#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. 🩵

[toppamplemousse]

fairytalestappen part 2: cinderella

or should i say……cinderMAX ‼️🤭

- starring Max as Cinderella (yay Max gets to be the princess!!!! and he looks like such a beautiful princess with his beautiful blue eyes in this photo!!!!!!) and Charles as Prince Charming (prince of ferrari fr)

- As kids, Charles and Max both do karting. They have a rivalry but also a respect for each other. However, Charles is the prince so he has to quit to focus on ruling the kingdom. Max is sad.

- Shortly after, Max’s dad remarries and he has an evil stepfather Helmut Marko (yes Jos is gay), who’s two daughters Christiana and Adrianna are the nasty stepsisters (we went back and forth on whether it should be Christian and Adrian as stepbrothers but we decided stepsisters was funnier lmao) Max’s dad dies and Helmut Marko makes max quit karting so he can become their full time servant. They call him Cindermax HAHAHAHAH

- Time passes. Charles, the crown prince, is facing pressure from his advisor Bryan (picture him as the duke with the monocle, you know he’s eating that shit uppp) to get married. They decide to hold a ball on the evening after the well-known charity karting race that the kingdom holds every year. Every eligible man and woman is invited to the race and ball. (side note that in my head this all occurs in the kingdom of the animated Cinderella but ostensibly it could occur in Monaco and the charity race is like a precursor to the grand prix etc. anyways. there’s so many other things to focus on that this isn’t really important)

- Max really wants to go to the race (he doesn’t really care about the ball, he just wants to go karting again bc he loves it so much). His mouse friends Lando and Oscar find an old blue racing suit (with the German flag and the name Vettel on it, how odd) for max to wear to the race (believe me it hurts so much to have a mouse character and it’s not my little mouse Charles but he has to be the prince here so alas)

- Helmut and Christiana and Adrianna find out that max is planning to go to the race and they make fun of him and his driving ability and then rip up his beloved race suit and give him so many chores that he’ll never finish in time. cue despondent max crying in the courtyard, when all of a sudden, in a flurry of sparkles, who should appear but Max’s fairy godmother, Gianpiero Lambiase

- GP makes him a new blue race suit and he also gives Max a helmet with Max’s favorite animal, a bull on it, plus a pair of blue racing gloves and gold racing boots. He transforms Lando and Oscar, plus a couple other animals (Checo, Liam, Yuki, Franco) into Max’s pit crew/mechanics for the race. He takes a pumpkin and makes it into a go kart for Max

- Max makes it to the charity race. He starts on the back row but battles his way to the front and from then on it’s him and Charles racing each other, exchanging the lead, racing on the limit and almost pushing each other off at every corner. It’s exhilarating racing someone like that again…..so similar to how it was in karting…..interesting

- Max and Charles talk as they wait for the fake podium, they are both immediately enamored. Charles takes off his helmet (and Max recognizes him from karting) but Max doesn’t take off his, because he’s worried that Charles will recognize him and pity him or something like that. This of course means that Charles takes special notice of this man’s helmet Which Will Be Important Later. Charles asks max if he’ll be at the ball later. Max wasn’t originally planning to go, he just wanted to race, but he says yes because he’s so charmed by charles (join the club Max)

- GP helps Max change into a nice outfit for the ball, and it’s a masquerade ball so Max is wearing a mask. He is of course wearing blue. Is he wearing a dress? I’ll leave that up to the readers imagination. Max gets to the ball and he sees Charles dancing with Christiana/Adrianna. He’s jealous and mad so he leaves the ballroom to get some air and sulk. Charles finds him and they talk and flirt. Charles doesn’t realize that Max is the same person that he raced earlier, so he talks about how exciting it was and how much he wants to find that person and be able to talk about racing with them. Maybe he also mentions how the last time he felt that excited while racing was when he was karting with this old rival of his who always pushed him to be a better driver.

- Charles asks Max to dance outside in the garden, away from the crowds, bc he can tell the crowd makes Max nervous. it’s very romantic. not nearly as romantic as Checo singing Beauty and the Beast but alas, what is? anyways it’s all very charged and there’s lots of staring into each others eyes and leaning into each other and also they fit so perfectly together as they dance it’s like they’ve known each other their whole lives Okay Moving On.

- They kiss, but then the clock strikes twelve and max runs away. his blue racing glove falls from his pocket, and Charles realizes that he’s the same person as the man he raced against that afternoon as Max is running away. Charles chases after him but Max escapes in his carriage (which used to be his go kart which used to be a pumpkin. many layers to this).

- Max gets home and the next morning, Helmut figures out that he was at the race and later dancing with Charles because he finds Max’s gold racing boots and realizes they are the same ones the driver was wearing. Helmut also puts together that Max was at the ball and he’s furious, so he locks Max away in the garage of the house. Because he’s in the garage, Max starts tinkering with a karting engine that he’s been rebuilding as a side project.

- Charles comes to their house, looking for the man he raced against, who he now knows is the man he danced with and kissed. He tries on the racing glove but it doesn’t fit Christiana or Adrianna. Suddenly there’s a crash coming from the garage and Charles realizes that there’s someone else in the house that Helmut doesn’t want him to meet

- They all rush to the garage and find Max there (he dropped a wrench or something idk how engines work). Charles pulls out the racing glove to see if it fits Max but suddenly Helmut snatches it and tosses it in the fire! Oh No!

- But then something catches Charles’ eye on a shelf in the garage. It’s Max’s helmet from the charity race the day before, the blue helmet with the bull on it. And right next to it is another, smaller helmet that Charles would recognize anywhere. It’s Max’s helmet from when they raced against each other in karting. It’s at this point that Charles realizes that this is the man he kissed last night, raced against in the charity race, AND who was his childhood rival before he had to leave karting.

- Charles takes down the helmet and puts it on Max’s head, it fits! Charles kisses the visor, very romantic and beautiful etc etc etc. He proposes to max on the spot. Max says yes. eat rocks Helmut Marko.

- And they all live happily ever after including mice landoscar who are also in love. Fairy godmother GP comes back to make max his wedding outfit and this time he DOES wear a dress i’m certain of it.

- And Helmut and Christina and Adrianna die penniless and their cat becomes feral and has to be put down (sorry to adrian newey he kinda got caught up in all this but i don’t really have beef with him. christian horner i do have beef with he deserves all of this and much worse)

next up: snow white!!!!!

[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.