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phantomphaeton · 2 years

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The Bridgerton Brothers, Seduction, and Robert Greene

The English language is vast and there are a thousand unnecessary words for everything, but in many cases the different words that all describe the same thing actually provide small nuanced differences that can provide specificity for our understanding. Among those words—and this subject of this enormously long post—is the word rake.

At some point during my extensive Googling of the boys, all three Bridgerton brothers and Simon, the Duke of Hastings, have been described as rakes. The word is beaten to death throughout the two seasons we’ve had so far, and I am already prepared to have it dinned into my ear further during season three.

But with the show’s immense popularity, the word is making its way into mainstream vernacular again. Now let’s take a seat and pour out some whiskey coffee, and put our feet up by the fire while I take a closer look at the liberal use of the word in the series and how it specifically applies to the men we’ve encountered on the show thus far.

First of all—before I get to analyzing how the word applies to each of the Bridgerton brothers, the question must be asked: What the fuck is a rake?

Well, the most standard of sources (dictionary.com) defines a rake as ‘a dissolute or immoral person, especially a man who indulges in vices or lacks sexual restraint.’ In the words of myimperfectlife.com, ‘a rake walked so that modern-day players and fuckboys could run.’

The author Sarah MacLean, a prominent historical romance novelist, defines a rake as thus: A rake is a lovable scoundrel….Usually, a rake is someone who has been around and has had a number of relationships. He's probably pretty handsome. He's probably pretty charming. He's definitely someone who's not interested in marriage. Celibacy is off the table. No serious relationships of any kind. Essentially, the rake is the bad boy with the heart of gold.

Eh, seems straightforward enough, right? Not quite. As it turns out, there were a lot of different types of seducers back in the day of quills and chamber inkpots. A rake was just one of them, and while the showrunners (and Julia Quinn) prefer to use the word rake as a broad-stroke description for all three of the men I’m going to be classifying (like amoeba or something—this is very clinical), the reality is that there are other names for ladies’ men that have been sidelined even though a powerful argument can be made that they are infinitely more appropriate for the individual characters.

The author Robert Greene, whose works on human nature with respect to war, power, and seduction provide the main reference point for most all of this essay, defines a rake as thus:

A rake is a male seducer who catches the female fancy by incessantly pursuing her….a rake has an effect on women due to his ability to show an ardent devotion to her. She is attracted to him because he seems to be madly in love with her. He shows no hesitation or reluctance, and unabashedly admits his weakness when in her presence, hence making himself every woman's dream come true. He is an expert at using words and language to show his devotion….the Rake also keeps a part of his personality hidden, creating a sense of danger and thrill. He also has a reputation for being a ladies's man and being reckless in love, but he never downplays or hides his notoriety. Instead he uses it to his advantage to generate interest among women.

With this definition before us providing the central argument of my entire essay, we can see that the word ‘rake’ has been too liberally applied for pretty much every guy on the show. So now I will proceed to conduct my analysis on each of the three gentlemen we’ve encountered thus far, why they are not rakes, and what type of seducer they are instead. This requires me to clarify an important point:

The three oldest Bridgerton siblings (Anthony, Benedict, and Colin) are all, at some point, described as rakes. The only thing this is meant to imply to us as viewers and consumers of Bridgerton content is that none of them are virgins, which honestly doesn’t really help us classify them.

Let’s begin with our favorite unhinged, slovenly whore—the Viscount Lord Anthony Bridgerton.

It wasn’t tough to analyze Anthony in spite of the fact that the second season left me thinking he was insane. Anthony is defined—in books and on screen—as an incurable, Capital R Rake. If you know your alphabet, then you’ll know that after an R must come an S, and Anthony’s season saw him transition from a Capital R Rake to a Capital S Simp. In between him going feral for Kate’s perfume, picking out the sheerest shirts known to man, and eye-fucking Kate from across rooms while he emotionally masturbates to their fantasy future, we hear the word get thrown around a lot. It’s not hard to believe it—he behaves like a real fuckboy.

But let’s take a closer look, shall we?

Anthony is the easiest character to classify as a rake. His opening scene in season 1—literally the first impression that we get of him—is him fucking a girl against a tree while his coachman valiantly tries to pretend that he is literally anywhere else. This falsely presents Anthony as a lighthearted, devil-may-care sort of guy. He’s living without a care. He’s enjoying his youth. By the end of the pilot episode we know better. We see him as an overprotective, overbearing, controlling, more-than-slightly misogynistic asshole who needs to introduce his face to a straight razor (and not just because of the sideburns).

His fierce protectiveness of Daphne, which bars her from expanding her social network with critical connections during this extremely important part of her life, does not win him any brownie points among fans. His hypocrisy in being so obsessively overbearing only makes us dislike him more—we as viewers know where he goes when these parties are over. He takes his sisters home and treats them like lambs to be herded, and then scurries off to the other side of town and crawls into bed with his mistress. We develop a deeper understanding of him as the show progresses, and by the end of season 2 he’s pretty much adored by the audience.

Is Anthony Bridgerton a Rake? The answer to that is in his romantic history.

Right from the start, Anthony is established as a sexually active man. He spends the entirety of the first season hung up on his turbulent relationship with his mistress Siena Rosso, a beautiful and strong-willed opera singer. The relationship appears shallow at first glance, but as the season progresses we as viewers come to understand that there is way more to this relationship than just sex. By the end of the season, we understand that this is not just a dalliance that Anthony is indulging in—it’s a full blown relationship between two people on either side of an irreconcilable socio-economic divide.

The concept of boyfriends/girlfriends did not exist at this point in history and would not exist for another two hundred years, but that is what Anthony Bridgerton and Sienna Rosso were. Its temporary end hit Anthony hard, and its rekindling was just the right high for Anthony to get before he was crushed by the second (and final) breakup at the end of the season. This is not Anthony being a rake. This is a serious, long term relationship progressing and then falling apart.

When season two commences, we see Anthony on a warpath to find himself a bride and fulfill his duty as Viscount. His time away from Sienna hasn’t done much for his neuroticism—he’s somehow managed to become even worse as he prepares for the new season. He overworks himself half to death, makes his peace with the end of his relationship with Sienna, and stresses…and stresses…and stresses.

In between all of this, we see that he’s found an outlet for his stress—he’s a regular at London’s brothels. He is seen dropping coins onto nightstands and shuffling quietly out of dark rooms half dressed before that fateful morning ride that introduced him to the woman who would become his Viscountess. He’s working on autopilot, a car crash waiting to happen. His family’s inability to distinguish any specific difference in his behavior now with his behavior in the first season shows us that this isn’t particularly new—it’s just who Anthony is.

Is Anthony Bridgerton a rake by these standards? No.

Having a long-term girlfriend and then going on a rampage of paying for sex does not make one a rake. It simply makes one sexually active, which we had already known. So by this definition, Anthony is definitely a slut, but I doubt there’s a soul on the internet who hasn’t called him that. And while we can definitely refer to Anthony as a lover of ladies, if we’re going to call him a seducer, we need to be more aware of which type of seducer we ought to call him. A rake—capital or lowercase r aside—just won’t cut it.

The crux of Anthony’s entire love story in season two hinges on his abject fucking refusal to be vulnerable with literally anyone. He lacks the patience and the skill to pretend to be devotedly in love with anyone. How he manages to fool Edwina into thinking he cares about her is a mystery that could rival the Da Vinci Code. (Hint: she’s a teenager, which is why she was fooled.) Throughout the entire series we see him displaying impatience, hot-headedness, stubbornness, and authoritarian tendencies. When Edwina dares to describe him as even-tempered, Daphne laughs at even the implication that Anthony can pretend to be calm. It takes rare moments of genuine affection for Anthony to be truly vulnerable with people.

This isn’t a critique of his character (which is one of the most wonderfully complex ones of the entire show) but simply an analysis of who he is and why the concept of a rake—a person who’s entire seduction modus operandi relies upon false devotion and admiration, ardent love and relentless pursuit, vulnerability and garnering sympathy—simply doesn’t fit Anthony’s character at all.

So if he’s not a rake, then what type of seducer is he?

That Anthony is in fact seductive is beyond dispute. He makes it plain to Kate that he knows what he’s doing.

So with that in mind, I posit that he is not the Rake, but instead The Charismatic.

The Charismatic, as defined by Robert Greene, is described as thus:

Charismatic seducers are inherently exciting because they come across as self sufficient and self driven. They represent the kind of personality that most people want to see themselves as. They might be great orators, public figures, visionaries or leaders. People might look towards them to alleviate their sufferings or to save them. They use their powerful personalities and their way with words to sway emotions and to stir up change. Some charismatic figures are able to seduce by creating contradictions within their personalities e.g. cruelty and kindness, power and vulnerability.

Further reading provides additional clarification:

Confidence, purpose, contentment, sexuality—when someone has an intense aura on the outside but stays rather detached, we can’t help but be smitten.

Sound familiar?

Anthony’s brooding intensity and confidence, strong sense of duty and responsibility all make him into a natural leader. He’s been wearing the mantle of family patriarch long enough now that he’s quite a natural at it. It’s not easy to make a guy like him feel awkward in his skin. He’s driven, he’s focused, and like him or not, he’s in charge. This effect is powerful enough to win over people even when he isn’t trying to seduce them. He terrifies the ever-loving fuck out of his baby brother’s Latin teacher, and it’s hinted that he commands the respect of plenty of other people within his polished and glittering social circle, too.

The Bridgerton family’s power stems from the Viscountcy, a noble title that places them in the fourth of five ranks of the peerage. That’s pretty low on the totem pole compared to a lot of people within the ranks of Mayfair’s elite, and yet the Bridgerton family is prolific, well respected, and enormously powerful. Anthony’s been sitting pretty in that seat for a decade. If he was anything less than excellent at his job, then that status would not have held for long after his father’s death. It’s his intense focus on doing the job right and commanding respect even among the most respected of the Ton that makes Anthony so formidable.

General Vandamme once said this of another Charismatic seducer, Napoleon Bonaparte:

That devil of a man exercises a fascination on me that I cannot explain even to myself, and in such a degree that, though I fear neither God nor devil, when I am in his presence I am ready to tremble like a child, and he could make me go through the eye of a needle to throw myself into the fire.

It is this exact energy in Anthony that draws another fierce seducer into his orbit. Kate is presented as a strong and independent woman who is more or less running the show with regards to her family. She and Anthony spend the entire season taking each other apart piece by piece, but while special attention is paid to the unraveling of Anthony, we still get to see that it’s that exact intensity and confidence that pulls Kate in.

tl,dr: Anthony Bridgerton is not a Rake, but he oozes Charisma.

I also analyzed Benedict and Colin.

#anthony bridgerton #this show is testing me #bridgerton #Capital R Rake #seduction #benedict bridgerton #colin bridgerton #kanthony

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