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fortunatelylori · 5 years

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Love your analyses. (You are to Sanditon what jbuffyangel was to Arrow.) Question about 1x03, When Sidney asks Charlotte for “feedback,” her first question is why didn’t he help Tom more. When Sidney says it wasn’t fair. he’d done all he could, she says, ”Have you?” Did she inadvertently contribute to the demise of her own relationship? Sidney is a loyal brother, but he’s also already in love with Charlotte and, whether he realizes it or not, wants her approval.

Before we get started on the ask, I would like to thank everyone who has sent me messages or asks over the past few days. I really appreciate your guys’ interest in my blog and Sanditon opinions and it’s immensely satisfying to me to play a part in the growth of the very new Sanditon fandom.

I have many Sanditon related projects in the works at the moment, namely a new fanfic one shot that should be uploaded in the next couple of days, a very exciting meta that I think you’ll all love and I need to get started on my Christmas fic if I am to finish by the middle of December as I have announced. All of that in addition to my and Mrs. @kitten1618x ‘s Sanditioncreative blog which will be hosting the first Sanditon Christmas event this year.

All of this is to say that I might not be answering your questions as quickly as I would otherwise. If that happens, please don’t get discouraged! I will answer ALL asks eventually, whenever I find the time to work on them. To that end, I would also kindly ask all of you to please send your asks solely to my ask me anything inbox because if you send it via replies or private message, they will end up getting lost and I will forget to answer them.

Hope this works for everyone! Let’s get to the ask …

Oh, nonnie … I’m pretty sure you had no idea what you were getting yourself into when you sent this ask but strap in … because the time has finally come to talk about …

Tom THE WORST Parker

Leaving aside the torch and pitchfork party we’ve all thrown for Tom, I do think we should take a moment and give Kris Marshall a shout out for an outstanding job playing this character. Look at the desperation in his eyes, the strained smile, the implied pressure he is applying on his target (Sidney as per 90% of the time). He even does that annoying calling people over with your hand as if they were your dog thing that drives me nuts!

Fortunatelylori: Put the hand away, Tom, unless you want me to cut it off! Arghhh!!!

Now, you might rightly ask why we’re going to talk about Tom when your ask is about Charlotte and how she might have ended up sabotaging herself.

The thing to keep in mind is that Charlotte Heywood is our entry point into Sanditon. We are being introduced to this world and these characters through her eyes. So we are inclined to take her opinion on everything that is occurring as gospel. However, we should remember a few things about Charlotte: despite having excellent instincts and insight into people, she is still very much a young, inexperienced girl who has lived a very sheltered life. In addition to that, she is very kind hearted and a true romantic.

All of that makes her prone to having better opinions of people than she should at times. For example, she thinks Otis is “a good man who made one terrible mistake” because she doesn’t truly grasp the seriousness of his gambling addiction and because she feels that if he truly loves Georgiana then he can’t really be bad.

Her opinion of Tom is similar to that. Tom is, if not a nice man (he isn’t but we’ll get to that), he’s at the very least a pleasant one and that outward ease and friendliness makes her empathize with him.

On the other hand, her major issue with Sidney is her inability to figure him out and his desire to keep people at arm’s length:

Charlotte: You are determined to remain an outlier. God forbid you give something of yourself!

Sidney: Please do not presume to know my mind, Miss Heywood!

Charlotte: How can anyone know your mind? You take great pains to remain unknowable.

Again and again, she reproaches him for not being more involved with Georgiana, for not helping Tom, for trying to separate himself from those around him. And while there is truth to what she’s telling him, it also reveals that Charlotte can be easily taken in by people who display affection and/or involvement towards others, even if the cost of that is very steep.

She judges Sidney harshly for not behaving that way, while allowing Otis and Tom to get away with their bad behavior because they do involve themselves in people’s lives and give “proof” of caring and thus make Charlotte think they are inherently good people. However, what she fails to see is the selfish reasons behind those characters’ actions.

I did reblog a gif set of Charlotte telling Sidney to help Tom more and made the joke that she shot herself in the foot. But that was me joking and noting the dramatic irony that the writing employs.

The serious interpretation of Charlotte’s line isn’t that she unknowingly acted towards the demise of her own love story but rather that she completely misunderstood the dynamic of the Tom/Sidney relationship.

In her mind, it was Sidney who held all the power in his relationship with his brother, as the younger, more handsome, more successful sibling to the put upon and fate tested idealist Tom. As such, Sidney’s “refusal” to help him seemed petty and cruel to sweet angel Charlotte who is utterly fascinated by what Tom is doing in Sanditon

And by and large I think the viewers have also bought into that image of Tom and Sidney.

But I would like to propose a different interpretation:

There is no reason to assume that Sidney wasn’t helping Tom prior to Charlotte calling him on it. Why else would he have dragged Crowe and Babbington to the ball in episode 1? Why else was he getting his liver smashed in, boxing for their entertainment or playing at cards in the hotel restaurant? Why else would Tom talk about Sidney “profiting” from the success of Sandition if Sidney had not already invested in his brother’s project?

The problem isn’t that Sidney isn’t helping him. The problem is that Tom has an endless list of things he needs help with:

Sidney: At least this time I leave knowing you are in good heart. A new physician, a new regatta to plan. All is well with Tom Parker.

Tom: So it would seem … Oh, I say … I’m … I just wonder if while you’re in London you could stop by the bank for me and see if they might consider extending …

First he needs help attracting fashionable people to Sanditon. Sidney provides them. However, as he points out, there isn’t enough entertainment in Sanditon to make it worth their stay. I would suggest that’s Tom’s fault, not Sidney’s.

On that note, remember what Eliza said during the regatta:

Eliza: At the last regatta I attended, they raced Arab stallions. The one before that featured 18 clippers in full sail. But for sheer exhilaration what could compare to a sand castle competition?

Leaving aside that this is Eliza and we all hate her, what does this tell you about Tom and his understanding of his clientele? Because it seems to me he wants Sanditon to be the Regency’s version of Monaco while offering the quaint entertainment of whatever seaside resort your granny goes to.

He then reveals that he has financial troubles and needs money and eventually sends Sidney hat in hand to beg the banks for a loan. Sidney doesn’t want to do it at first because he knows there’s no point to it but because Charlotte made him feel guilty, he relents. The result is what he already knew: no more credit for Tom. This is Tom’s reaction:

Tom: No, no! That is not possible! Clearly you forgot to explain about the regatta. We are soon to be the most popular resort on the South Coast. Did you even mention Dr. Fuchs?

Sidney: Tom, I spoke to 3 different banks, at lenght. Not one of them is willing to extend your credit any further.

Tom: What do you suggest I do now, Sidney? What exactly do I do now?

Look at that violent, desperate reaction! That’s what emotional blackmail looks like. And that, my friends, is abuse. Because in one fell swoop Tom has not only put the blame on Sidney for something that is out of his control (Sidney can’t force the bank to give Tom money) but also put the eventual consequences Tom will face squarely on Sidney’s shoulders.

Also Tom decides to go buy necklaces for his wife instead of paying his workers. When they argue with him at the cricket match, he walks away in a fit, leaving Sidney, and Charlotte, to clean up the mess. It’s also up to Sidney to resolve the workers’ problems by “loaning” Tom the money to pay them. I’ve put loan between “” because one has to be truly naïve to think Tom would have ever paid that loan back.

I would suggest that Tom is an irresponsible, selfish man and a terrible businessman who doesn’t need help. What he needs is a business partner that will control his terrible decision making and handle all of the business aspects of Sanditon while Tom scribbles away at his architecture plans (plans that I suspect were mostly created by James Stringer and that Tom is taking credit for).

And on some level, I think, Sidney knows that as well, which is why he fights Tom’s desire to involve him in the running of Sanditon at every turn:

Sidney: I’m sorry but I have done everything you’ve asked of me, Tom. I’m not your keeper. I will gladly own my mistakes but I cannot own yours.

Oh, you sweet summer child …

I don’t think it’s Sidney’s dream to manage a seaside resort, not is it his responsibility. His brother is an adult who should be held accountable for his own actions. However, at the rate this story is going, running Sanditon while Tom gets all the credit for its success is exactly what Sidney will end up doing.

His reluctance to get more sucked into Tom’s schemes in the beginning, I think, has less to do with Sidney being a bad person or an outlier and more to do with knowing that once he relents, there will be no end to Tom’s demands on him and he will end up being his keeper for all eternity.

Episode 8 also reveals something very interesting about the entire Parker family: they are all enablers of Tom’s bullshit. Arthur is the first to offer up his inheritance on a silver platter, Diana refuses to let him blame himself and Mary is ready with a love declaration the moment Tom shades one crocodile tear.

Despite being the hardest one to crack out of all of them, Sidney is ultimately one more enabler to Tom. He hops on the first carriage to London and gives up his life in order to spare Tom prison time.

From where I’m sitting, the dynamic of these 2 brothers is the complete opposite from what Charlotte estimated. It is Tom that holds all the power and he and Sidney are involved in a toxic relationship that has been going on long before Charlotte ever met either one of them. Perhaps it started the moment Tom paid Sidney’s debts before he sailed to Antigua. Perhaps it started long before that.

However, I don’t think Charlotte’s intervention in episode 3 influenced Sidney’s final decision. What ultimately sealed the deal on that was the emotional blackmail Tom has been inflicting on Sidney for years, Tom’s expectation that everyone in his life do everything to service him and his family’s compliance with those wishes and, not least of it, Sidney’s lack of selflove that allowed him to prioritize his brother’s temporary stint in prison (he could have worked to pay off Tom’s debts over time; there’s no law that says Tom had to be in prison forever) over his own permanent misery.

I’m not sure this was the turn you were expecting my answer to take but I hope you found it useful nonetheless.

#sanditon #sidney parker #tom parker #charlotte heywood #my meta

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