(I wrote all of this better before, and then DW ate my comment. D:)
I doubt the books will ever go canon with Blake/Avery
I totally agree. I mean, Carter dedicated TSV to her sons. And yet. I read TSV pretty shortly after The Watchmaker of Filigree Street and The Goblin Emperor. The first one has canon m/m and the second has characters who the author has said are romantically interested in the male protagonist although she couldn't figure out how to explicitly work it into the narrative. Despite all that, I got equally strong/stronger m/m vibes from TSV than either of those books. Maybe it's because Carter inadvertently incorporates so many of my favorite fic tropes. Whatever the reason, they are there and I will happily work with them. XD
How on earth is Helen supposed to deal with the fact that her husband is in love with another man, and in denial about it?
And it's deeply unfair because contemporary society offered Avery/men so many more outlets than Helen/women if they found themselves in unhappy marriages, and it makes my teeth grind. I feel like Carter starts to explore this a bit in TDF and I hope any future books will look at it in even more detail. One of the fics I've been picking away at for ages began in part with the question, How does Helen get out of this situation in a way that gives her a happy end? Because she absolutely deserves it.
She didn't even want to leave Calcutta in the first place!
It's not clear she even wanted to go to Calcutta in the first place. One of the things I find really like about Helen is the somewhat mercenary way she racks and stacks her suitors. I find it really admirable. If society is going to make her ability to live comfortably solely dependent on her spouse, then she is going to choose her spouse largely for his ability to provide a comfortable lifestyle, social opprobrium be damned. Because it's absolutely rotten to give her just one way to obtain the life she wants and then criticize her as heartless for pursuing it.
Avery would only end up ruining her life and feeling awful about it, and I don't want that for either of them.
Or worse still, if his infidelity is what effects a reconciliation between him and Helen, which I don't believe is out of the realm of possibility in future books.
I especially like the thought of Collinson marrying Helen to Avery basically as a way to get a far too promising agent (one who was starting to go the Blake route of having far too many independent thoughts of her own) out of the way, and Helen is not (only) bitter over the state of her marriage but also bitter over being basically cast aside.
Particularly in an era when you do start to see women agitating for the social space to have more independent thoughts, as you say. That move would be a Very Collinson Thing To Do.TM
I picture Blake as always having slightly fragile health, but in the first book he seems a lot hardier than he is later.
Yeah, his rookery childhood, then imprisonment, then transportation were probably not a great start to life from an overall health perspective. My headcanon is that India definitely sees him at his healthiest: more physical activity, possibly better food, better air quality, and for at least some of the time, a better mental state. He does seem to go downhill precipitously in later volumes.
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Date: 2021-02-18 03:37 pm (UTC)I doubt the books will ever go canon with Blake/Avery
I totally agree. I mean, Carter dedicated TSV to her sons. And yet. I read TSV pretty shortly after The Watchmaker of Filigree Street and The Goblin Emperor. The first one has canon m/m and the second has characters who the author has said are romantically interested in the male protagonist although she couldn't figure out how to explicitly work it into the narrative. Despite all that, I got equally strong/stronger m/m vibes from TSV than either of those books. Maybe it's because Carter inadvertently incorporates so many of my favorite fic tropes. Whatever the reason, they are there and I will happily work with them. XD
How on earth is Helen supposed to deal with the fact that her husband is in love with another man, and in denial about it?
And it's deeply unfair because contemporary society offered Avery/men so many more outlets than Helen/women if they found themselves in unhappy marriages, and it makes my teeth grind. I feel like Carter starts to explore this a bit in TDF and I hope any future books will look at it in even more detail. One of the fics I've been picking away at for ages began in part with the question, How does Helen get out of this situation in a way that gives her a happy end? Because she absolutely deserves it.
She didn't even want to leave Calcutta in the first place!
It's not clear she even wanted to go to Calcutta in the first place. One of the things I find really like about Helen is the somewhat mercenary way she racks and stacks her suitors. I find it really admirable. If society is going to make her ability to live comfortably solely dependent on her spouse, then she is going to choose her spouse largely for his ability to provide a comfortable lifestyle, social opprobrium be damned. Because it's absolutely rotten to give her just one way to obtain the life she wants and then criticize her as heartless for pursuing it.
Avery would only end up ruining her life and feeling awful about it, and I don't want that for either of them.
Or worse still, if his infidelity is what effects a reconciliation between him and Helen, which I don't believe is out of the realm of possibility in future books.
I especially like the thought of Collinson marrying Helen to Avery basically as a way to get a far too promising agent (one who was starting to go the Blake route of having far too many independent thoughts of her own) out of the way, and Helen is not (only) bitter over the state of her marriage but also bitter over being basically cast aside.
Particularly in an era when you do start to see women agitating for the social space to have more independent thoughts, as you say. That move would be a Very Collinson Thing To Do.TM
I picture Blake as always having slightly fragile health, but in the first book he seems a lot hardier than he is later.
Yeah, his rookery childhood, then imprisonment, then transportation were probably not a great start to life from an overall health perspective. My headcanon is that India definitely sees him at his healthiest: more physical activity, possibly better food, better air quality, and for at least some of the time, a better mental state. He does seem to go downhill precipitously in later volumes.