only fan-made but makes me think of a kindhearted bull) is the heir to a neighboring kingdom's throne.

Prince Walther isn't King yet, not because his parents are still King and Queen (they're dead,) but because tradition states he can only take the throne once he's come of age. Prince Walther's like 17, turning 18. So instead, his kingdom is essentially run by this council of busybodies, with one Regent holding the throne until he's old enough to take it. Something like that.

(the picture is of Dean Stockwell who's the son of the original voice actor for the Prince, I think someone who looks like him ought to be cast.) Prince Walther experienced pure love from his parents, who treated him like a normal boy and didn't place much emphasis on courtly manners or politics when raising him. But then they died tragically, leaving their honest and innocent son to be raised by a bunch of old people who put way TOO much emphasis on those things.

Because everyone in Prince Walther's court has had to handle being next-door neighbors to the Wicked Queen's country. They're all super political, and afraid of appearing weak, and therefore, very insincere. That's what I'm saying.

Everyone he interacts with on a daily basis never comes out and says what they really want. Nobody is genuine. He lives a life of hearing words like, "good morning Your Majesty, I hope you slept well. The Grand Duke could certainly stand to sleep better; the poor fellow looked run down at breakfast." but learning that what they actually mean is, "The Duke is getting old and ineffective and when your birthday passes you should decree that he give his land and resources away to me."

And he misses the genuine love the court used to feel from his parents' kind, simple way of ruling. No political games, no complex feuds. Plus, he misses the personal love they shared as a family, genuine, uncomplicated. He missed the days when people just say what they really want, unafraid, so that their rulers can take care of their needs.

Then there's the problem of why Prince Walther's in the Wicked Queen's realm in the original movie--that's not his territory, if he has his own kingdom.

So I think it would be neat and interesting if the Queen wants Walther's land. Maybe she invited his parents, way back when, to a kind of audience to negotiate an alliance. Then she got jealous of his mother's beauty, maybe even tried to seduce Prince Walther's father, and assassinated them both when he rebuffed her. Oo, maybe even the Huntsman (her FAITHFUL Huntsman) helped her do it all those years ago.

But she didn't realize they had a young son, so she couldn't just raise her hand and say, "Hey Neighboring Kingdom, it's too bad your monarchs both mysteriously died--don't worry, I'll be your new leader" because Prince Walther's council suspected foul play (they always do, they're suspicious people) and were preemptively like "NO NO WE HAVE A PRINCE, WE HAVE A PRINCE! We're fine, we don't need help, everything's fine."

So she sort of had to stew on that. Maybe she even tried a couple more halfhearted attempts to get their throne, and they just never worked out--then eventually her attention was occupied by how much older her stepdaughter was getting, and how much prettier.

Anyway, Prince Walther asks for an audience with the Wicked Queen; he's about to become King, and he knows that the council fears their neighbor, and he sort of wants to go over and size the next-door ruler up for himself. So he rides over with a little delegation of the members of the Court he can actually tolerate the best, and is visiting.

It's not fun. They're only there for a day, but the Wicked Queen is definitely scary. For one thing, she's unnaturally beautiful and everyone he brought with him is either stupefied in her presence or terrified. He himself is very confused by her; he's an open-hearted guy, with a touch of naïveté even though he was raised with good intuition and doesn't trust the Queen. All audiences with her are full of all the formal, double-and-triple meaning conversations that he hates back home; except worse, because she makes everything seem more sinister.

So after a particularly weird conversation with the Queen where he can't decide if she was flirting with him or threatening his kingdom, he goes for a ride around the courtyard to clear his head. And what should he hear, like a breath of the freshest air since his parents died?

A pure, beautiful voice. A young girl singing--and not just singing about anything, but singing about what she really wants. Genuinely. Her heart's fondest desire--and it's not power, or land, or even freedom. Just love. She's singing loudly, like she doesn't care who might hear such a vulnerable longing.

And he climbs over the wall and sees this scullery maid. She's absolutely beautiful, even though she's dressed all in rags, and he loves the picture of her: sharing her heart with doves, who feel completely safe with her, and not having to worry about what anyone thinks of her.

He sort of eavesdrops on her for a little bit, and in this part of the movie, maybe we learn how impulsive he is. He just jumps over and tries to join in. Maybe it's even a little funny. And we can stretch out the feelings behind the part where Snow White runs from him--that feeling of her being unsure of a stranger, not because she worries about what he thinks, but because it's so surprising that anyone is taking notice of her so abruptly at all. And she doesn't know him.

Maybe he asks to extend his stay at the Queen's palace and keep negotiating or whatever, but he really just wants to get to know the scullery maid better.

Then the romance is sort of still fast, but built in a way that the audience can sink their teeth into. The Prince and Snow White have a few more mutually-agreed-upon meetings, not necessarily hiding them, but just in breaks between courtly audiences with the wicked Queen. They're both enamored with each other: she's never been treated so kindly by anyone and his whole faith in pure, innocent love and uncomplicated, genuine people is being restored just by talking to her. They bond chiefly over missing their parents.

Eventually he learns that she is the Queen's daughter--maybe from the Huntsman, maybe from Snow herself in an innocent way. He's stunned that she's treated so poorly, but the second he learns it, he confesses that he loves her and he wants to take her away from there. Plus, this solves the whole "will my kingdom go to war with the Wicked Queen or be allies even though we can't trust her" diplomacy thing--Snow White is her heir, so it would be a beautiful twist of Providence that the girl he has fallen in love with can also be the alliance of peace for the kingdoms through marriage.

Snow White accepts his proposal, but she's afraid for a moment that her stepmother won't allow it. The Prince urges her not to be afraid: he'll take her to his castle and they'll be happy no matter what: he promises it, he gives her his word, he encourages her not to worry because he won't let anything stop him. It's lovely. She finally has someone she can gift her superpower of pure love to, and someone who can treasure her like she deserves.

Problem is, the Queen overhears this last conversation, right after learning that Snow White is the new "Fairest of All" from her mirror, just like in the original film.

So while the Prince is convincing his council that he's proposed to Snow White, the Queen's largely-unknown secret stepdaughter, and is going to reveal the fact to the Queen tomorrow, the Huntsman and the Queen herself are plotting the assassination attempt that eventually leads to Snow running for her life and living with the Dwarfs before she ever gets the chance to see her betrothed again.

Then the movie unfolds largely the same way it did, but with more dialogue and nuance strengthening the original's main themes: Snow White is pure love in nature, and that's everything the Prince has been missing, and he fulfills his promise which she has total faith in. And along the way, the Dwarfs learn to care more about protecting an innocent girl than they care about protecting themselves, and treasuring a person over jewels. Grumpy in particular. And the Queen dies because she's a jealous witch who's self-love has twisted her into something ugly.

Basically, what I'm saying is, there's a way to make the Prince compelling for audiences who are now used to more fleshed-out interactions in movie couples. Just give him a background that is longing for pure, uncomplicated, innocent love. Then when he runs into Snow White, who's never been treasured and valued since her parents died, they give each other everything they've been longing for--and then they have faith in one another when circumstances, both funny and sinister, force them apart.

It's like the Notebook (just in story structure)--you build up romance in the first act through a few poignant scenes, but then the rest of the movie is about waiting for that romance to be fulfilled.

Anyway. I guess I could've said all this more succinctly, but I was kind of making it up as I went. 🤷‍♀️

[verreprincesse]

2-16 – The Little Crooked Tale (poisonedapplestories.com)

[brokenheartedtheologian]

Reviews of all 8 Bridgerton Books (contains spoilers)

The TV show has more dramatic subplots and diversity, but the books have more emotional realism.

The Duke and I (Daphne's Story): In the TV series, Simon's choice to deny Daphne children (even to the point of being willing to die in a duel to avoid having kids) seems arbitrary, pointless, and dickish. In the book series, where you can get more inside the main character's heads, it all makes sense. His real fear is repeating the cycle of trauma and abusing his children the way his father abused him. Daphne convinces him he will be kind and loving to a stuttering child should he ever have one, and that's how the business gets resolved. This is the most touching scene of the book, and it's a crime they left it out of the TV series.

The Viscount Who Loved Me (Anthony's Story): Surprisingly, the TV series dealt with Anthony's dead dad trauma more meaningfully than the book did! The book mostly dwells on Anthony's illogical conviction that he will die before he grows older than his father. Whereas the TV show vividly depicts how traumatized he was by his mother's grief and how he was thrust into the role of parenting his siblings and his mother. In the TV show, Anthony's fear of love makes way more sense, as he associates true love with the insane grief and depression his mother experienced. In the book, that is just much less clear. However, I give the book points for keeping the relationship between Kate and her sister completely loving and drama-free, with no rivalry over Anthony (I'm not a big fan of altar-dumping scenes or pitting women against each other).

An Offer from a Gentleman (Benedict's Story): This was my least favorite book in the series by far, it's a retelling of Cinderella (never my favorite fairytale) with Benedict as Prince Charming. But Benedict pressures Sophie/Cinderella to become his mistress in some rather rape-y ways before they get to the happy ending. It makes Benedict utterly unlikeable. This is the only book in the series to deal with themes of class, since Sophie is a bastard who works as a housemaid due to her evil stepmother (which is why Benedict thinks she is mistress rather than wife material). The the way the book deals with class themes in profoundly unsatisfying, since they never critique the actual injustice of the class system, and in the end Sophie is only able to marry Benedict due to the big reveal of her having aristocratic blood from the wrong side of the sheets. This book is trash. I would burn it, and I just hope the TV series find a way to redeem this horrible story by replacing classist rapist Benedict with the fun bisexual polyamorous Benedict we've seen earlier in the TV series.

Romancing Mr. Bridgerton (Colin's Story): The TV series created reasons for Colin to have legitimate beef against Lady Whistledown, which are simply not part of the book series. So when Colin discovers Lady Whistledown's identity in the books, the only thing he has to navigate is the jealousy he has about her being a better writer than him. This jealousy he overcomes relatively quickly, and he makes a grand announcement as a supportive gesture which is even more romantic than his behavior in the TV series. Their character development arcs seem more natural without the extra drama the TV show inserts for the sake of suspense. I love Colin x Penelope so much, I like their story slightly more in the books, but the sexy actors of course add a lot to the story with their acting skills, so it's maybe a tie?

To Sir Phillip, With Love (Eloise's Story): I had a love-hate relationship with this book. Love: their courtship starting with letters. Hate: The letters seem to just cover trivial things so it's unclear where the attraction is coming from. Love: Eloise running off to meet him in person after exchanging letters a year (olden-times online dating). Hate: Sir Phillip making occasional misogynist comments and Eloise (bewilderingly) not caring. Love: Sir Phillip recovering from the trauma of having his wife be severely depressed for years and then commit suicide. Hate: Eloise rushing into a relationship hastily with a severely traumatized man with red flags, just because he is sexy. Love: The relationship between Eloise and Sir Phillip's children. Hate: Her brothers forcing her to marry him because she was seeing him without a chaperone. (In God's name, why? Why was this a necessary element of the book?! The romance would have felt much better without adding this gratuitous non-consensual element). A+ for second marriage and stepmother themes and D- for Eloise inexplicably losing her feminism and pride (which, to be fair, was more a characteristic of her TV self than her book self). I have no fucking idea how they will adapt it to make it more consistent with Eloise's TV character. But it's cool the TV series did an early intro of Sir Phillip Crane.

When He Was Wicked (Francesca's Story): Francesca's husband dies and four years later she falls in love with her best friend / husband's cousin. They both feel very guilty about the relationship because it feels like cheating (even though it is not cheating because original spouse is dead). Overall, this book feels like a way for us to have sex scenes that indulge our cheating fetish without the emotional strain of actually disapproving of the characters for cheating. The discussion of grief is more shallow than I would have wished. I can't help but wonder if the TV adaptation will remove the death and have the guilt/angst be around polyamorous bisexual relationships. Michaela will be better than Michael I think (Michael verbally abuses his valet, who is clearly terrified of him, every time his love life goes poorly). I personally think if a man abuses his valet, he'll abuse his wife, and find Michael by far the least plausible of the happy endings as a result. I hope the TV series having a female version of him ends up taking away some of the jerkitude.

It's In His Kiss (Hyacinth's Story): Okay, this may be my favorite of the series, though perhaps it is tied with Colin's story because Whistledown reveal. But Hyacinth is definitely my favorite of the siblings, and I love the big deal they make about her being a miniature Lady Danbury. I also adore the mother-daughter relationship stuff in here, how much Violet support's Hyacinth's independence but also encourages her to be vulnerable and take emotional risks. The "you're afraid to flirt with gentlemen you might actually like because that opens you to rejection" speech was chef's kiss!!! I also like the return of the "being free from abusive father" theme we get with the male lead. Abusive fathers was handled even better than it was in Simon/Daphne's story.

On the Way to the Wedding (Gregory's Story): It seems the author is a bit worried we might be getting bored with the regular rounds of sex, kissing, and falling in love, so she throws in some treason and gun fights to spice it up. It feels like a different genre from the other books because of the action drama elements. Still, I'm a fan of the wholesome female friendship and the (finally) satiring the "love at first sight," trope (though she plenty utilized the "love at first sight" trope in Benedict's story, wtf!) It's also fun to see Kate be a matron.

How many grandchildren does Violet Bridgerton end up with? Like a hundred?

Overall Ratings

Colin, Hyacinth: A+ for interpersonal chemistry and helping each other grow as people:

Anthony: A- but would totally be A+ if Anthony was not an unlikeable dick who did not deserve happiness

Daphne, Gregory: B+ for good-hearted Bridgertons helping love interest overcome family/abuse/neglect and personal issues.

Eloise, Francesca: C+ the sex scenes were well written but why would they settle for misogynists. I am not willing to give a pass just because this is period literature

Benedict: F because classism and not bothering with consent is really not sexy and how could you spoil wonderful TV Benedict for me.

Let's hope the TV series removed the problematic bullshit as well as adding the queer and interracial romance! The books do have more emotional realism since they've removed the need for unnecessary drama, but overall, the TV series is winning. What a surprise! I usually like books better than TV.