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tremendoussaladtyrant · 4 years ago

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Thank god, someone needed to say this. May I just add that, although it has no relation to the plot, her incessant singing drove me up the walls...

Why I hate Grace.

I was giving my thoughts on Peaky Blinders a few weeks ago and I danced around the subject of my dislike for this character but didn’t have time/room to get it all out. So here it is! Grace fans, you probably want to look away now. So to me, Grace is kind of symbolic of the bad writing on Peaky Blinders, which is especially egregious because usually the writing of the show is good. But right off the bat, her arrival creates a number of plotholes that don’t resonate with Tommy’s character. Just for a start, nobody seems to find it suspicious that an apparently attractive woman (seriously, people go on and on about how pretty Grace is and while it’s not as though she’s ugly at all, you can’t help but wonder if the Peaky boys merely think so because she’s the only woman of significance not related to them) is so determined to be a barmaid in The Garrison, where Tommy, upon seeing her, immediately asks her if she’s a whore. Grace is understandably offended by the question, which again makes you wonder why she’d want to work somewhere where such a question isn’t just an assumption, but the first thing Tommy asks - we know she’s a spy, but the other characters don’t.

Then, Tommy corners Grace and starts asking why she keeps being so nosy about the Blinders and their business. They go for a walk and Tommy asks Grace if she’s a Catholic. She says she is, but when Tommy points out that no good Catholic girl would walk into a church without making the cross, he immediately exposes her as a liar and points out he also knows that she lied to him about what town she was from, because he asked around and nobody had ever heard of her. So what does he do? He…promotes her to being his secretary? What?

Okay, so you might argue that Tommy puts her in said position to keep an eye on her, or thinks she might be useful if she has the balls to lie to him, but she tells such an easy-to-unravel lie and her excuse is because she wants to “fit in”. Again, he lets her off the hook but she covers up a lie with an even more obvious one - if Grace cared about fitting in, she’d make more of an effort to do so, but she keeps demanding Tommy let her sing in the pub and asks questions above her station to Arthur, which got reported back to Tommy. Sure, it’s her job to spy on the Peaky boys, but she’s so transparent about it that it’s honestly ridiculous that Tommy would ever put her in a position that close to his personal affairs. Not to mention, Grace is so inexplicably haughty towards Tommy, telling him, “You disappoint me” when he kisses her. You’d think if she was good at her job, she’d learn to shut her mouth and keep her head down like a decent spy, but she always acts as if she’s better than Tommy because, like Polly points out, she’s a spoiled little rich girl at heart and she does think herself above the Shelby’s.

Then Tommy completely inexplicably chooses to give Grace a fucking gun and tells her some men are going to come in and try to kill him and he’s relying on her to bail him out. I know the cops were meant to come in at the stroke of six and they fuck up, but WHY would you ever place that level of trust in someone you already know is a liar? Sorry, but I just don’t buy that Tommy was blinded by “love”. I can buy that maybe he was curious about Grace, possibly even fancied her a bit, but definitely not so stupid that he thinks it’s a good idea to put his fucking life in the hands of a woman he knows basically nothing about. She could have fallen out of the sky for all he knows. Tommy even continues to trust Grace after she kills an IRA guy right in front of him because she sobs, “I didn’t know I had it in me like that”, yet she disobeyed his instructions and whenever Arthur or John do that, Tommy gives them a bollocking. He lets Grace off, again, for seemingly no reason other than she played the damsel in distress role and he buys it. This doesn’t make Tommy look like a smart man blinded by love, it just makes him look like an idiot around Grace.

Also, there seems to be an uncomfortable level in Tommy/Grace of Tommy getting a kick out of using Grace to piss Campbell off. It’s pretty obvious Campbell has a creepy crush on her, and Tommy exploits that for all it’s worth when he explicitly rings Campbell to inform him that he’s going to bang Grace. (Incidentally, their sex scene made me go, “Oh, I guess they’re gonna fuck now. Yup.” It was like they did it because the screenwriter said so.) He’s basically cucking Campbell and I think it’s a big reason why even Grace fans admit that she’s “not as good” in Season Two - Grace just doesn’t work without Campbell around. At least in Season One you can argue that every shitty thing Grace does to Tommy/the Peaky Blinders is partly because of her job as a spy and Campbell is her boss. In Season Two, there are no excuses for the way Grace acts. She’s a selfish, self-righteous hypocrite. She jumps at the chance to go to Birmingham on the offchance it was Tommy who called, then acts all offended when he assumes she came to sleep with him, to the point she actually smacks him in the face. What does Tommy do about this? Nothing. When Grace complains they could have run away to New York together, all Tommy says is, “I had things to do”, instead of asking Grace why she thinks he’d abandon his family, business, friends and country all to chase after the woman who sold him out to his worst enemy. Grace honestly expected Tommy to put her first after everything she did to him. I won’t act like Tommy is a saint in this - he did nearly pimp her out to Billy Kimber - but at least he acknowledges it was wrong of him to do and he never acts like he occupies any moral highground like Grace does. When Grace admits she sold Tommy out, she sobs she “did a terrible thing,” yet never tries to actually help him out in a way that would put her at risk - she quit her position, sure, but Campbell’s creepiness had gone so far as to propose marriage to her, Grace was still looking out for herself when she left, because it got her away from Campbell. She asked Campbell to spare him, knowing full well that Campbell has wanted Tommy dead since day one. She plays the damsel in distress again and she’s pissed when Tommy doesn’t fall for it a second time. Then when she talks about her husband, she tries to rub it in Tommy’s face how he’s “a good, kind man”, but then quickly backtracks on that to fuck Tommy anyway because her husband is impotent - and Grace just can’t deal with not getting what she wants. Tommy’s rich enough to afford to buy a house for Ada and Polly by this point, he’s running Birmingham and seeking to expand into London, so Grace pulls the oldest trick in the book and gets pregnant - then Tommy has to do the responsible thing and marry her, because the baby is his and it’s literally the only piece of leverage she has over May. (May even points out that she’s been stringing Tommy along and all Grace can do is throw the fact that ��Grace’s Secret” is the horse’s name at her. Again though, did Tommy call it that to piss off Campbell? This was before Grace returned to Small Heath but after Campbell had, so I think yes.)

Then in Season Three, again, Grace is pretty much a pointless character, because she has no purpose anymore outside of being “Tommy’s wife”. Campbell is dead and so the conflict of her character in Season One, as contrived as that was, is gone. People complain about Grace being stuffed into a fridge and whatnot, (and tbh, you could say that about Freddie, but Freddie also served his purpose in Season One after he buried the hatchet with Tommy), but honestly I think that it was all they could think to do with her because Charlotte Riley was unable to pick up her role as May for Season Three, so they had to work around it. It’s the only explanation I can think of about why Grace is just such a blatantly awful person in the Second Season - I’ve heard people say before that Tommy leaving the field after his assassination was prevented would have been the perfect ending to the season, but that scene at the end where he returns to The Garrison and announces he’s getting married seemed really hastily tacked-on - I feel like it was added because they were forced to rewrite the drafts for Season Three and put whatever plans for May they had on the shelf. Not to mention, Grace’s actress Annabelle Wallis has apparently stated she hates May because she’s “annoying” and “gets inbetween Tommy and Grace”. No, Grace got in the way of Tommy and Grace - she’s the one who chose to leave Birmingham after she got exposed as a Mole instead of taking the consequences! And also, how is May the annoying one? At least she doesn’t whisper all her lines. It’s just so immature of the actress to bash on the character and encourage ship wars, especially considering Grace comes out the winner of the love triangle, so what’s the bitterness about? (I’ve not heard what her opinion is on Lizzie, but I doubt it’s as hostile, because it’s made obvious in the show that Tommy doesn’t love Lizzie the same and the poor girl is constantly competing with a dead woman for her husband’s love.) Plus, in Season Three, the wedding is all about not upsetting Grace, Tommy’s family have to play nice with Grace’s family, and Polly is once again the only person who knocks Grace’s smug ass down a peg by reminding her that the family haven’t forgiven or forgotten Grace’s crimes against them - the only reason they’re putting up a pretence of tolerating her is for Tommy’s sake. Not hers. Not everybody in the world wants to accommodate Grace. Killing Grace was honestly the highlight of the entire Season, because I couldn’t stand watching her smirking over how she got everything she wanted when she didn’t pay for any of it. (Polly is also the only one who comments on how Tommy has conveniently forgotten all the shit she pulled on him and Tommy acts like she was a totally innocent bystander when she got killed and it’s like, no, Tommy, baby. Grace knew what she was getting into when she married him and he knew that - it’s pretty much common knowledge that everybody who is even tangentially associated with the Peaky Blinders gets hurt eventually, just look at how Ada was nearly gangraped even though she hadn’t been involved with the family business for two years.)

Come Season Four and Five and there’s already a problem here - there is still more to talk about with Grace, even though she’s dead and Tommy spends most of Season Three rampaging over her death. But he just inexplicably won’t let go of her. And again, this doesn’t come across as Tommy being so in love with Grace he can’t fathom a world without her, it comes off like her actress has dirt on the director or something. He constantly hallucinates the bitch, we hear her singing all the time, it’s kind of implied that Tommy prefers Charles over Ruby because Charles a boy and has a saintly dead mummy while Ruby is the daughter of a former whore (not that Tommy doesn’t love Ruby, obviously, because he absolutely does), and what really annoys me about Tommy hallucinating Grace is that she’s the only character he does this with. He doesn’t dream about Greta, his first love, he doesn’t dream of Danny or Freddie or his mother. He doesn’t even fucking dream about John! Remember John, Tommy’s little brother he knew his entire life? Apparently nobody else does! No, it’s always all about Grace, who keeps helpfully telling Tommy to hurry up and kill himself so he can be with her again. This doesn’t seem like an out-of-character, guilt-induced vision - it mimicks her attitude in Season Two, that nothing else in his life can be as important as she is.

And that’s why I hate Grace. (Please don’t send me rude or hateful messages over this post, it’s just my opinion and it’s pretty much irrelevant anyway since I doubt Stephen Knight is going to stop using Grace up as some kind of martyred dead saint anytime soon. I just wanted to get this rant out of my system.)

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tremendoussaladtyrant · 4 years ago

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240 Words to Describe Someone’s Tone/Voice

Abrasive - showing little concern for the feelings of others; harsh

Absurd - wildly unreasonable, illogical, or inappropriate

Accusatory - suggesting someone has done something wrong, complaining

Acerbic - sharp and forthright

Acidic - harsh or critical

Admiring - approving; think highly of; respectful; praising

Aggressive - hostile; determined; forceful; argumentative

Aggrieved - angry and sad because you think you have been unfairly treated

Airy - giving an impression of being unconcerned or not serious

Ambivalent - having mixed feelings; uncertain; in a dilemma; undecided

Amused - pleasantly; entertain or divert in an enjoyable or cheerful manner

Angry - incensed or enraged; threatening or menacing

Animated - full of life or excitement; lively; spirited; impassioned; vibrant

Anxious - typically with a feeling of unease

Apathetic - showing little interest; lacking concern; indifferent; unemotional

Apologetic - full of regret; repentant; remorseful; acknowledging failure

Appreciative - grateful; thankful; showing pleasure; enthusiastic

Ardent - enthusiastic; passionate

Arrogant - pompous; disdainful; overbearing; condescending; vain; scoffing

Assertive - self-confident; strong-willed; authoritative; insistent

Authoritative - commanding and self-confident

Awestruck - amazed, filled with wonder/awe; reverential

Barbed - deliberately hurtful

Barking - utter a command or question abruptly or aggressively

Belligerent - hostile; aggressive; combatant

Benevolent - sympathetic; tolerant; generous; caring; well meaning

Bitter - angry; acrimonious; antagonistic; spiteful; nasty

Blasé - unimpressed or indifferent to something because one has experienced or seen it so often before

Bleak - without hope or encouragement; depressing; dreary

Bombastic - high-sounding but with little meaning; inflated

Booming - loud, deep, and resonant

Bored - to tire or make weary by being dull, repetitious, or uninteresting

Brash - self-assertive in a rude, noisy, or overbearing way

Braying - speak or laugh loudly and harshly

Breathy - producing or causing an audible sound of breathing, often related to physical exertion or strong feelings

Breezy - appearing relaxed, informal, and cheerily brisk

Brittle - lacking warmth, sensitivity, or compassion; aloof

Bubbly - full of cheerful high spirits

Burbling - speak in an unintelligible or silly way, typically at unnecessary length

Callous - cruel disregard; unfeeling; uncaring; indifferent; ruthless

Candid - truthful, straightforward; honest; unreserved

Caustic - making biting, corrosive comments; critical

Cautionary - gives warning; raises awareness; reminding

Celebratory - praising; pay tribute to; glorify; honour

Chatty - informal; lively; conversational; familiar

Cheery - happy and optimistic

Childish - silly and immature

Chirping - say something in a lively and cheerful way

Clipped - speech that is fast, that uses short sounds and few words, and that is often unfriendly or rude

Cloying - disgust or sicken (someone) with an excess of sweetness, richness, or sentiment

Coarse - rude, crude, or vulgar

Colloquial - familiar; everyday language; informal; colloquial; casual

Comic - humorous; witty; entertaining; diverting

Compassionate - sympathetic; empathetic; warm-hearted; tolerant; kind

Complex - having many varying characteristics; complicated

Compliant - agree or obey rules; acquiescent; flexible; submissive

Concerned - worried; anxious; apprehensive

Conciliatory - intended to placate or pacify; appeasing

Condescending - stooping to the level of one’s inferiors; patronising

Confused - unable to think clearly; bewildered; vague

Contemptuous - showing contempt; scornful; insolent; mocking

Crisp - briskly decisive and matter-of-fact, without hesitation or unnecessary detail

Critical - finding fault; disapproving; scathing; criticizing

Croaking - a characteristic deep hoarse sound

Cruel - causing pain and suffering; unkind; spiteful; severe

Curious - wanting to find out more; inquisitive; questioning

Curt - rudely brief

Cynical - scornful of motives/virtues of others; mocking; sneering

Defensive - defending a position; shielding; guarding; watchful

Defiant - obstinate; argumentative; defiant; contentious

Demeaning - disrespectful; undignified

Depressing - sad, melancholic; discouraging; pessimistic

Derisive - snide; sarcastic; mocking; dismissive; scornful

Detached - aloof; objective; unfeeling; distant

Dignified - serious; respectful; formal; proper

Diplomatic - tactful; subtle; sensitive; thoughtful

Disapproving - displeased; critical; condemnatory

Disheartening - discouraging; demoralising; undermining; depressing

Disparaging - dismissive; critical; scornful

Direct - straightforward; honest

Disappointed - discouraged; unhappy because something has gone wrong

Discordant - harsh and jarring because of a lack of harmony

Dispassionate - impartial; indifferent; unsentimental; cold; unsympathetic

Dispirited - having lost enthusiasm and hope; disheartened

Distressing - heart-breaking; sad; troubling

Docile - compliant; submissive; deferential; accommodating

Drawling - speak in a slow, lazy way with prolonged vowel sounds

Dulcet - sweet and soothing

Dull - lacking interest or excitement

Earnest - showing deep sincerity or feeling; serious

Egotistical - self-absorbed; selfish; conceited; boastful

Empathetic - understanding; kind; sensitive

Encouraging - optimistic; supportive

Enthusiastic - excited; energetic

Evasive - ambiguous; cryptic; unclear

Excited - emotionally aroused; stirred

Facetious - inappropriate; flippant

Farcical - ludicrous; absurd; mocking; humorous and highly improbable

Feathery - extremely light and soft or delicate

Flippant - superficial; glib; shallow; thoughtless; frivolous

Forceful - powerful; energetic; confident; assertive

Formal - respectful; stilted; factual; following accepted styles/rules

Frank - honest; direct; plain; matter-of-fact

Fretful - expressing distress or irritation

Frustrated - annoyed; discouraged

Gentle - kind; considerate; mild; soft

Ghoulish - delighting in the revolting or the loathsome

Glum - dejected; morose

Goofy - foolish; harmlessly eccentric

Grating - harsh and unpleasant

Gravelly - deep and rough-sounding

Grim - serious; gloomy; depressing; lacking humour;macabre

Growling - low grating voice, typically in a threatening manner

Gruff - rough and low in pitch

Gullible - naive; innocent; ignorant

Guttural - produced in the throat; harsh-sounding

Hard - unfeeling; hard-hearted; unyielding

Harsh - cruel or severe

Hearty - loudly vigorous and cheerful

Hoarse - sounding rough and harsh, typically as the result of a sore throat or of shouting

Honeyed - soothing, soft, and intended to please or flatter

Humble - deferential; modest

Humorous - amusing; entertaining; playful

Husky - sounding low-pitched and slightly hoarse

Hypercritical - unreasonably critical; hair splitting; nitpicking

Impartial - unbiased; neutral; objective

Impassioned - filled with emotion; ardent

Imploring - pleading; begging

Impressionable - trusting; child-like

Inane - silly; foolish; stupid; nonsensical

Incensed - enraged

Incredulous - disbelieving; unconvinced; questioning; suspicious

Indifferent - having no particular interest or sympathy; unconcerned

Indignant - annoyed; angry; dissatisfied

Informative - instructive; factual; educational

Insinuating - suggest or hint in an indirect and unpleasant way

Inspirational - encouraging; reassuring

Intense - earnest; passionate; concentrated; deeply felt

Intimate - familiar; informal; confidential; confessional

Ironic - the opposite of what is meant

Irreverent - lacking respect for things that are generally taken seriously

Jaded - bored; having had too much of the same thing; lack enthusiasm

Joyful - positive; optimistic; cheerful; elated

Jubilant - expressing great happiness and triumph

Judgmental - critical; finding fault; disparaging

Laudatory - praising; recommending

Lifeless - lacking vigor, vitality, or excitement

Light-Hearted - carefree; relaxed; chatty; humorous

Lively - full of life and energy; active and outgoing

Loving - affectionate; showing intense, deep concern

Macabre - gruesome; horrifying; frightening

Malicious - desiring to harm others or to see others suffer; ill-willed; spiteful

Matter-of-fact - unemotional and practical

Mean-Spirited - inconsiderate; unsympathetic

Mellifluous - sweet or musical; pleasant to hear

Melodious - pleasant-sounding

Mocking - scornful; ridiculing; making fun of someone

Monotonous - lacking in variation in tone or pitch

Mourning - grieving; lamenting; woeful

Muffled - not loud because of being obstructed in some way; muted

Naive - innocent; unsophisticated; immature

Narcissistic - self-admiring; selfish; boastful; self-pitying

Nasty - unpleasant; unkind; disagreeable; abusive

Negative - unhappy, pessimistic

Nonchalant - casually calm and relaxed; not displaying anxiety, interest, or enthusiasm

Nostalgic - thinking about the past; wishing for something from the past

Objective - without prejudice; without discrimination; fair; based on fact

Obsequious - overly obedient and/or submissive; fawning; grovelling

Oily - unpleasantly smooth and ingratiating

Optimistic - hopeful; cheerful

Outraged - angered and resentful; furious; extremely angered

Outspoken - frank; candid; spoken without reserv

Pathetic - expressing pity, sympathy, tenderness

Patronizing - condescending; scornful; pompous

Pensive - reflective; introspective; philosophical; contemplative

Persuasive - convincing; eloquent; influential; plausible

Pessimistic - seeing the negative side of things

Philosophical - theoretical; analytical; rational; logical

Piping - high-pitched.

Playful - full of fun and good spirits; humorous; jesting

Pragmatic - realistic; sensible

Pretentious - affected; artificial; grandiose; rhetorical; flashy

Quavering - shake or tremble in speaking, typically through nervousness or emotion

Querulous - complaining in a petulant or whining manner

Rasping - harsh-sounding and unpleasant; grating

Reedy - high and thin in tone

Refined - elegant; cultured

Regretful - apologetic; remorseful

Resentful - aggrieved; offended; displeased; bitter

Resigned - accepting; unhappy

Restrained - controlled; quiet; unemotional

Reverent - showing deep respect and esteem

Righteous - morally right and just; guiltless; pious; god-fearing

Robust - strong and healthy; vigorous

Saccharine - excessively sweet or sentimental

Satirical - making fun to show a weakness; ridiculing; derisive

Sarcastic - scornful; mocking; ridiculing

Scathing - critical; stinging; unsparing; harsh

Scornful - expressing contempt or derision; scathing; dismissive

Scratchy - rough; grating

Sensationalist - provocative; inaccurate; distasteful

Sentimental - thinking about feelings, especially when remembering the past

Shrill - high-pitched and piercing

Silvery - gentle, clear, and melodious

Sincere - honest; truthful; earnest

Skeptical - disbelieving; unconvinced; doubting

Smarmy - excessively or unctuously flattering; ingratiating; servile

Smoky - a raspy, coarse and tone of quality that is deeper than usual

Snide - derogatory or mocking in an indirect way

Solemn - not funny; in earnest; serious

Somber - oppressively solemn or sober in mood; grave

Sonorous - imposingly deep and full

Sour - resentment, disappointment, or anger

Steely - coldly determined; hard

Strident - loud and harsh; grating

Stony - not having or showing feeling or sympathy

Suave - charming, confident, and elegant

Subjective - prejudiced; biased

Submissive - compliant; passive; accommodating; obedient

Sulking - bad-tempered; grumpy; resentful; sullen

Surly - bad-tempered and unfriendly

Sympathetic - compassionate; understanding of how someone feels

Thoughtful - reflective; serious; absorbed

Throaty - deep and rasping

Tolerant - open-minded; charitable; patient; sympathetic; lenient

Tragic - disastrous; calamitous

Tremulous - shaking or quivering slightly

Unassuming - modest; self-effacing; restrained

Unctuous - excessive piousness or moralistic fervor, especially in an affected manner; excessively smooth, suave, or smug

Uneasy - worried; uncomfortable; edgy; nervous

Urgent - insistent; saying something must be done soon

Velvety - soft; smooth

Vindictive - vengeful; spiteful; bitter; unforgiving

Virtuous - lawful; righteous; moral; upstanding

Whimsical - quaint; playful; mischievous; offbeat

Witty - clever; quick-witted; entertaining

Wonder - awe-struck; admiring; fascinating

World-Weary - bored; cynical; tired

Worried - anxious; stressed; fearful

Wretched - miserable; despairing; sorrowful; distressed

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