#thobm rebecca

[dcvina-claires]

i love when a character is a ghost but in a tragic way instead of a scary way. i love when a character has been dead from the beginning but is still holding on to stay in the narrative. i love when a character could choose to resent the living but ends up loving them instead. i love when a character drives the story but isn’t quite there enough to be at the center of it. i love when the ghosts are the protectors instead of the ones causing the harm. i love when a character is at the heart of the story because depending on where you began it, no matter how you told it, the story is about the ghost who struggled to keep their humanity

[grvstnaya-svka]

No one knows I’m an absolute whore for Carla Gugino

[hauntedbythenarrative]

[writing-on-a-moonflower]

Jamie, staring at Dani: She could fix me.

Rebecca: Aren't you supposed to want to fix her?

Jamie: No she's perfect. I, on the other hand, am a mess and she could fix me.

[lesbianlotties]

actually i think my favorite part of the haunting of bly manor is when flora tells rebecca "no, it isn't fucking splendid!"

[tvandenneagram]

The Haunting of Bly Manor: Rebecca Jessel - Type 3w4

Rebecca is ambitious, caring and charming. Rebecca has high aspirations of becoming a barrister, however in her relationship with Peter she somewhat loses her identity.

At her best, Rebecca cares about Miles and Flora and tries her best to keep them safe. Rebecca always tries her best at her job, and cares about doing the right thing. She is also very considerate of other people’s feelings and puts their feelings above her own, as we see with Flora at the end of the series.

At her worst, Rebecca loses her ambitions and her sense of identity while in her relationship with Peter. Rebecca becomes more apathetic and less decisive (disintegrating to 9).

Rebecca was a bit hard to type as she has elements of both 1 and 2. I think her wanting to earn her place the right way and her wanting to do the right thing by Flora is consistent with 1. I also think she is very caring and self sacrificing for the Wingrave children, which was a bit like a 2. However, I think her actual motivations are consistent with wanting to be successful, which is more in line with a type 3.

When we are first introduced to Rebecca, she is having her interview with Henry for the job of au pair. Peter points out that Rebecca has a stain on her blouse that Henry is bound to notice. Yet, Rebecca doesn't seem to care about this faux pas as she knows she will be able to charm her way out of it. 3s are usually able to adapt to situations and spin negatives into positives, which Rebecca successfully did.

Rebecca had lofty ambitions of wanting to be a barrister. Rebecca mentions to Peter about wanting to achieve it on her own and not wanting to let old men ‘look up her skirt' which I think implies she wants to earn her place as a barrister. Rebecca chooses to work for the Wingraves with the endgame of having Henry sponsor her pupillage, so she can achieve her goals. I think this is very indicative of her character and motivations.

Rebecca is reluctant to start a relationship with Peter because she wants to focus on her job and isn't sure how he will affect her goals. Once she does enter into a relationship with Peter, she begins neglecting her job and losing sight of her goals. Finally, after Peter goes missing. Rebecca seems to lose all ambitions and focus entirely on Peter, to the disdain of those around her.

Rebecca shows her wing 4 as she is more introspective and reserved than a 3w2 would be.

Tri-type: 3w4 - 1w2 - 6w5

Some quotes to describe Rebecca's motivations

“I need a pupilage. Three other women from my year managed to get one and all left within the first year. A sea of old men trying to run a hand up your skirt everyday for six months, while you try to persuade them your brain isn’t between your legs.”

“What is it? Afraid I’ll hit you? What? You don’t think you deserve it. Because you do, Peter.”

“You won’t feel it, okay? I’ll feel it for you. I’ll just tuck you away one last time. Go ahead, love. Let me handle this part. Let me in. Let me in.” 

“I want to be a barrister. Not a solicitor. A proper barrister, like Mr. Wingrave.”

“Well, I’m not practically perfect, but I am, perfectly splendid.”

Hannah [About Rebecca]: “Rebecca. Rebecca Jessel. Oh my God, it’s been almost a year. A year focused on the wrong person. Wherever she is, she’s still worth ten of that man - I won’t say his name. She was brilliant. She was beautiful. And she was punished for it. I don’t know why brilliant young women are always punished.”

[polarizedark]

flora & Rebecca <3

[uisceb]

Netflix: So...you’re making a horror show, right? This is gonna terrify the shit out of people. Right?

Mike Flanagan: Lesbians!

Netflix: Okay, but is it going to be scary--

Mike Flanagan: Lesbians!!!! 💕💘💖

Flower shop lesbians!

Horror lesbians!

Punk lesbians!

Pastel lesbians!

Gonna stab you to death with a poker lesbians!

Punk gf stopping her pastel gf from committing accidental murder lesbians!

I just saw the ghost of my dead ex while trying to make out with you and now it’s super awkward lesbians!

Crime solving lesbians!

Accepting that your gf will eventually succumb to the swamp lady living inside her and loving her anyway lesbians!

Domestic lesbians!

Vermont civil union lesbians!

Everlasting love lesbians!

Bittersweet ending lesbians!

Carla Gugino!

Netflix: Okay, but other than the lesbians, is there gonna be anything--

Mike Flanagan:

This!

She!!!

THEY!!!

Bebezz!!

Netflix: ......

Mike Flanagan: ...But yes, also there will be ghosts.

Netflix: *heavy sigh*

[napoleon-usher]

BLY MANOR APPRECIATION WEEK ↳ Day Seven: Free Choice → Jamie and Peter as narrative foils of each other

[taliasburns]

Rebecca and Dani protecting Flora

[bellaedythe]

some thoughts about bly manor that i havent seen other people express yet (big spoilers)

1. Dani isn’t just haunted by her fiance, she’s haunted by what he represented. When she sees him it tends to be in mirrors, so he’s stood with her like some perverse image of heterosexuality. He tends to touch her in a sexual/romantic way which she’s clearly uncomfortable with. He is both literally the spectre of her dead fiance and a metaphor for compulsory heterosexuality.

1b. see also: dani seeing him while literally trapped in a closet against her will.

2. The last episode is 100% a metaphor for being in a relationship where one partner has a chronic/terminal illness. This includes chronic mental illness (the suicidal ideation is not there by accident). Theres a lot of subtext about feeling like a burden on your partner, being scared to put them through the trauma of your illness and being scared theyll leave you when youre too much trouble. These ideas are brought up earlier in the series when discussing Owen’s mother’s dementia (and i could make a whole other rant about Jamie’s character development in this regard).

3. Preface: I dont like peter he’s an abusive arsehole and controlling freak. BUT I think this dislike is making people less likely to examine Peter’s motivations and the character’s themes. I think he represents one of the show’s central themes about the cyclical nature of abuse; how abused people often take out their abuse on others, therefore creating more abused people. 

We know peter was abused by his father (probably sexually abused if the comments about ‘other boys’ and ‘innocence’ and his mother knowing are read into) so it’s interesting to me that his actions towards Miles and Flora could be seen as him grooming them by taking over their bodies without their consent. They both seem to know to keep their interactions with him a secret, he promises them rewards for their compliance and when they complain that he ‘tucks them away’ without their consent he acts contrite and promises not to do it again. Peter embodies the cycle of abuse, grooming the children the way he himself was likely groomed. I am not in any way excusing his actions, just saying its interesting. 

4. Linked to the above point: the cyclical nature of the lady in the lake (how she walks the same path each time, how her years trapped in the trunk were a repeating cycle) parallels the cycle of abuse and this is totally intentional. Viola started this cycle of pain, abuse and death through her unwillingness for her loved ones to watch her die. She and Perdita murder each other, another strange cycle of violence, and the ghosts created by the cyclical violence are trapped in her “gravity” and unable to leave (aka unable to leave the cycle of abuse). The cycle will keep on going forever until it is stopped actively, just like real cycles of abuse.

4b. Dani stops the cycle (both the cycle of abuse and the lady in the lake) through a totally selfless act of love. this makes me cry bc she’s so good, she didnt deserve any of this.

5. Peter and Rebecca’s “love” is intentionally compared to Dani and Jamie’s. Dani and Jamie discuss how “love is not about possession”. Peter LITERALLY possesses Rebecca so he can force her to stay with him forever. Jamie knows that Dani will have to leave someday and cherishes every minute, Peter murders Rebecca to prevent her from leaving. Poetic Cinema.

6. everyone has said this but its worth noting. I’m crying. I’m fucking crying. everything about this show is so good I havent even delved into half the shit i could wtf

[inadequate-nefelibata]

“I don’t know why so many people mix up love and possession.” - Jamie, THE HAUNTING OF BLY MANOR (2020) (part 2)

Happy 1st year anniversaty to the first gifsets I ever made!!!

[hauntedbythenarrative]

The haunting of bly manor (2020), dir. by Mike Flanagan

Love Poem for Bathsheba, Dorothea Lasky//Home, Warsan Shire//E.E. Scott//Selected poems, Leonard Cohen//Blue nights, Joan Didion//Mexican gothic

[writing-on-a-moonflower]

Dani: I think I'm in love with Jamie.

Rebecca: Jamie?

Dani: Yes. Thoughts?

Rebecca: And prayers. Holy shit.

[a-stone-in-flight]

the haunting of bly manor + textposts 3/?

[scre6m]

TAHIRAH SHARIF as Rebecca Jessel THE HAUNTING OF BLY MANOR | The Two Faces, Part One