HarshBench

So on the topic of whether the baby will be a girl or a boy, I think I prefer a boy because it makes more sense for the narrative of the show. Let's face it, Robert can't help but love his grandchild, Fenian or not. I suspect that barrier will tumble pretty fast. But as a man of his time and class, he'll be more invested in the prospects of a boy than a girl. I really believe he'd be hard-pressed to let his grandson miss out on the chance to go the best schools, etc., especially since he has no son of his own. And I could see this being one area where he and Tom have a meeting of the minds. Tom cares about learning. I imagine he would sacrifice a lot for his kid to have the kind of education and opportunities that he never had. He'd want it for a girl too, of course, but I'm not sure Robert would even offer it for a girl.

confessor_meggy

Welcomeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!! I'm so glad when people join the fandom, spread the S/T love muaahahhahha

also. lately I agree with HarshBench way too much later, I too hope it's a boy!!!!

xiaoyue

Hello everyone What a fine discussion you have going!

I'm not really sure in what capacity Sybil will be working in S3. No matter what happened historically (ie woman getting fired once they were pregnant, low wages and long hours), JF will probably do whatever he wants to suit where he wants to take the characters. After all, there were plenty of historical inacurracies regarding Sybil's nursing in S2, so if he wants to have Sybil working while pregnant and with small children he will find a way to do it, regardless of whether or not it actually happened in 1920.

scarletcourt in regards to your list as to why Sybil married Branson and not some liberal minded aristo or upper middle class guy, I got the impression that part of it is b.c Sybil doesn't really believe in the class system in which she was raised. When Robert told Branson to address Sybil as "Lady Sybil" in ep 8, she called it "nonsense" and I remember hearing (though for the life of me I can't remember where) that JBF once commented that she thinks Sybil feels almost "embarrassed" having been raised in the lifestyle that she was.

Oh, and my vote is for a girl. No real basis for it, I just think she would be totally adorbs.

ScarletCourt

No doubt JF will make it whichever way he wants. lol. After all he figured that Sybil could become a nurse based on the skills she gained as VAD.

You have a point about the "nonsense" line in 2x08. But before that we don't hear her dismissing her class at all. Interesting the JBF comment. I don't recall hearing about it before, but then I'm sure that I've not seen all her interview.

My vote for sex is Boy.

bijou156

My two cents here ....

I vote for the baby to be a boy for the reasons that HarshBench as succinctly and well explained . Let's be honest Robert has being pinning for a boy all his life and feels embarrassed that he couldn't fulfil that duty in that respect. I think a baby boy would be a lovely addition because I envision him be the apple' of his grandparents' eyes since they have always wanted a son and this would the closest they could get right now at this moment to having boy with some Crawley blood. Matthew is a third cousin twice removed (I think?)
It has just occurred to me that Tom may be a bit annoyed that Robert offers to send his son to some private school? I think that Tom would want Robert to promise him that if they have a daughter that she should be given the equal opportunities as her brother, don't you think?

RE: 'Non-sense' line, I roughly remember that article with JBF about Sybil being embarrassed by her class and up-bringind. I think it has being hinted at throughout the show that the class hierarchy is not something Sybil would really value because of the unfairness and the extra limitations it puts on her. Eg. B.c she is a Lady society deemed it inappropriate and unnecessary to send her off to school, and as shown in s1 that fact frustrated Sybil because she may have felt that she had potential for more but wasn't allowed to develop. Another example is all the things Sybil does to help Gwen get her secretary job. I think meeting Tom in s1, could have being like a big eye-opener to Sybil because he ignited her passion for politics and general civil rights and suffragettes. You know when they have that first scene in s1 EP. 4, Sybil is a bit shy at first because she knows that she shouldn't befriending a 'servant in the first place. I think Tom was like a bit of catalyst because after Sybil has more courage and determination to go to great lengths to help Gwen and in the process she befriends Tom and Gwen too. I think Sybil has always seeing people for the person they are rather than the class theare meant to 'belong' to and this expose to befirending them could have made her realise also about the 'non-sense' of hierarchy as it also places limitations on other people befriending her and treating her like a normal human being.

HarshBench

And now I think it will be a girl so Robert can show how enlightened he is becoming....

After wanting a boy and not having one, and losing the heir, they would be pretty excited for one. Half-chauffeur or not.


But who am I kidding? It will be adorable. That is all.

L i N d $ @ y

Welcome to the thread, Nic!

WHAT? They said that? Since when can having a baby or getting pregnant a life-ruiner except when you're 16 y.o.? I think S/T are ready to start a family and they're in-love.

phillips32

About Sybil and work, I think she loved working in general and nursing in particular. She seemed to find identity as a nurse and was eventually acknowledged as the family medical expert, probably a first for little sister. Sybil seemed proud to wear the uniform and broke it out immediately when the dreadful Spanish flu took hold. So I vote definitely Sybil would be working as a nurse in Dublin. Just as she announced to her shocked family in the drawing room when laying out her plan.

There’s not much mystery to how Sybil felt about the aristocracy. She said often and consistently since mid series 1 that she considered it b.s. and that she found its restraints on her personal life and career choices as unacceptable. She also said consistently that she loved and respected her parents so she’s hesitant to outright call them useless ciphers. But she has no intention of living like they have.

Both Mary and Edith feel the same way to some degree, but neither has the moral center that Sybil has to do something about it. Mary’s too greedy by her own admission and Edith is too underconfident.

There’s discussion upthread about Sybil’s possible “use” of Tom as a ticket to freedom. On the bonus feature in the series 2 DVD Sybil’s creator pretty much clears this up for us. Fellows says it “suits her” to make a lifechoice that is outside her family’s comfort zone and that definitely part of her attraction to Branson is as both a statement of rebellion and a ticket out. So it’s not surprising that when she finally agrees to run off with Branson the three little words JF wrote her are “fetch me matches” not “ILY”.

This doesn’t mean she didn’t love him. She definitely wanted him to stay at DA and jumped to cut off any indication he might leave or be fired. And she did wear out that rut between the Abbey and the garage in series 2. But hers was not the head over heels at first sight version of love that Branson obviously felt for her. Understandable since she was so young and inexperienced. Have we ever heard her say “ILY”?

Regarding the Bransons ,birth control and Sybil’s pregnancy. In general, birth control was a major no-no to Irish Catholics. However, independent Tom probably wouldn't have been too constrained by that if he wanted to practice birth control. Tom probably just doesn’t much care and is mainly interested in making up for all the lost time of the last few years. He’s totally willing to risk repeated exposure and is probably fine with a pregnancy if it happens, and in fact is probably overjoyed by it..

Sybil, on the other hand, would surprise and disappoint me greatly if she doesn’t have at least a few moments of panic and uncertainty about it. This girl has lived a whirlwind of upheaval and change in the last year. She’s learning a new country, a new lifestyle, and a new world as a wife. Now she’s pregnant and don’t get me started on the impending war breaking out around her.

It’s true she sought all this change out, and it doesn’t mean she doesn’t love her new life and want the child. But if series 3 Sybil is all happy and blissfully content I’m going to think Valuim was invented way earlier than I thought. And that one of the Bransons is indeed high on the deathlist. It’s soap opera law. Anytime a couple is blindly happy in spite of all hell around them, one of them is about to develop an inoperable brain tumor.

ScarletCourt

Thank you for saying it much more succinctly than I had been able to. I agree with you wholeheartedly.

Do you have examples of this? Sorry, but I'm obviously at a loss about where "she's said often and consistently since mid series 1 that she considered it b.s." She enjoyed helping people such as Gwen and she went to hear the Liberal speaker, but I didn't hear her say that the aristocracy was b.s.? (Perhaps it's because it didn't hit me like a sledge hammer. )

This is how I see it as well. Though between 2x08 and the C/S, I think Mary's confidence took a beating, too.

I'll have to take a look at the bonus feature on S2 DVD.

I've not heard anyone say those three little words. I think also, Sybil was brought up not to show her feelings as per their discussion in 2x05 where Sybil asked Branson to take her to the hospital.

But Sybil might be more of an advocate of BC and Tom would follow her lead. ICA that he would be OK if Sybil got pregnant right away and be happy about it.

Well, if there was no bc easily and affordably available, and Sybil knew that going in I can see that Sybil would have accepted the concept of pregnancy earlier and be less panicked than if she thought she could get away with not using bc (i.e. It can't happen to me syndrome that younger people have.) and not getting pregnant. After all, back then, once you married, it was a matter of when the children come not if.

I don't know about that. JF isn't a killer. I watched his Titanic recently, and of all the people we met, aside from the real life deaths that he couldn't avoid, he killed way less than a disaster of Titanic proportions (pun intended) should have.

confessor_meggy

On the first point, Tom definetely fell for her way faster than she did, but my opinion is that she didn't quite care for love at all before meeting him. Being younger than Edith and Mary allowed her to concentrate on different goals,politics-women's rights-the war, and she never seemed that interested in the other sex, probably because for aristocracy marriage and love usually didn't come together. If she'd never fell for Tom, I think she would have been satisfied with staying alone and live only to change the world. Then she met this man, when she was still very young, so she had to face the "love side of life". She understood pretty soon that he was attached to her(she pretty much said so during his declaration in 2x01) but probably she still considered marriage as a bug at that point in her life, so I think that at least until his "pushy" comments in 2x04 she didn't consider all the marriage/love stuff.

Second, since series3 will start when she's about 5-6 months pregnant, we won't see all the first pregnancy freaks out, which I believe both her and Tom had, but as the birth approches I believe some of it will surface...thankfully, and hopefully, she won't have only her husband when this happens, but likely her mother and sisters

Patano

The reason for the ticket line was that Sybil's choice was not about realizing her feelings for Tom, but about whether she would be able to act on them. Her feelings were something that was known to them both, some sort of an unvoiced shared understanding. What needed to be settled was what her final decision would be. "Fetch me the matches" - here she got a bit carried away by the fact that she was FINALLY ready to leave this old life behind and that her internal struggle was over (so she forgot for a moment that she in fact doesn't want to cut herself from her family forever). Look how thrilled and relieved she looks like here. Sybil loves Tom as much as he loves her, it's just until she made her decision she could not express her feelings openly. I don't think that she fell in love later than him (well, maybe not at first sight ,) but she needed more time than him to realize it (due to her age and the danger loving a servant entails), but I think she knew about her feelings by the time s2 started. She just needed time to be sure that such a relationship would work out, and by that time she also needed to hide her feelings. I've elaborated more on "the Sybil-Tom" situation before her acceptance, including the reasons for her hiding her feelings, and why each of them behaved differenly in eps 1-7 of s2 in this post . BTW, Sybil DID express her feelings for Tom many times before 2x07, just not in an open and direct manner. And from 2x07 onwards in an open manner (she said she gave him her her heart, after all). And Tom didn't say ILY either (and e.g. M/M as well).

There's also another JF quote: "Being a nurse and just getting on with it is the bridge between her dreaming of Branson and actually being able to act on it.” It stresses that she needed this experience as a nurse to see that she's capable of living outside the aristocratic world, to deal with household tasks, with the '"real world" in order to be ready to attain her dream of Tom. She was also perhaps afraid to make a decision during the chaos of war. It is why it took her so long to accept him. She needed to be sure that the lifestyle he offers her would suit her because she loves him truly, not just treat him as an infatuation; she wanted to be 100% that she would be able to do it, she wanted to grow up a little. She was aware that it was a decision for years and that if she does not adapt to the common life succesfuly, both she and her husband would be unhappy. She did not choose Tom because of rebellion; we saw how she struggled with abadoning her family. If she only wanted freedom she could have married a liberally minded upper class man (as ScarletCourt has mentioned). This would not involve following a guy, who's additionally her daddy's former servant, to a country that is hostile towards people like her. I think it's the other way round - love opened her eyes to the fact that she can leave the world she was brought up in. She just needed time to summon the courage to do it. Love, in fact, made her think about and question what she wants from life.

I also think that you misinterpreted the JF line on the DVD - I think he just meant that because Sybil has a rebellious mind, she could pursue her dream of Tom because in their situation love was not enough, there was also a need for something else - a conviction that she can be happy living in an environment completely different from the one she was brought up in, that she is able to lead a different lifestyle. But she would not have needed this conviction and growing up to be able to leave Downton if she did not love Tom. She would probably still do everything in her power to support various causes and try to find a liberally minded husband, but she would not turn her life upside down in such a way if she had not met and fallen in love with Tom.

Fellowes treated their love as an obvious thing for the viewers (perhaps forgot that not everyone can read subtlety, subtext and body language as well as view the situation through non-modern lens). He, at the same time, tried to stress what made Sybil's choice different from the disastrous, impulsive choices made by infatuated girls. He also wanted to stress what made Sybil different from such girls - her rebellious mind, being ready to abandon the aristocratic world. Her choice is not only a choice of a romantic partner, but also a choice of a totally new lifestyle. This does not make her love any less deep - it is actually a proof that she's truly in love and wants to spend her whole life with this man, at the same time feeling good in the lifestyle he offers her.

Edit:
There's also this old interview with JBF, in which she mentions Sybil's concerns connected with following her heart. It was published at the period when first s2 episodes were running in Britain, and Sybil's love for Tom is clearly treated here as an obvious thing, not a spoiler. The only uncertainty mentioned here is her decision about abandoning her world, so it is why in 2x07 we have the tickets and matches lines, and not an ILY. If she had not fallen in love in the first place, she would not have faced such a dilemma.

baileycat

I'm all for the baby being a boy. I'd love to see Robert's inner struggle with having a grandson that has his own blood mixed with someone who in his mind is below his class. The optimist in me thinks his heart will melt and begin to accept that it really doesn't matter. Family is family and you'll love them no matter what. Season 3 looks to be a very interesting time for Lord Grantham.

DiamondDreaming

Thanks for the welcomes !

I totally agree with your interpretation of JF's comments, thats exactly how I took what he was saying . I totally believe that her decision to leave Downton only goes to prove how sure she is of being with Tom.

I'm pretty sure that love wasn't a big issue for Sybil in S1 - she is only young & her parents are busy trying to find suitable partners for her older sisters. I think that by the time Tom gave his big declaration in 201 she had feelings for him, but probably hadn't even processed them properly & this makes her do so (I wonder how much the poor girl thought about what he'd said and what it could mean about her own feelings when she was at nursing college.)

Jess herself has said on the same S2 DVD featurette that JF made his comment about Sybil's choice on that she didn't herself read into Sybil and Tom's relationship as romantic in S1... And I think it could well have been the same for Sybil herself, simply happy to have a connection and friendship with someone with similar interests/ so easy to talk to without even thinking of relationships. But by 201, after the big time jump between seasons, I think she has developed deeper feelings.

As for the gender of the baby... I'm thinking boy, but a girl would be interesting too!

HarshBench

I do think the show could have done a much better job of showing us that Sybil was in love but scared to act on it. It would have been so easy. How about a reaction shot of her finding out that he'd been called up? Or (God forbid) how about she actually kissed him in 2.05 but was so overwhelmed by the physical connection that she tore herself away and ran off in confusion? Why did they not give the audience SOMETHING?

And BTW it's true that no one on this show says ILY. Not Robert, not Matthew, not Mary. So when people latch onto that I call BS.

Patano

DiamondDreaming mentioned a very important thing in her post – we missed 2 (actually even more than 2) VERY important years in S/T relationship. At the end of S/T their relationship was on both sides at a level of young love/infatuation, and I suppose that they didn’t think about any possible future together (certainly not Sybil, Tom perhaps, but I don’t know whether he found it REALLY attainable then). During these two years the young/love infatuation turned into mature love and in 2x01 we find them facing a question whether there is any future possible for them. To compare, during these two years M/M were apart and A/B were on a standby (are we to believe they didn’t even kiss?).

It’s hard to me to believe JBF here seeing how she keeps eyeing him in s1 .

I suppose that such an additional shot in 2x03 would take some time away from M/M or some other of Fellowes’ favourites. And as for 2x05, one of the S/T themes in 2x05 was hiding feelings, and I think Sybil realized at that time that bottling them up might actually lead to an opposite effect and she might lose control one day. It was one of the reasons why in 2x06 she was more relaxed and less on-guard, and asked him directly and openly to wait a bit longer. Would kissing him have had the same effect? I suppose yes. So maybe Fellowes wanted to stress how much she does not want to enter into any sort of affair? Or he didn’t want to make their first kiss a result of a momentary weakness? Or he just wanted to tease the viewers, simple as that?. I’m actually glad – I can easily imagine people saying that Sybil would have been pressured into the kiss even if it was SHE who was staring at his mouth and moving towards him, and the poor guy just stood, kept hands in his pockets and waited for what she would do.

Not to mention that exchanging longing looks is Fellowes' favourite romantic device (not some ILYs ) and we had that in abundance .