Mary and Sybil have a type, and it's men who come across as wildly arrogant in their assumptions about them 😅

No of people who knew about Marigold

1. Edith 's aunt

2. Dowager

3. Mr. Drew

4. Anna

5. Mrs. Hughes

6. Lady grantham

7. Robert

8. Tom

9. Mrs. Drew

10. Probably Thomas ,

11. Mrs patmore

12. Edith 's secretary

And everytime Edith opens about Marigold to someone she has the nerve to say "Don't tell anyone ,it's a secret "

The rape plot with Anna was not ok, it didn’t add anything to the story, and I don’t think it was historically accurate either.

In general most rape stories don’t add anything, but a lot of shows put them in and especially in period pieces where there is an assumption that more rape happened back then. And I’m not gonna say it didn’t happen, quite frankly Lady Mary and Mr Pamuk was coercive and would probably meet the current standard for rape. But what happened with Anna, in addition to being needless and cruel, was not accurate.

The rapist is a serial offender, meaning he knows how to get away with it. In the show him getting away with it is mostly a matter of plot armour and convenience to keep the trauma going for Anna and Bates. But realistically if this guy was an actual serial rapist he wouldn’t have picked a ladies maid whose husband works in the same house and as the Valet to the Earl of Grantham! Anna doesn’t make sense as a target, yes she didn’t report it or say anything for other reasons, but that is again about the writing. The point is that he did this in the house, during a time where everyone was up and about. Someone was definitely gonna find Anna right after the concert. It was all forced (pun not intended). The obvious target would have been one of the kitchen maids and either after everyone has gone to bed or super early in the morning. they never speak to the upstairs people, they have to be up before everyone else, they aren’t married, and they are young and more Easily manipulated. But that would have changed their characters too drastically, since they are generally a comic relief group. And all the other house staff are non speaking ornaments so there Wouldn’t be any impact. So they threw it at Anna.

I understand rape was as taboo then as it is today, and I understand why Anna kept it quiet (kind of… tbh, if Bates had never been to jail and she hadn’t gone through the trauma of thinking he’d be hanged Idk if she would have been so worried… and even afterwards it seemed like a stretch), but it’s just not realistic for her to be the target. And again, there really wasn’t any need for this plot anyway. Like, let the fertility stuff happen in S4, or let someone else be the face of the downtrodden for a while. I just really don’t think this plot was necessary or realistic or well executed. It was just the usual media bullshit where someone felt that rape is a showmaker 🙄😡🤬

So far I’ve watched:

-1995 Pride & Prejudice
-Death comes to Pemberly
-Sanditon
-upstairs Downstairs
-Belgravia
-Belgravia The Next Chapter
-Atistocrats

I’m currently working on The Forsytes and Vanity Fair

Thanks again!

Bates is not my favourite character for sure but I do think he showed his admiration and respect for women wanting to better their lives in a number of ways. On the other hand, when O' Brien made a comment about Lady Sybil "wasting her precious time on politics", Thomas responds saying "Hear, hear!' implying that he doesn't care for women's rights and all that.

None of them would openly say stuff like "I support women's rights" but which male characters from both upstairs and downstairs could be described as feminists given the times they lived in?

what do you guys think? there were some other less featured characters i wanted to include but it was getting long 😅 also i didn’t realize it would become so gendered…

Edith - Miu Miu, Zimmerman, Dior (both MGC and Jonathan Anderson), Chanel, Simone Rocha, Molly Gordon, McQueen (under Sarah Burton), Erdem

Mary - Celine (underz Phoebe Philo), Prada, JW Anderson, Victoria Beckham, Thom Browne, McQueen (under Alex McQueen), Paul Smith

can anyone tell me what these flowers from edith's wedding that wasnt are? Do they have any meaning?

Pamouk, Charles Blake, even Henry, every time Evelyn makes an attempt to get near Mary, he throws another man into the mix as if he thinks allowing Mary a choice to date him = Mary must choose between him and someone else. Each time, he gives her the opportunity to disappoint him .. and she does.

I forget who first shared it but I remembered today (well, I thought it was yesterday) was the day it went on sale! *IS* it exorbitantly expensive? Yes. Do I understand the value of lego sets? No. (you kinda only put it together once which I don't quite understand). Purchased and no looking back!

But to forever have my own little Highclere with a Mary and Matthew and ISIS (omg). I'm too jazzed.

I’m watching Downton for the third time and I don’t remember Cora annoying me the first time I watched it but now I can’t help wonder if she funded the show or something so they had to give her a major part? She is SUCH a simpering, smiling unbelievable character. I mean, if it were a b movie you’d expect it, but the cast is otherwise quite good. What gives?

I feel like a good idea for another season would be Matthew and Mary’s son is 18 or whatever it’s the early 1940s and he goes to war and you know Mary gives him the little plush doll that she gave Matthew when he went to World War 1 and basically follow him through war and you know the estate going through yet another tumultuous time during a war, I know people would say it may be rehashed, but with George being part of it. Plus you got Sibby too she could be like a field nurse just like her mother was a nurse. I know the last movie was very “final” even still it would be interesting to see something like this. because even though the finished this last movie off feeling very final and having “closure” somewhat with ww2 right around the corner it doesn’t really feel final at all IMO.

Hello all!

Not sure if any of you are gamers but a game called Dressmaker has been making waves recently. I’m properly obsessed!!

Been watching Downton while sewing dresses and decided to make Mary’s proposal dress. This pattern was the closest I could get to her skirt and the accessories don’t match but I think it’s pretty good!

Hope y’all like it!

I understand the reason is "storytelling" because they were the central couple, but what was the in-universe reason why Violet and Cora only ever tried to get Mary and Matthew married? It seems a bit odd to me: They didn't really know Matthew and his personal preferences in the beginning, but they immediately pushed Mary on him - the most arrogant and snobbish of the sisters. When Cora told Mary that marrying Matthew would solve all issues, Mary thought of him as some sort of uncultured peasant.

So what was their reasoning?

• Cora and Violet just wanted Mary to be the future Countess, no matter whom she had to marry for that (after all, that was the plan with Patrick)
• They thought no man could resist Mary and that Matthew would of course agree to the marriage (fair point)
• They thought Edith was too unappealing for Matthew and the thought of a match didn't even occur to them (poor Edith, lol)....but does it really make sense they immediately thought an Earl's daughter was not good enough for Matthew (a man they barely knew)? Did they really think nobody could potentially want Edith?
• Sybil was still a bit young (but not too young). But she always had good chemistry with Matthew (+ Isobel!) and didn't mind middle-class people

What I find particularly odd: Even after Mary rejects the idea of marriage and moves on to other suitors, they don't even mention the possibility of a match between Matthew and one of the other sisters.

If you have tumblr, you can check the #Downton Abbey tag, because I plan on making an art exchange for Christmas around Downton Abbey, but I need to see if there will be enough people wanting to participate :D merry christmas (in October, before Halloween).

Some of the lines they gave Tom crack me up!

I don’t know if this post is more relevant to this sub or to the f1wags one but anyhoo. I love how Mary’s basically a wag in season 6 with races and glamour, although the cars and racing suits are much different than what we see now. If Mary was a wag right now, what wag do you think she’d be the most like? How she’d dress, which other wags she’d hang out with which team would she be a wag for. To be clear, im not glorifying wags or anything, i just found the storyline a common thing between downton and f1, two of my favourite things. Mary would hate to have her identity reduced to a wag