#you CANNOT accuse Portia of not loving Penelope bc she absolutely does

[flergblerg]

Show Penelope and show Portia Featherington are actually two sides of the same coin in many ways, just with a different belief on how to approach things 👀👀 👀

They are both doing the best to survive in a society where women have to rely on inheritance or men for money for a means for survival with the scarcity of resources they have.

They are both doing the best with what they have. Portia has her matchmaking efforts and her unrelenting belief in doing whatever she can to secure the best life she can give for her daughters with the only way she knows how to, which is social climbing or finding security through marriage. Like that’s how she shows her love, and in her eyes, Penelope is being ridiculous and delusional to hold out for love in a society like this where women of her social status are completely dependent on men for any chance of social mobility or security and that is completely realistic for that time period

Penelope on the other hand fully believes that she is a spinster and finding love and marriage is off the table. By her having and maintaining Whistledown, this is her chance to still be an unmarried woman while also gaining financial security independence away from having to stay with her mother for the rest of her life and remaining unmarried bc she truly believes she will never find someone, (this is actually more book Penelope) all while not having to be tied down to a man she doesn’t truly love for the rest of her life.

They both agree that they need to do everything they can to have a secure future for their family and have high ambitions and will do whatever they can to achieve it. For Portia, that involves a man and she still has hope for her daughter in that area and Penelope took men off the table completely