#sandition spoilers

[mryddinwilt]

Sanditon thoughts

Why yes I did binge Sanditon and have *opinions* Everything under a cut so nobody gets spoiled. Since I'm going to mostly be talking about the last episode... you have been warned.

I should say first off that I really enjoyed the majority of the season. The tension. The hand touches. The declarations. The theme of women taking control of their lives. It was all fantastic. All the feels.

That's why the last episode was such a massive disappointment. The miscommunication trope is a staple of the romance genre but it's a staple that is losing favor. For good reason! Too often it is thinly supported and makes little sense. Unfortunately, Sanditon's last episode is a textbook example of this.

Charlotte merely hearing that Alexander might be engaged was not enough motivation for her to just throw her hands up and be all "I guess I'm going to Ireland!" In fact, I think such a choice is contrary to the entire theme of the season. Charlotte is meant to be independent and strong but she can't go and investigate the rumor? She can't ask a single person if it is true?? She can't tell the guy how she feels? She was so mad at him for not speaking sooner and then she does the same? It makes no sense. It's anti-character growth.

Putting aside her not investigating. Let's assume it is true. Alexander Coulborne is engaged. Does that mean they can't be together? Nope! Even taking into account the whole stigma of ending an engagement in the Regency it makes no sense.

First, the engagement is a secret. The woman would suffer no ill effects from a broken engagement. (Not that the show seemed to be even taking that into account but still).

Second, the show spent a lot of time pushing home the point that Coulbourne disagrees with the idea of marriage without love. He wanted her to discard Ralph. Why would she think he would choose differently with the roles reversed?

Third, not giving Alexander the choice is disrespectful. Charlotte knows he loves her. NOT telling him that she is available robs Alexander of the chance to make his own decision about his future.

Fourth, the choice to have Charlotte just give up is the opposite of the theme of the season. The entire season was about women taking control of their lives and not letting the men dictate what they should do. Charlotte being active in pursuing Alexander would have fit better than her giving up.

The miscommunication route was lazy and unnecessary. It was a sad way to end an otherwise very enjoyable season.

I mean imagine that they hadn't fallen onto that tired old trope.

Instead, we could have had an awesome conversation that mirrored Alexander's and their first meeting. Just imagine...

Charlotte goes to the house, enters the study, and he looks up from his writing. She is just as awkward as the first time.

She confesses that she has come with no expectations but rather she must tell him that her circumstances have changed. He swallows, and sits up straighter.

She tells him that she could not marry Ralph when she loved another. When she loved him. He rises, eager to embrace her but she puts up a hand. Continues to tell him that she respects that he moved on, that he could not wait for her, and that she would never want to ruin another woman's happiness. She flees from the room. He follows.

Catching her in front of the house, he tells her there is nothing to ruin. He is free to marry where he wishes. KISS!

And then instead of a quick flash of scenes, we get to actually enjoy a bit of wedding planning. Maybe a small argument. Maybe they talk about the school plans. WHATEVER.

The point is that I did not need the manufactured drama.

I did need Charlotte to actually articulate her feelings for Alexander. I did need to see them announcing their marriage to Leo. I did need hints that this relationship was going to go the distance because it was based on open communication.

Anyway. That's it. I just had to share that.

[bethanydelleman]

Have you read Death Comes to Pemberley and/or Mr Darcy Takes A Wife? Both were gifted to me by well meaning individuals who know I love Austen but neither one was an enjoyable read for me. MDTAW was too melodramatic (everyone was a little too obsessed with Elizabeth, I hated its take on Bingley and Jane), but I do kind of like Fitzwilliam/Georgiana as a pair. I apparently found DCTP pretty forgettable because I can't remember much about it.

Do you have any post-canon Austen book or story favorites to recommend?

SPOILERS: I have read both, Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife I did not like at all, Death Comes to Pemberley is okay but honestly I don't like the resolution of the crime. I feel like it really was the Colonel who shot Denny, too convenient to make it a dying man. It is a fairly well-written sequel otherwise.

My favourite post-canon Austen book has to be the one I wrote, Prideful & Persuaded, though it's not about the main characters. I really like Old Friends & New Fancies, which is widely considered the first JAFF that isn't a completion of Sandition or The Watsons. Letters from Pemberley by Jane Dawkins is a nice, canon-compliant continuation. The Pursuit of Mary Bennet by Pamela Mingle is decent too.

Unfortunately, I haven't read that many others that aren't just porn with very minimal plot (not that there is anything wrong with that... Shannon Lathan if you want some good smut). I do not recommend The Other Bennet Sister, it's terrible.

I have a free continuation, though it does not feature Georgiana and Colonel Fitzwilliam as a pairing (he gets Caroline). My suggestion would be to check out AO3, you can search by relationship tag Georgiana Darcy/Colonel Fitzwilliam. I would also suggest asking for favourites from the subreddit r/JaneAustenFF or the Facebook group Pride & Prejudice Variations. There is a ton of free stuff out there to explore!

There is also the JAFF Index (though you need a password) and you can also search there by relationship tags. You can get a password from sites like A Happy Assembly.

Feel free to add recommendations in the tags!

[rosemarygrey]

Lucabeth Breakup: bad writing or Classic plot trope?

I know there have been very polar and mixed Feeling about the breaking up of a couple that have been together for 2 full seasons just before the expected wedding and it is valid that if they were your favourite couple that you would feel angry and upset today i'm not going to be adressing which guy was better or who she should have ended up with, but rather the actual way they wrote Elizabeth and Lucas's growing apart to the point of seperation.

First of all broken engagements are not exactly new to the movie and tv world, and it is actually fairly common to have the heroine (or hero) choose the wrong person fist only to find that they have blindly missed there true love right in front of them, or perhaps there true lve came along after they had got enaged. so lets take a look at a few of those examples...

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (movie version). the heroine Juliet has just published her first book after the war when flowers start appearing at her flat. after a period of mystery she discovers they have been sent by an american owner of a publishing company who wants to meet her as an author but falls in love with her, she is a little hesitant at first, but she falls for his book character like charm and goes on a carnival of fancy dates, flowers and dancing, then she starts getting letters from a society of gurnsey and is so moved by them that she decides she's like to visit them and see if she can get ideas for her times article, she is about to go when her boyfriend proposes and she happily agrees, when she arrives in guernsey she finds that it is still haunted by the stories of the occupation and she feels self concious about her ring making her seem unaproachably hoigty toight so she takes it off, she meets the society in person and enjoys time with the sweet but very shy Dawsey Adams but just as he begins to open up to her mistakenly thinking she's single, her fiancee returns and seeing the contrast she realises that her fiancee would never want the same things in life that she wants, and that Dawsey is her soulmate, so she breaks it off and a lot of things happen ;) no spoilers about that!

The sound of music: the captian gets engaged to the charming baroness before he slowly finds himself falling for the more spirited and harum scarum maria

Sanditon tv series: In sanditon the heroine charlotte has lost her late love sidney and after grieving she opens herself up again to love and gets caught in a triangle between a milita officer and the heartbroken, reserved uncle of the children she is governess to: alexander cloborne, she falls for Alexander after she discovers the militia officer is not the gentleman he appeared to be but they keep misunderstanding one another and she thinks he is not going to propose and gets upset,leaves in tears to her hometown, gets engaged to a good family freind ralph. she returns to sandition with ralph where she keeps being thrown in the path of mr colborne, she realises she was mistaken in thinking he didn't care and that in trying to protect herself from hurt she has now made herself more pain, she tries to force herself to continue her relationship with ralph becuse she doesn't want to be unfair, but he starts to notice that her hearts not in it and she realises it is more unkind to pretend to love him so she breaks it off and Ralph leaves sanditon heartbroken. then a lot of things get in the way and i'll leave you to guess the end.

these are my top three enjoyable movies that include a broken engagement. but in all of there there was one thing that made the breakup acceptable or even wanted by the viewers and what was that?

it is simple that we were shown a clear peek at the end goal before we grew too attached to the engaged couple, in Gurnsey we see the imbalence that Mark renolds (the american) is much more flashy than juliet and we are given the idea that he is a distraction. In the sound of music we are given the childeren's disspointed reactions to there fathers engagement and we see the baronesses shallow attitudes about wanting to get the childeren off her hands and into school. In sanditon we see that although ralph is definatly in love with charlotte we know she made the decision in pain and we are shown several instances of charlotte misscomunicating or hiding things from ralph.

so did we really get enough hints that this is where they were going with Lucas and Elizabeth, Frankly No, we did not, We got hints she would choose nathan in season 8 but when she did not we settled down into a lucabeth ending and were given No hints he was a safe choice, no hints that Elizabeth's heart wasn't in it, but that is becuase they didn't make the decision until season 10 began. then they began to thread in those hints, such as the disagreement over the house, cake and grand gestures and little jack going to sit with Nathan and Allie in church, but it was too late for many Lucabeth fans, They used the reasonable differences in character that Team Nathan had pointed out didn't really fit, but they used them too late to give the Lucabeth Fans a strong idea of what was coming so they could adjust to it. that was a bit of a mistake, but they still made the decision out of good intentions as they can see the inner workings that we cannot, they have reasons they can't say as to why they had to make that decision but it wasn't made to upset the fans it was made out of an unamed neccessity to continue the show. maybe chris saw that he didn't want to stay on as a major full time character for the 20 season they were hoping for and he decided to step back now so that they didn't have the major problem they had when Daniel lissing left. that doesn't mean he's leaveing now, but that is just one of the many things that could have affected the writing. so yes it wasn't the ideal way of writing a change of the story, but if it needed to be done they could have done it worse, instead as soon as they knew they started hinting so that lucabeth fans were already dreading the switch before it happened thus preparing them for the hard blow so it didn't completely knock them over. they tried to make it as respectful as possible within the sudden timeframe they had and considering it that way my final conclusion is that No it wasn't bad writing, it wasn't the best writing, but it cirtainly wasn't the worst considering that we now know they have reasons they can't specify why they had to decide to switch.

My heartfelt sympthay to those who have been dissapointed in the season.

[lynsunrise]

Save Sanditon 🔥💯

The only way to get #sanditonseason2 is the next: "They are going to count the number of times people pressed that triangle button ▶️ and actually watched the WHOLE episode through! We have to press ▶️for each episode at Masterpiece PBS to start! Masterpiece PBS producers will judge viewership in US on high streaming numbers"© . So the only way we can save #Sidlotte and have season 2 is to watch, stream it. Many times.

And keep the noise of course 🤞🏻💯

[aristos-philtatos]

Must an Austen novel be complete? Is it not enough to see Theo James, unhinged?

[poeedamerons]

Mary is totally unto Charlotte and Sidney.

[unecomorienne]

Miss Lambe with braids

Miss Lambe smiling and having fun

[imruination]

Sanditon fans, are you okay?

[stitching-in-time]

They’re just leaning into the whole Sound of Music thing for Charlotte and Colbourne, huh? The scene where he sees her dancing with the kids had me worried they were gonna start dancing to the Landler together lmao

[starsarefire824]

What the fuck ENDING WAS THAT

[blacklister214]

Sanditon’s Prospective Couples

Having watched through 2x02 (thanks to the masterpiece via prime) I’m ready to place my bets on couples...SPOILERS

Charlotte: Marries Colbourne. They’re working the whole Maria and Captain Von Trapp thing, except better, because they are both haunted by the grief of past romantic partners. Charlotte has some nice moments with Lennox, but I don’t trust anyone who pressures Tom into gambling and says nice things about Edward. 

Alison: Marries Fraser. Carter doesn’t seem like a bad guy, but he and Alison look all set to worship each other as ideal romantic partners. That’s never good. Fraser’s teasing Alison and her giving him attitude is far more promising to me. Plus Fraser actually shares some interests with Alison. 

Georgiana: Has a tryst with Lockhart but ultimately they part ways. My impression is that he’s not the marrying kind and ultimately I think she’s a social reformer. She needs to be in society to change it, so she can’t live the bohemian life style with him.   

[afirewiel]

I honestly have not an ounce of anger toward Mr. Colbourne for how season 2 ended. I just feel so sorry for him. And Charlotte. If I blame anyone, I blame Colonel Lennox. He knew where to strike.

[somewhatm-azing]

*watching s1e8 of Sanditon*

*10 minutes in*: aw man that’s so sad

*20 minutes in*: well shoot this isnt going well

*30 minutes in*: wait no no. It’s not meant to be like this.

*35 minutes in*: no no no no no no

*40 minutes in*: no no nO NO NO NO

*45 minutes in*: NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO THIS IS NOT ALLOWED NO NO NO NO

[lynsunrise]

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

Retweet, friends 💖💖💖💖💖💖💪🏻

They addressed us DIRECTLY. After 9 months of 24/7 tweeting on Twitter I dare say we broke the ice a bit. 🔥❄️

So please, dear friends, let's THIS TIME flood them with the purpose of our joined efforts.

Join Twitter 👆🏻 (mobile version, App, on the desktop computer) and let's leave no doubt in them. There are thousands of Sanditon fans on FB. Let's get really active, my soul mates 🔥🔥🔥❤️

[admiralheywood]

I'm going to say my piece and then I'm going to go. Sidney is no Eliza, he loves his family and wants to help them when they're facing terrible debt and ruination. He has young nieces and nephews and he saw a way to prevent them losing a father to debtors prison. If it was my sister or brother or parents in the same situation, I would do the same to help my family.

He loves Charlotte, yes, he's heartbroken too. This is not what he wants, not by any stretch of the imagination and he's saddled himself to a woman that valued money over love. He's not getting anything from the situation he's in, just the reassurance that his family might find a way to be okay after all.

I'm sad too but there will hopefully be a second season that will resolve things somewhat.

I think, personally, I'd want someone that would do all they could for other people before considering the effect it would have on them first because it shows the nature of their heart: selfless and kind. My family has always been my life, my first consideration and the people I want to do best by so, I can get where Sidney is coming from. So sue me.