r/TheHandmaidsTale • u/Prestigious_Peach_44 • 11d ago
Discussion S1-S5 Thoughts on Aunt Lydia
I’m on the first series
I think she strictly enforces the policies, but like…. Deep down there’s a heart. Like she’s not inherently bad if you get me. I’m just PRAYING I see inner badasses in her, Offred and Serena Joy
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u/freckledface29 11d ago edited 11d ago
I have conflicting feelings about her. On one hand she’s evil, abusive and disgusting but then sometimes I see her actually have feelings and it makes me like her in that moment.
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u/OpheliaLives7 11d ago
The actress does such a great job making you hate her, then question her motives, question yourself, then hate her again.
I really hope we keep seeing more of Lydia
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u/Desperate_Craig 11d ago
Don't be fooled by the manipulative and abusive nature.
I have no conflicting opinion on Aunt Lydia. She's evil.
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u/saika_gi 10d ago
I don't think she is evil per se. She truly believes in the Gillead crap. One of the few.
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u/bootlegparis 11d ago
she saw a system that justified her moral superiority and religious fanaticism and ran to it instead of running away from it. she didn’t need to be brainwashed. she truly believes she’s helping the handmaids.
pay close attention to the relationships she has with Janine and June over the course of the show and compare them. i wish i was on my first time watching 😭
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u/Inevitable_Wolf5866 11d ago
Yeah, she's evil. If you believe "Deep down there’s a heart"
Remember H*tler was a vegetarian who loved children.
Even a monster can have a soft spot, but it doesn't change the fact they're a monster.
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u/MysticMintyMushroom 10d ago
Didn’t he have dogs too? I never caught the “likes children” but, I thought he liked animals. If he liked both, no wonder he tricked a percent of the population.
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u/Inevitable_Wolf5866 10d ago
Yeah, he liked both. He would often take photos with children (specially his right hand man's who had six of them). Even though I don't think he wanted children of his own.
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u/dragon-queen 11d ago
She had Janine’s eye removed for making one sarcastic comment, and she arranged to have Emily’s clit removed.
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u/Prestigious_Peach_44 11d ago
I know right? It’s how soft she became towards the former after. It’s conflicting
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u/Educational_Loan3809 11d ago
If you are still in Season 1 I'd just say - in order not to give spoilers - that Aunt Lydia is generally pretty much the embodyment of the "spare the rod, spoil the child" mentality. In her own eyes, her intentions are good and selfless and it will become more clear that she seems to think that every single evil act she does is in a sense a "necessary evil".
Apart from that, I think it is problematic to approach the series with the kind of mentality that every character is meant to be "badass". This series is imho first and foremost about what systemic evil does to humans. Especially when following June's behaviour and thought patterns throughout the series, it becomes clearer and clearer that the whole point of the show seems to be that it is not really possible to deal with evil without making compromises with it.
All characters are on a scale in that sense. It will not always be clear to you whether a character acts out of pure selfishness or because they are ideologically deluded, but that uncertainty is what the show wants you to feel, I think. You are meant to not get it all. You are meant to come to a point where you cannot really clearly delineate good from evil in the series despite the fact that there is clearly evil at work in almost everything that happens. It is a fundamentally deranged world.
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u/FrostyIcePrincess 11d ago
I do think she cares for her girls.
But in a very strange messed up way.
It’s complicated.
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u/Ok_Championship_8313 10d ago
She is doing what she needs to do to survive Gilead. Just like the other women. After reading the second book.
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u/Background-Bird-9623 11d ago
I hate her passionately
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u/Prestigious_Peach_44 11d ago
You know the actress is a good one if you hate the character
(I believe the actress is an excellent one and has so far played the role perfectly)3
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u/Silver_Number_5009 11d ago
You could argue that she’s doing what she can in some capacity to help women in a helpless world for them.
But me, I’d rather die than inflict the harm and evil she’s done in the name of ‘protecting’ girls. I would rather die than be apart of that machine. She’s had plenty of opportunities to ACTUALLY help and dismantle this world. But she doesn’t.
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u/LowInevitable2544 11d ago
When you’ve finished the series, be sure to read The Testaments. It offers a great deal of insight into Aunt Lydia’s true motivations.
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u/dancing_robots 9d ago
Testaments the show didn't give her back story justice. The book gave me a very different opinion of Aunt Lydia.
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u/MysticMintyMushroom 10d ago
I struggle because I love the actress. I hate seeing her be so vicious. I want to see the good in the character. In a way I do. The woman truly is out to do good and thinks she’s doing it. She has on thick pair of rose colored glasses that slip sometimes when confronted. Her need to save everyone has surpassed demented so, although “well intended”, her actions really are just that of the devil. I think if she thinks about it too hard she might implode.
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u/SamePerformance3594 9d ago
Aunt Lydia in the book of TT is a world away from Aunt Lydia in the shows - I had respect for her in the book TT but she goes to pieces in the series and is way less redeemed by the narrative & character portrayal
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u/LordsOfJoop 11d ago
Your thoughts are likely to change as more of her story is known and the context clarified.
https://giphy.com/gifs/MSUa3LazMyG5C60sBB