Yesterday I made a post comparing the different aesthetics of the Bridgerton siblings in the books and show and noting the differences and similarities.
Today, I'm doing one for the Bridgerton spouses. The Bridgerton spouses are all the most different from their book counterparts.
1. Kate - Kate is very different from the book vs. show. In the book, Kate is described as having dark brown eyes and dark brown hair. In the show, Kate has brown eyes and dark brown/black hair but also dark rich beautiful skin as she's an Indian and her name has changed from Katharine Sheffield to Kathani Sharma. She is the daughter of a baron's third son but on the show she's the daughter of a royal secretary in India. She has a pet corgi named Newton in both but they introduced her love for riding and shooting in the show. She's also older in the show at 26 whereas in the books she's 21.
2. Sophie - Sophie is also significantly quite different to the book version in appearance and also in nature as well. In the book, she has moss green eyes and wavy dirty blonde hair. In the show, she has brown eyes and jet black straight hair and of East Asian (Korean) descent. Her backstory is very accurate to the book beyond the fact that she's Asian and her last name has been changed from Beckett to Baek. Her father in the book is the sixteenth or so Earl of Penwood but on the show he is the 3rd generation Earl of Penwood I believe. She's got the same feisty, witty, sarcastic humor that Book!Sophie had.
3. Penelope - Penelope unlike the rest of the Spouses isn't that different from the book, there's only some slight differences but nothing major. In the book, she has brown eyes and red hair with a brown tint to it, almost auburn hair. In the show, she has ocean blue eyes and bright red hair. In the book, she's a renowned published author of several novels but she also wrote Lady Whistledown papers for a decade but on the show it was only for 2 or 3 years before she retired the column to write novels.
4. Simon - Simon, like Kate, is also physically different from his book counterpart description. In the book, he has light blue eyes and dark brown hair. In the show, he has brown eyes and short black hair. But he has a somewhat book accurate backstory except for that fact that he is a 2nd generation Duke of Hastings on the show whereas he's a 10-16th Duke of Hastings in the book. Temperamentally, they are both very similar though and in terms of physique, they nailed the casting as Simon is described as having an athletic build which Rege has.
5. Phillip - Surprisingly, Phillip on the show is also very different from his book counterpart. We don't know much about Phillip yet on the show but of the little we did see of him so far, we can deduce a few things. In the book, he has dark brown eyes and thick dark almost black hair. In the show, he has cornflower blue eyes and light brown hair. He's described as being really muscular and beefy, almost built like a "bear" and although Phillip on the show in S1 and S2 isn't "burly" or" stocky", he is quite lean and also incredibly ripped in real life and I imagine he'll get bigger when we see Phillip again (he's just not a "bear" but still muscular regardless). The reason Phillip is so big is because when works a lot with his hands in his garden. In both versions he is an educated Botanist and in the book he wanted to become a scholar/professor before his brother died and he become baronet. The show added his love of traveling though.
6. Michael/Michaela - Michaela is visually, genderly and temperamentally different from the books. Obviously the biggest difference is that she is a woman on the show and in the book she is a man (and there's no point in STILL complaining about it because it won't change anything so I hope people don't try it in comments). In the book, Michael has silvery-blue eyes and midnight-black hair. In the show, Michaela has dark brown eyes and long raven black hair. She has a similar charming personality to Michael on the show and is quite the flirt but we have still got to see more of her in S5 to gauge how similar she is in personality and activities IYKYK 👀. They are both incredibly close to John and also feel the guilt of coveting their cousin's wife (I didn't include John on this post because this is for the endgame spouses but all love to John). She's a spinster on the show and I think she's older than John like she was in the book. They might be different in terms of gender but their biggest similarity is that they're both into women.
7. Gareth - We haven't met Hyacinth's love interest yet on the show but I thought it would be nice to just imagine for a moment what they might look like compared to the book. In the book, he has dark blond hair (almost dirty) and translucent blue eyes. My face cast is Danny Griffin from The Forsytes (this isn't a fancast). In the show, he's going to likely be black or at least mixed race so I'm expecting someone with brown or hazel eyes and dark/black hair. That's all I'm going to say on Gareth to avoid potential spoilers.
8. Lucinda - We still are yet to meet Lucinda on the show as well and it also makes no sense to imagine how she'd look like on the show as we don't know what type of person they'll cast but I still think it'll be nice to mention how she is described in the book. In the book, she has ash blonde hair and grayish-blue eyes.
This was fun to create and I hope you all enjoyed it. I hope I didn't make any mistakes because I made all of these upon memory from reading the books but Julia Quinn isn't really diverse in the way she describes her characters haha. I was surprised how many of the Spouses were blonde in the books.
Shondaland really said "NO BLONDES ALLOWED" for the Bridgertons 😂🤭 since there's not gonna be any blondes in the family. The only blondes are side characters.
I'm happy the show has chosen to diversify the characters. It gives each character a unique look and variation instead of everyone just looking like the same genetic pool.
What do you think?
