Moira Bianchi: Sanditon's final chapter was... I can't even!

Hello.
Yesterday was a very difficult day for me, the 2nd anniversary of my dad's passing. Very, very sad day. When I planned the launching of my new book, a Victorian romance called ALL THOSE DUKES, I hoped to add jolly moments to the date.

"Pense no passado somente se a lembrança lhe trouxer prazer."
pic do kwize

But it didn't work.

I should have dedicated to marketing and all that, but I wallowed in the mire. In a way, I gave myself the opportunity. Grief is not easy to cope, anyway.

Thank God for Austen in the World

usually I write when I get down to, sort of, clean my well of sorrow. Kinda like transforming water into wine.

makeagif

Yesterday, nothing helped... When I emerged from pain, I remembered the time difference between UK and Brazil and was glad for a moment: SANDITON's last chapter was available! Yay!

but, nah...

Yieks, what a bazooka shot!

What was that, Sanditon?

Are you mad?
someone please, send her to Bedlam!

Ok, I get it that, at the end of the day, money is the final goal. Sadly, it is so and I painfully know the need. The writers and producers must have wanted to leave the seed for a second season. But, please, was it necessary to stop in the middle? Where we are, there isn't anything to grasp! It was all hurried, watered, spit as if one can't explain the plot! Oh, I hated it!

pic from twitter - broken heart cookies: was it a PREMONITION?

obs.: some pics came from my phone aimed at the TV, they may be a little blurry... sorry.

Anyway, I am the spoilers' queen, and will babble here. If you haven't watched it yet, you'd better change to one of my free reads or ebooks. All have satisfying happy endings.
Here I come: What killed me wasn't the lack of happy ending for Charlotte & Sidney, even if the sweet loving on TV would have helped me a lot yesterday. What disappointed me was the awful way they stopped it. Paused, really, because since last week a few
clues about a 2nd season started to leak.

I'll start by saying that I did consider the production as an inspiration, a perfume of Austen's novels that I so much admire. Why? Because Sanditon is a very small manuscript, not much to feed an adaptation per se. It basically has the characters' presentations and we know how Jane enjoyed fooling us, giving us wrong first impressions. She made us believe Darcy was a tyrant with a horrible secret to hide when he had just bad blood for Wickham. She also made us think Churchill was a charming gentleman when he was the worst cad vilan despicable man ever. So, she left us too little of Sanditon for us to guess what she was hiding to show later.

That's why I thought the miniseries as an inspiration similar to the ones I love to read and write. I have several self-published and a fresh one for free read here called 9 ways to live Pride and Prejudiciously. I LOVE IT. As you can guess, 9 inspirations in a single story... So, when the TV show first presented a Sidney completely different from the one Austen left us, cheerful and light-hearted to a brooding rude man, I thought: Oh, Well, it must make sense later on.

The show started pretty slow. Beautiful scenes, not much plot. Then we got to the middle and bam! Everything happening at once!

And we had so many nice options!
- Georgiana Lamb and her boy (fuckboy?)
- Esther and Lord Babbington
- Esther & brother Edward & cousin Clara
- Lady D pretending to die/sick and healed
- Burned will of Lady D
- Stringer, the ambicious constructor
- Stringer & Charlotte
- Mary Parker starting to make hubs walk the line
- Tom Parker in debt
- a very modern Doctor
- Charlotte who knew of Clara's improprieties
- Charlotte who worked for Tom
- fatty Parker courting the poor rich girl Georgiana
- Georgiana kidnapped
- Georgiana sold
- Georgiana taken to Gretna Green
- secret reason for Georgiana being Sidney's ward. Her dad save his life, it was said, but how? And why does she hates his guts so much?
- Workers x gents
- Lady Susan, Prince Regent's lover
- the Widow, Sidney's ex
- Sidney with puppy eyes for the widow
- Charlotte falling for the man who treats her like shit

And we arrive at the 6th episode to start to run for the hills! All subplots are either MIA or forgotten. Only the easiest most foul ones last. Oh, I was devasted.

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Georgiana was left out. We found out that her boy was a good guy and a bad gambler. Abolicionist, he talked too much about the rich girl he would marry and when he couldn't pay his debt, sold means to contact her. She was taken by force, then saved; he was fogriven and forgotten.
WAIT!
She was SOLD! A slave's daughter. Threaten of spousal rape after a forced marriage. Damn!!!

And that was all, folks.

the tvdb

Clara found out the brothers were lovers, then the lovers were chaste (what?), then she burned the aunt's will, shagged the Baronet, was discovered and sent away ???
WAIT!
She could at least demand marriage, the guy compromised her twice: once in a crude handjob everyone saw and later on their aunt's house floor.

the tvdb

Comprometimising, btw, is something no one cares about in Sanditon. Charlotte is always alone with a guy or another. Anywhere. Never coiffeured, hair always all over the place, she is a wild beauty heady for an adventure. At the beach, the hills, city walk, indoors, you name it.
WAIT!

No, it was not how it was done!

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Lady's Manual of Etiquette, 1860, has specific instructions to not keep in a gentleman's company alone while travelling, calling on someone, visiting amusement places. Always keep the propriety avoiding contact and responding with civility.

Maria Grace talked to Kim Rendfeld about chaperones in Regency saying that young ladies could never be in a gentleman's company without a chaperone except walking to church or throught the park early morning. One needed to protect her reputation in all costs.

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What about Charlotte? Jeez, hard thing is to find her with a lady friend... Boating with Sidney, in his coach, strolling beside him, at the beach when he was au naturel - ok, that was an accident, but she was on her own.

With Stringer too: visiting his house, his work, strolling...

Ah, but that was a poetic license!...

Fine, I'll give you that. sometimes it's very hard to fit a chaperone in a scene, it kills the rhythm.

But what about the show's final plot?

Can it be ~~excused~~ explained?

gify

step-by-step

-Sidney declares his love for Charlotte saying his truer to himself when with her, and that was why he sent the widow away

-Sidney kisses Charlotte on top of the hill

-Sidney admires Charlotte while she dances with Stringer

-Charlotte sends Stringer away believing Sidney will propose

-Charlotte meets Sidney at the ball room's balcony

-Sidney starts to propose, but Edward the Baronet starts a scandal

-Sidney has to take Edward away so Babbington can propose to Esther

-A fire puts the city in turmoil

chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-

the following day...

chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-

-Tom reveals he owns 80.000 bucks
- Parker brothers swear fidelity (huh?)

-Sidney leaves for London to stay a week in order to find money to save Sanditon and his brother

-Charlotte waits writing to her sister - one that never wrote before

-Sidney returns saying he sold his bachelorhood to the widow, his ex, in exchange for the money to save everything

huh?

Did you get the plate of the truck that ran us over?

At least did you see the coach?

What an horrible solution!!!

There were so many other options to save Sanditon WITHOUT THE NEED TO EXPLAIN/JUSTIFY an understanding between Sidney and his ex besides the obvious unresolved love they shared - that he said was forgotten.

- Miss Lambe, his ward, was worth 100.000;
- Lord Babbington, his friend, Esther's fiancé who was Lady D's heir and so was interested in the city's sucess $$ no;
- Lady Susan with her connections and sudden adoration for Charlotte;
✔ sell his tight body to the pretty widow...

tenor

Of course there was still some lingering tenderness between them, the handsome fuckboy only needed an excuse to act on it. On her, I mean. The worst was what he told Charlotte when they parted. She wished him all the happiness and hoped he could make his bride happy, he said 'yes, I'd better keep my side of the bargain'. Oh... I hated it! To me it sounded as if he was referring to a business transaction, money for love - that has another name, different from marriage. She may be a villain for us, but she's a woman like me and no woman deserves half-a-husband, be half loved. That's wrong!
WAIT:
no one deserves that, nor woman, nor man. If money is the issue, arrange a business deal. Pay for love is something I dislike.

But a profitable marriage is Austen's usual subject, isn't it?
Guess so...
It was what Ms Bingley wanted from Darcy, Mrs. Bennet wanted Lizzy to marry Collins, Charlotte Lucas did marry him for personal gain and that was roughly the same reason why Anne Elliot's dad advised her against Wentworth... Lady Susan spends the whole book scheming for a good marriage. So many characters.
BUT, WAIT A MOMENT:

gify

I don't think that leaving the story in the lurch is a very non-Austen thing to do. She'd tell us what happened afterwards. Specially if there were unhappy marriages....
I read somewhere that all marriages she included in her novels are miserable. The Bennets, the Hursts, Dashwoods, Mansfield Park's gang, Tilneys...
I can only imagine what she'd do with Sidney and his widow bride. He'd turn out fat and drunk all the time to escape her nagging reminding him that he was bought.
She'd show us Stringer living a successful life in London as an architect or big constructor.

Charlotte?...
Don't know... Não sei.
Lady Susan, the instantaneous buff, maybe could chose an advantageous connection, a dashing Lord or landed gentleman.

Oh, what a lovely plot for a new novel! I can even see the first chapter...

How about that?