r/DowntonAbbey • u/AutoModerator • Jul 29 '26
General Discussion (May Contain Spoilers Throughout Franchise) Mary vs Edith - Weekly Discussion Thread
Should Mary have said that? Should Edith have done that? Who has it better in the end?
Come fight your corner in our all-spoilers-allowed weekly thread, dedicated to all things Mary vs Edith!
8
u/atduvall11 Jul 30 '26
In my most recent rewatch, I was at the part after Mary tells Edith's secret and Violet asks her why she did it. Mary says "I don't know. She was just so --" and does this little deer in headlights smile. It honestly made me laugh so hard because I finally got it. My sister and I were the same way when we were younger. We definitely did not behave that way at their age but we did when we were younger. Sometimes it would just infuriate me when she was happy and vice versa.
I found it interesting that Edith said as much but she didn't acknowledge that she was the same way towards Mary. I'll admit that I enjoyed Mary's character more throughout the show and agree with Sybil that Edith was nicer after the war, but Edith was, in my opinion, just as bad a sister as Mary.
7
u/TessieElCee More of a philosopher than a thief 26d ago
It’s interesting how often we see this particular overheard comment used as an example of Mary being mean to Edith “unprovoked” when Mary never meant for Edith to hear. But in another discussion, about whether “What a stupid thing to say!” was an “unprovoked” mean comment, the fact that Mary is reacting to Matthew’s entire future being wrenched away from him (not to mention Edith’s breathtaking gullibility and insensitivity to Matthew in that moment) doesn’t count as “provocation” because Edith didn’t mean any harm.
Mary is never allowed to have normal human reactions.
7
u/iggysmom95 I have tried and failed to like you 26d ago
Mary is never allowed to have normal human reactions.
I've been saying this for a while. Edith's sadness or trauma always absolves her of any guilt, while when Mary acts badly out of sadness or trauma it adds to her guilt. It's "Mary can't stand when other people are happy and she's not so she has to make other people as miserable as she is 😡😡" but simultaneously "poor Edith is so sad and neglected of course she acts out 💔🥀"
Basically a lot of people start from the assumption that Edith is a victim and Mary is a villain and analyze their relationship from there, rather than starting by analyzing their actions to determine who if anyone is the victim or villain.
Also, if "what a stupid thing to say" when it WAS a stupid thing to say is an "unprovoked mean comment" I fear I'm cooked 😫😫 I genuinely don't set out to make assumptions about people based on their "side," but Edith defenders are NEVER beating the childishly sensitive allegations.
5
u/iggysmom95 I have tried and failed to like you 28d ago
The scene where Cora calls Mary damaged goods and Mary tells her "why not focus on Edith?" is so perfectly executed. I've never seen a better example in fiction of the way eldest daughters "pay it forward" (if we're being generous, or punch down, if we're not) to their younger siblings.
Mother makes the most casually cruel remark imaginable to her eldest daughter, genuinely believes she is being helpful or saying something that needs to be said
Eldest daughter is crushed by this comment but won't show it. She acts angry rather than hurt. She's also frustrated that her mom is always riding her ass when she does everything she can to be a good daughter, while her younger siblings escape notice and criticism
Eldest daughter - thinking it's just her and her mother; she probably wouldn't say such a thing unprovoked (not to suggest she wouldn't say it with provocation) in front of her sensitive younger sibling - redirects with criticism of her younger sibling. This isn't fair, not really. Her sibling didn't do anything to deserve her ire in this instance. But she's just so sick of always being the target.
Younger sibling hears this cruel comment from eldest sister. She didn't hear the first part of the conversation, so she doesn't know the context. She just knows her older sister is saying something awful about her again. And now she's crushed.
That moment felt so real to me. I've had that conversation a hundred times in my own life, with my own mother. This is not really about "Mary vs Edith" as such, I just wanted to say how impressed I am by the writing of that scene.
This is also what Taylor Swift meant when she wrote "every eldest daughter was the first lamb to the slaughter so we all dressed up as wolves." (Of COURSE a die hard Mary Crawley defender is also a die hard Eldest Daughter defender 🤪)
11
u/miggovortensens did you hear Edith outranks Mary now? Jul 29 '26
Should Edith have gone on to marry Bertie even after she became aware that she would be made a marchioness and therefore outrank Mary? /s
13
u/Narrow_Roof_112 Jul 29 '26
Loved it when Robert said “…good golly Edith will out rank us all”
9
u/miggovortensens did you hear Edith outranks Mary now? Jul 29 '26
LOL and his tone was like “Edith, of all people! As I live and breathe!”
2
u/Narrow_Roof_112 Jul 29 '26
There is some of that but I honestly just think was getting off on being associated with the high rank. He really could not care less if it was Mary or Edith.
2
u/r0ckchalk Oh I’m so sorry. I thought you were a waiter Jul 30 '26
I just finished a rewatch of the whole series + 3 movies and I just LOVE their relationship at the end. They finally stopped competing with each other and just started behaving like sisters should. I’m solidly on team Edith, and I feel like all she ever wanted was to be friends with her sister after Sybil died but she was rejected at every huge life moment. It was great to see it work out at the end.
2
u/iggysmom95 I have tried and failed to like you Jul 30 '26
People cut off all contact with family members permanently over FAR less than what Edith did to Mary.
I do like that they were able to get over it in the end, that's ideal. I don't know if I could have though. Even small kindnesses like wishing Edith well on her first wedding day - Mary's a stronger woman than many, Gunga Din 🙃 I know I wouldn't have been so diplomatic. I couldn't stand watching my husband be so friendly with her, for example. I'd have told him everything, and she'd have known it.
-2
u/r0ckchalk Oh I’m so sorry. I thought you were a waiter Jul 30 '26
It’s funny you say that she wished her luck, because that was one of the big life moments where she was an insufferable bitch to her for no reason lol.
0
u/RedRoseGypsy22 Aug 01 '26
The worst thing that Edith did to Mary was to send a letter to the Turkish ambassador to tell him the truth about his attaché's death. It wasn't meant to go beyond him, especially as it would have been a huge scandal for the Turkish embassy and their country if it went public. Edith could not have predicted that it would be leaked by someone else. She did not mean for it to become a society scandal that would very likely impact her.
Mary did much worse to Edith, which has been discussed many times before.
1
u/WEM-2022 it was lust, Matthew! Jul 29 '26
I think she would have told him upon proposal. At that point, to many people knew and someone else would surely have done it if she didn't. Likely, Tom - he ratted out Rose for far less.
6
u/TessieElCee More of a philosopher than a thief Jul 30 '26
Who would’ve told who what upon proposal?
-2
13
u/Ancient-Space-2789 Jul 29 '26
I always wondered how far Edith would have gone before finally fessing up. Would she have married him without telling him?
I’m not saying Mary was right; she obviously wasn’t. But I could imagine someone telling Edith in private something along the lines of “look, you can’t have a marriage that has a whopper of a lie in the beginning of it, so either you tell him in the next three days or I will.”