Post by chonies on Jan 28, 2013 13:50:47 GMT -4
I think Robert has basically been screwing the pooch ever since he tried to screw the maid.
I think the conversation over Sybil's body went something like this:
Edith: Oh, Mary, do you think we might get along a little better in the future?
Mary: I doubt it, but since this is the last time we three shall all be together in this life, let’s love each other now, as sisters should.
And Mary's "no" was more pragmatic, like, "this won't change anything, realistically." I don't think Edith was asking, more speculating.
I get Mary was being pragmatic/realistic, but...why? Why do they have to continue to treat each other like shit? Why couldn't the death of their baby sister make Mary consider appreciating the family she still has? Or at least try, even if she doesn't believe she can't treat Edith as anything other than something she found on the bottom of her shoe? Well, that part may be genetic since the whole family (with the exception of Matthew and sometimes Violet) treats Edith like something they found on the bottom of their shoe.
As others have pointed out, their rivalry doesn't make sense anymore. Before they were both single gals on the prowl (if you will) and it made sense that they were competitive. But the thing with Pamuk (which was really done in revenge for other stuff Mary had done while enjoying her position as favorite daughter) didn't hurt Mary at all. She's married, and married to the man she wanted (though you'd never know that now to look at them). She and her heirs will inherit the fortune. She's set for life and other than a baby, she has everything a woman in her position in that era would want. She won. Edith, on the other hand, has suffered the humiliation of being left at the altar and her family pissing all over everything she does, and has now resigned herself to the life of a spinster. Yet Mary is still convinced that she must go on treating Edith like poo, because...force of habit? She already resents her for being the spinster sister she's going to have to support?
This is why I wish Edith would take the money that would have been her dowry (she would have a dowry, right?), take off in one of the cars no one else in the family has bothered to learn to drive and flip her sister (and the rest of them) the double bird as she speeds out of the driveway. Then she takes off to America and live with Shirley MacLaine and start a new life where people won't treat her like crap just because it's the local pastime.
I also wish that Edith would find some way to fly off and be excellent, but I don't think dowries work like that, unfortunately. Dowries are theoretical unless attached to an actual marriage, as I understand them, and they might have been material anyway--perhaps a title to some piece of unsellable or rock-filled ridge. I'm spoiled for the whole season, but any further plot developments with Edith have temporarily slipped my mind.
As far as making sense, I would agree that it's not logical that Mary and Edith don't like each other, but their relationship seems entirely real to me, and is perhaps the most realistic duo onscreen. Just because my sister and I are related doesn't mean she's going to be nice to me, or that I'm going to want to include her in everything. I see their relationship as just a character thing, although affected obviously by the familial dramas.
I adore Edith, but comparing her to Sybil, Sybil did a few things because she wanted to (the Turkish pantsuit, eloping with the help) and people liked her and accepted that she did what she wanted, and she was Good and True, so she got away with things. Edith's character seems uncomfortable in her own skin, and I got the idea that she's still balancing doing things because of potential shock value, and also trying to make things happen. Edith is kind of the martyr soul--somewhere between tradition and new ways, and not sure where she stands, and that makes her vulnerable. Edith's character is warm under a prickly exterior, and we've seen enough glimpses of that to know she's capable of more. I also think that Mary would resent having to extend empathy to Edith, because Mary has done everything she was obliged to, and although she's cared for, she still has that gilded cage existence, whether or not she enjoys it. I think Edith would appreciate kindness from Mary, but I suspect Edith would either believe kindness was pity (not unlikely) or somehow manipulative, or fall into a weird trap of dependency.
Apologies for the tl;dr