Anonymous wrote:I realize this is going to enrage the "don't teach me history" people, but I'm just saw the most interesting fact. Apparently an extremely niche historical error in Season 4 is that Benedict is actually swimming a more modern stroke, the front crawl wasn't used in Britain until later in the 1800s, someone in that era would have been swimming breast stroke.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_crawl
https://blog.myswimpro.com/2023/05/30/the-history-of-swimming-strokes/

As someone who learned to swim so young it honestly never even occurred to me that the swimming stroke we sort of consider default is pretty modern. I could have guessed that for something like butterfly but not front crawl.

Crawl is kind of a dumb stroke.

Are there any trailers yet for Part 2?

Anonymous wrote:If they were going to add Charlotte it would have been fun to add the Prince Regent as well. He was so, so messy. Secret illegal marriage, long term feud with his wife, multiple mistresses.

I actually would not be surprised if he did come into the picture in future episodes. I think he already was in some episodes -- when the Queen wanted to play match maker for her sons, right? And in the last episodes, the Queen was obviously depressed because the King is getting much worse, and she was already asking about what happens to her when he dies. I don't really know when in time we are supposed to be...is the Prince Regent supposed to be reigning at this point, already, as Regent? Or is it before that?

Anonymous wrote:I realize this is going to enrage the "don't teach me history" people, but I'm just saw the most interesting fact. Apparently an extremely niche historical error in Season 4 is that Benedict is actually swimming a more modern stroke, the front crawl wasn't used in Britain until later in the 1800s, someone in that era would have been swimming breast stroke.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_crawl
https://blog.myswimpro.com/2023/05/30/the-history-of-swimming-strokes/

As someone who learned to swim so young it honestly never even occurred to me that the swimming stroke we sort of consider default is pretty modern. I could have guessed that for something like butterfly but not front crawl.

I love that! My mom, who learned to swim in the 1930s, actually never really learned the crawl/freestyle. She learned breast stroke and side stroke at the Y. As a result, that's what I learned growing up in the 70s/80s.

Is it true that Kate and Anthony return with their child in Part 2?

I realize this is going to enrage the "don't teach me history" people, but I'm just saw the most interesting fact. Apparently an extremely niche historical error in Season 4 is that Benedict is actually swimming a more modern stroke, the front crawl wasn't used in Britain until later in the 1800s, someone in that era would have been swimming breast stroke.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_crawl
https://blog.myswimpro.com/2023/05/30/the-history-of-swimming-strokes/

As someone who learned to swim so young it honestly never even occurred to me that the swimming stroke we sort of consider default is pretty modern. I could have guessed that for something like butterfly but not front crawl.

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Anonymous wrote:If they were going to add Charlotte it would have been fun to add the Prince Regent as well. He was so, so messy. Secret illegal marriage, long term feud with his wife, multiple mistresses.

Maybe start a new thread.

You know Charlotte wasn't a character in the books, right? She was added for the show.

I don't understand why someone watching a Regency era show wouldn't want to talk about the Regency.

Like... why do you think it's called that?

It is a mystery, isn't it?

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Anonymous wrote:If they were going to add Charlotte it would have been fun to add the Prince Regent as well. He was so, so messy. Secret illegal marriage, long term feud with his wife, multiple mistresses.

Maybe start a new thread.

You know Charlotte wasn't a character in the books, right? She was added for the show.

I don't understand why someone watching a Regency era show wouldn't want to talk about the Regency.

Like... why do you think it's called that?

DP. Maybe become comfortable with talking about the Regency period and its tropes. The Prince Regent would be Queen Charlotte's son.

Anonymous wrote:If they were going to add Charlotte it would have been fun to add the Prince Regent as well. He was so, so messy. Secret illegal marriage, long term feud with his wife, multiple mistresses.

Maybe start a new thread.

If they were going to add Charlotte it would have been fun to add the Prince Regent as well. He was so, so messy. Secret illegal marriage, long term feud with his wife, multiple mistresses.

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Anonymous wrote:Just finished episode 4. Goddamn. This is way better than Season 2 or 3. It might even top Season 1. The scene with Benedict and Sophie in the stairwell was so hot…he licked two of his fingers….omg! I need a cold shower. Of course it was totally ruined with the whole “Be my mistress” line.

Violet was a trip with the whole inviting Lady Danbury’s brother over for tea.

Omg really?? I didn’t get the finger licking at all. If she’s really going to come in 45 seconds or whatever, she’s already lubricated. And if she wasn’t, licking your fingers like that wouldn’t help. He barely moistened them. It was just kind of icky.

Totally disagree. He was making sure he wouldn’t hurt her. He doesn’t know if she’s lubricated enough. Plus she’s a virgin!

See, this is the kind of dialogue I enjoy about Bridgerton. Napoleon—who the heck cares? Talk to me about a man who understands proper lubrication!

To be fair, Bridgerton is about sex, not about history. It is a fantasy. People who are trying to relate it to real history do not get the point of the show.

+1 if you can’t suspend your disbelief, you will hate the show. It isn’t attempting to be historically accurate it’s basically just the aesthetic vibe and mating style of the regency era put into a modern show. You have multiple interracial marriages between nobility in the show, that is already killing the historical accuracy of the show. Just have fun with it.

You have to suspend disbelief but the show does actually assume you have some idea of Regency tropes. What's going on with the king, why does everyone wear high waisted dresses, What's up with the social strata.

They assume you have some base knowledge from watching or reading Jane Austen.

Ok, sure, but the show does not assume knowledge if Admiral Nelson's mistress. Even the costumes are anachronistic -- the queen dresses like Marie Antoinette because it's fun, it has nothing to do with historical accuracy. And they play fast and loose with high society as it suits them, especially on the race stuff. For instance the embrace of the Mondrichs. Which is fun, those are good characters and really charismatic actors. But totally absurd in terms of historical accuracy.

They don't want you thinking too hard about what Regency England was actually like.

Probably not but it's a fun jumping off point, particularly if you read some of the over the top sentimentalist stuff (I took a whole class on it in college).

Pamela, she's a maid whose wealthy employer (Mr. B) wants to make her his mistress (he's really quite terrible) and she holds out, ends up married and joining upper society. And to be clear, this book is ridiculously over the top and moralistic, but it's kind of on point and was written a solid 70 years before Bridgerton takes place. I'm betting the author who wrote Bridgerton had probably read those novels.

Who the hell is Pamela??

Oh come on, I'm barely literate and even I know who Pamela is.

Quit trying to make fetch happen

No one knows or cares about Pamela

Anyone versed in Regency novels would. This is a silly thing to be snippy about.

For those who aren’t versed in Regency novels, who is Pamela? And what does she have to do with Bridgerton?

If you write about the 1960s, you might reference the Beatles, even if not by name. They were a cultural fulcrum. So was Pamela, for this timeframe, as it was written around 50 years before. It is considered perhaps the first English novel, and there were not many then. You know how books and reading are referenced throughout, whether by seeing people reading, or discussing someone's library? Pamela would likely be on those shelves, or in those hands.

It's like mentioning muslin when discussing Bridgerton. Is Bridgerton all about muslin? No, but it is there all around. It's literally woven into the background. No shame for not being familiar with it, but how silly it would be to put on airs over ignorance of it -- or to consider it not at all relevant.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela;_or,_Virtue_Rewarded

^^as you type

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Anonymous wrote:I appreciated the lesson in power imbalance that Benedict got from the cottage caretaker. Curious if they’re going to revisit that so directly again in the rest of the season.

I like Benedict well enough this season, but then that dolt went ahead and pissed me right off. Ooooo, I wanted to throw something at my TV with that mistress line. Make him crawl, Sophie.

It's realistic though, the most she could hope for due to the limitations of class. It was a different time. However, she'd of course be better off with a stable job for life versus a temporarily-more-luxurious mistress position that could end at any moment.

If you go back to the time period, being the mistress of a powerful man could actually be a pretty good power play and set you up pretty well for life. It depended very much on the couple — sometimes it was a true love situation where the man really did want to take care of her for life. Nelson’s mistress “lady hamilton” was born in poverty but did quite well for herself and his dying wish was that she be taken care of.

I’m not sure there was such a thing as a stable job for life in the 18th century — a housekeeper at a manor house is probably the closest you would get, but even that would depend on the family caring enough to provide for you in old age, as you wouldn’t be able to put much by.

Nelson's wishes were ignored and Lady Hamilton and her and Nelson's daughter were left begging. She died at 49 in massive debt. And this was after Nelson died a national hero.

Who is Nelson and who is Lady Hamilton? This is a thread about Bridgerton.

A) You should definitely know who Nelson is (Battle of Trafalgar?). B) Lady Hamilton was a famous mistress who died right around the time Bridgerton is set, so it is relevant for "what kind of life would a mistress in the Regency era have."

DP and I know who Admiral Nelson is but I actually would not expect that to be common knowledge -- he is a famous military leader from the Napoleonic wars, it's not like he was a king or president or something. It would be like expecting someone from France to know who Henry Knox is, which I would not.

NP. I certainly knew of Lord Nelson.

Also I'd never heard of Lady Hamilton before, I'd relegate her to "trivia." Yes, interesting in terms of Bridgerton but you could have nicely provided the background instead of assuming everyone knows about this fairly obscure historical figure you are talking about like she's a Real Housewife.

Ah yes, it is not as if there was a veritable encyclopedia of knowledge at your very fingertips, as you write here. Alas.

We are talking about the TV show Bridgerton. No one wants to look something up in an encyclopedia during a discussion.

Are you not on the internet as you time? Do you need to be introduced to "let me Google that for you?"

Writing the inane complaint takes more clicks than a net search, of course.

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Anonymous wrote:Just finished episode 4. Goddamn. This is way better than Season 2 or 3. It might even top Season 1. The scene with Benedict and Sophie in the stairwell was so hot…he licked two of his fingers….omg! I need a cold shower. Of course it was totally ruined with the whole “Be my mistress” line.

Violet was a trip with the whole inviting Lady Danbury’s brother over for tea.

Omg really?? I didn’t get the finger licking at all. If she’s really going to come in 45 seconds or whatever, she’s already lubricated. And if she wasn’t, licking your fingers like that wouldn’t help. He barely moistened them. It was just kind of icky.

Totally disagree. He was making sure he wouldn’t hurt her. He doesn’t know if she’s lubricated enough. Plus she’s a virgin!

See, this is the kind of dialogue I enjoy about Bridgerton. Napoleon—who the heck cares? Talk to me about a man who understands proper lubrication!

To be fair, Bridgerton is about sex, not about history. It is a fantasy. People who are trying to relate it to real history do not get the point of the show.

+1 if you can’t suspend your disbelief, you will hate the show. It isn’t attempting to be historically accurate it’s basically just the aesthetic vibe and mating style of the regency era put into a modern show. You have multiple interracial marriages between nobility in the show, that is already killing the historical accuracy of the show. Just have fun with it.

You have to suspend disbelief but the show does actually assume you have some idea of Regency tropes. What's going on with the king, why does everyone wear high waisted dresses, What's up with the social strata.

They assume you have some base knowledge from watching or reading Jane Austen.

Ok, sure, but the show does not assume knowledge if Admiral Nelson's mistress. Even the costumes are anachronistic -- the queen dresses like Marie Antoinette because it's fun, it has nothing to do with historical accuracy. And they play fast and loose with high society as it suits them, especially on the race stuff. For instance the embrace of the Mondrichs. Which is fun, those are good characters and really charismatic actors. But totally absurd in terms of historical accuracy.

They don't want you thinking too hard about what Regency England was actually like.

Probably not but it's a fun jumping off point, particularly if you read some of the over the top sentimentalist stuff (I took a whole class on it in college).

Pamela, she's a maid whose wealthy employer (Mr. B) wants to make her his mistress (he's really quite terrible) and she holds out, ends up married and joining upper society. And to be clear, this book is ridiculously over the top and moralistic, but it's kind of on point and was written a solid 70 years before Bridgerton takes place. I'm betting the author who wrote Bridgerton had probably read those novels.

Who the hell is Pamela??

Oh come on, I'm barely literate and even I know who Pamela is.

Quit trying to make fetch happen

No one knows or cares about Pamela

Anyone versed in Regency novels would. This is a silly thing to be snippy about.

It's weird how people are so stubborn about learning a thing or two. I find it a lot of fun to learn about the inspirations behind media.

I’m the first person that brought up lady hamilton and I thought I had actually provided enough historical context, so I apologize if I didn’t. I thought I said she was horatio Nelson’s mistress who came from a poor background but was accepted into society as his long term mistress and did quite well for herself during his lifetime.
I agree if people make historical references it is helpful to provide enough context to know who they are and why they might be relevant to the very loose histroy of Bton.

There are some relevant differences. Nelson was in fact already married and treated his wife terribly after he took up with Lady Hamilton. Lady Hamilton was also married but her husband was weirdly cool with it.