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so true

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what a time to be alive (derogatory)

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i just read ur post about the cora/robert scene in a new era and i’m literally begging you to talk more about your thoughts on how cora is bad at expressing sincere emotions !! that didn’t really click for me until i read ur post but now it makes PERFECT sense and i need to hear more 😩

~hears the distant echo of Robert’s line “Sometimes, Cora, you can be curiously unfeeling” from S2 & nods sagely~

Yes. Julian’s had this aspect of her character pegged from nearly the very beginning. Perhaps even S1E1.

*sips tea & clears throat*

Oh boy, where to begin? First by calling upon @randomabiling , @modernamericangirl , and @thedowntonhistorian who are all so much more eloquent than I am, and whose ideas are so intermingled with my own at this point that I’m not sure whose is whose anymore.

First of all, this isn’t to say that we don’t think Cora feels emotions. She does. But we’ve analyzed again and again how totally inept she is at expressing them, in particular sincere emotions of love, though it isn’t limited there. This is something we noticed, gosh, probably seasons and seasons ago (years, as we are some of the grandmothers of this fandom ha!)

We notice how, when there is any sort of real heaviness to any sort of emotion, she tends to lighten it or sometimes downright change the subject.

This has to come from her station, yes, and her upbringing, and I’m sure the sort of quiet trauma of essentially giving up her entire world at a very fundamental age for adult development (18-20 depending on Julian’s mood) for a man she knew did not love her the way she was in love with him.

But, think of every Cora scene you can. She never really tells anyone she loves them. It’s obvious, of course, but to verbalize that sort of vulnerable emotion is difficult for her. The other upstairs characters do. Even Violet. She outright says she loves Mary. Robert tells Cora and his daughters. Matthew and Mary, yep. Edith? Yeah, she tells Bertie. But Cora does not. She smiles, she holds people’s hands and touches at their wrists, but the only time she ever says she loves someone is when she tells Mary in S1 when Mary is having a bit of a meltdown. That’s it.

In fact, she actively tries to neutralize the moments where saying ‘I love you’ happens or should happen.

This doesn’t at ALL mean she doesn’t feel it, but that she’s so in love and feels so deeply that it’s hard for her to say it without losing composure. And she has to maintain some feeling of control? Maybe? (Lots to conjecture on that note.)

Examples of teasing/unable to be sincere:

1. Robert gives that really sweet anniversary speech at dinner to which Lord Gillingham is all “awww that was really nice” and she responds “if only it were true.” Self-deprecating, yeah. But she could’ve answered ANY other way. Even a “Yes.”

2. When Robert is panting after rolling around his bedroom floor with a man who was literally trying to go to bed with her, Cora’s response to his VERY apparent anger (which, okay, he can be a Donk, but let’s cut him a little slack on that one), is “Golly, what a night!” Honey, what? Are you that bad at reading the room? No. You can’t just brush off strong emotions!

3. Or like when her husband is, y’know, bleeding out onto the dining room floor and he thinks he’s dying and he wants his last words to be that he’s “loved [her] very, very much” she doesn’t even say she loves him back! She is SO shaken that she barely manages “this isn’t it. We won’t let this be it.” She snaps at Violet over Marigold, totally unnecessarily in the next scene, and even Violet is like, “what the hell? Can we just focus on Robert?” When they’re pulling away after the ambulance, Cora is turned almost entirely towards the window of the car, not next to her daughters. Too much feeling. Too much. (Also my headcanon that her go-to strong emotion is nearly always anger because it makes her feel a sense of control in a situation she has no control over.)

4. When Isis goes, and Robert is sad and says AGAIN to her that he loves her, pretty plainly, “two people who love her, and each other, very much on either side,” she could’ve totally responded with a “yes; very much” or even a nod, but she barely manages to look up at him and says some weird thing about how she hopes when she dies she’ll be surrounded by loved ones. Robert is visibly NOT okay with that response (lol). But what she does manage to do is take his hand. (That’s her little I love you signal to EVERYONE, by the way.)

5. I’ve already discussed in length the Bricker scene where she chokes up in admitting that no one could take Robert’s place (though in not even those words), and Robert is so moved by this that he physically shrinks back and you can see the anger leave him. But does she edge into “I love you” next? No. Oh no, no. She pushes out a tired “very well!” and instigates anger time because feelings of deep love are Too Much!

6. Lastly, the DA2 scene sums it all up, too. “We aren’t sad people.”

Honey, you just told your husband that you’re probably dying of cancer and he’s sobbing because life is really screwing him over from every direction, and your response is “We aren’t sad people” as he’s crying???

But, the thing is, it isn’t to Robert, that line. It’s for herself. She’s not a sad person. She doesn’t let emotion get in her way, get the better of her. Is it because it caused her nearly a year of deep unhappiness when her husband did not return her love? Maybe. Is it because she was trained up by her ambitious mother to be totally and completely scheming to get ahead? Perhaps. Is she really just a realist and Robert is the romantic out of the two. Yeah, it does seem that way. But the fact remains that for her to even use the word ‘love’ about someone specifically (or at all, with various exceptions of generality) is unusual in the entirety of the series. In the garden scene, when she says “I loved you from the start,” Robert’s expression is one of shock, really. Like he’s realizing the enormity of the moment. Like an, “oh my god, she really is dying.” And then she trips into teasing and smiling again, though it NOT a smiling sort of life event.

You also see the moment the dam breaks for her, the most raw emotion we’ve ever seen of her (outside of Sybil) when she says “and then love came.” And then after he kisses her, and he tells her she’s been everything to him, her expression is so full of love and joy, then ZOOP “hope we can get tickets on the blue train!” Or is it the fact that she’s said ‘love’ three separate times in the space of two minutes and cannot keep going or she won’t be able to take it?

I think this may all be because her loving him is NOT what they say, or what they have to say. It’s a given. It’s something unsaid and established from years and years ago and to broach the subject is uncomfortable and creates feelings of shame in Robert. But Robert needs to pour out his expressions of love because he felt he owes that to her. As a sort of way to erase his shame, his penance of sorts for pursuing her dishonestly is to remind her that he does love her now. And Cora lets him because she loves him. She comes across as this passive recipient of his love, the vessel for it, but she isn’t really. She’s really the more physical of the two of them. Anyway, I’ve drifted into an enormous tangent.

I’ll sum this mess up by inviting my ladies who I tagged to pipe up, or anyone else for that matter. I’d love to hear your thoughts, too, anon. Over-analyzing characters is my favorite pastime. Sincerely.

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1930 c. "Le Chemise Verte" by Jan Stuijters. From Art Deco, Art Nouveau

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Love note left by David for Wallis on her 75th birthday, June 19, 1971. Exactly fifty-four years ago today. This was the last of Wallis's birthdays David would be alive for and he seemingly wrote the note for her while she was resting.

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the most fun a girl can have is finding parallels, noticing patterns, making connections, contemplating

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SAOIRSE RONAN as EILIS LACEY in BROOKLYN (2015)

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1928 Chanel Haute Couture sequined evening dress. From Kerry Taylor Auctions.

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Seeing people you've been staying in the same hotel as for days leaving is genuinely so depressing. What do you mean I'm never gonna see the lady with the blonde curls ever again or that guy with the vibrant shirts....

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Simone said trans rights, happy pride.

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Highlight of my life*

A new Sabrina Carpenter song dropping while I'm in Spain will be the highlight of the summer I can feel it.

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i always click the "track package" button as soon as i get the email. "oh boy i wonder where my package is!" warehouse.

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A new Sabrina Carpenter song dropping while I'm in Spain will be the highlight of the summer I can feel it.