#the series fixated on a sympathetic depiction of george's illness and the strain on charlotte (good good)

[incoherentbabblings]

It really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things but something I always found ??? about the Queen Charlotte Bridgerton series is the refusal to engage with why Charlotte and George's daughters were so late to marry and, yeah, it was partially Charlotte needing her daughters as emotional crutches when George completely lost his mind but also George's sisters and aunts were beaten abused and humiliated by their husbands and yes that really did colour his engagement in discussions for potential matches.

His aunt Mary was frequently beaten in Hesse, his sister Caroline Matilda's story in Denmark was so bad she was dead by 23 and his great aunt Sophia Dorothea in Prussia once watched her daughter nearly be murdered by her father during one of his rages to the point where it was the servants dragging him off her, not to mention her repeatedly trying and failing to protect her son from his father too. These were well known and publicised moments, these were not secrets. People knew.

So like... British princesses did not do well on the continent and George knew that was was extremely cautious about where he would be sending his daughters. This is the guy after-all who was known for being rather out of step for how much he enjoyed being a father.

I know Bridgerton is dumb fluff but it's still really teeth grinding in its erasure of George's caution when it came to safeguarding his daughters before he became incapable of making arrangements. And that in itself led to them being taken advantage by older men in their households because they were the only men the girls knew. They never stood a chance.

That's more interesting and heartbreaking than the girls meekly saying they wanted to stay with their mum to be her personal punching bags. Charlotte did need her daughters, and they resented her for it and turned to less than stellar men offering them a way out. Not the other way around. George loved the girls and had seen his own family be abused and beaten. His over-protectiveness led to them being taken advantage of.

Idk. This is just a ramble, but giving the daughter's this selfless motivation to stick by their mother when they had well and truly been failed by their parents (never intentionally!!) I guess makes for a less complicated tv story.