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I posted a brief essay on the Bridgerton-related FB group that I'm on, about why a lot of Bridgerton book series fans love Michael so much, and why they're disappointed in the switch from Michael to Michaela.
Simon not telling Daphne that he doesn't in fact want kids. Anthony putting his mouth on Kate's breast to suck the bee sting out. Benedict trying to leverage Sophie into being his mistress. Colin and Gareth both get passes - they kind of know they want the girl, but they also deliberately choose to seduce their lady of choice, who hasn't any sexual experience. Philip is emotionally out of control while Eloise is staying under his roof, and Gregory refuses to believe that Lucy is marrying someone else of her own accord.
Michael...someone pointed out that he threatened to sleep with her as many time as it took to get her pregnant and get her to marry him, but that was once he and Francesca are in a sexual relationship, when she's still emotionally hesitant over him.
(I have an issue with the poster who pointed this out; something about the way they approach commenting is just abrasive and aggressive, and even when I agree, I don't like the way they phrase or argue their point. I've blocked them, just so I don't have to put up with seeing them.)
But, yes. There was discussion! Conversation! Some agreement, some disagreement. More people who wanted Eloise to have the lesbian relationship, a couple of Cressida-stans (the mean girl). A bunch of people arguing Why You Are Wrong About This (including the poster I blocked) and others arguing back at them!
It's...nostalgic. Bringing new angles to fandom. Discussions. The kinds of things that we lost when fandom moved away from LJ. I mean, FB is not the best place to have this discussion, maybe, but also...I do very much miss those conversations, which I simply can't have with people anymore.
I need new Bridgerton icons, dammit. Especially since they've now cast Sophie. East Asian FTW!
A thought on why so many Michael fans are disappointed in the genderswitch to Michaela: and it doesn't have to do with it turning into a lesbian relationship.It got...quite a lot of attention. In part because I wasn't against it because it's a lesbian relationship, just because it occurred to me that Michael was most definitely a series favourite and parsing out why. And, frankly, many of the other guys in the series are...not always the best on the consent front.
Michael is one of the very few men in the Bridgerton-verse who practices consent. According to the books, Michael is in love with Fran from the moment he meets her at her wedding to John. Over the next two years of John and Francesca's marriage, he continues to be in love with Frannie. John doesn't know. Francesca doesn't know. Nobody does. He never gives the slightest hint that he's crazily in love with her. Not an inkling.
Michael doesn't use the force of his feelings as an excuse to grumble about 'the friendzone', or to inappropriately declare his love for her. He keeps it to himself, and is a faithful and caring friend to both of them. And it's only when he returns to London and starts interacting with the widowed Francesca who's looking to find herself a husband so she can have a baby that he starts acting on his feelings in any way that could be construed beyond friendship.
This is rare.
Like, super rare - not just in romance but across the board in all romance-related genres. The hero is a guy who doesn't push his feelings onto the woman he's in love with, but still has her fall in love with him. In a genre known colloquially as "bodice rippers", a guy who passionately adores a woman yet practices consent and boundaries is a bloody unicorn!
"But that perfectly allows for a genderswitched version of Michael..."
Well, no. The point is that a man - the gender that is taught, trained, showed, podcasted, informed, and allowed to throw all their feelings onto the object of their desire (have you ever noticed that it's the *object* of desire, not the *subject* of desire, hm?) - chooses to treat the *subject* of his desire as a person, with every right to reject him or think he's nuts or slowly step away from him.
That's the point. Turning Michael into Michaela...pretty much smashed that angle flat.
It's an unusual depiction for a male, and very bitterly needed in our societal stories amidst all the alphahole males and dumbarse incels-who-get-the-girl-simply-because-he-wants-her!
Personally, I'd have gone the lesbian relationship for Hyacinth, who's clearly intrigued and interested in the world and its horizons, unabashed and unashamed. And a genderswapped Gareth ("Gwen", perhaps), whose father is deeply disppointed that the estate will devolve to his daughter (she thinks) only to realise that his disappointment is because [SPOILERS] she's not actually his daughter at all[/SPOILERS], and flouts the expectations of her social status/association with Hyacinth.
Simon not telling Daphne that he doesn't in fact want kids. Anthony putting his mouth on Kate's breast to suck the bee sting out. Benedict trying to leverage Sophie into being his mistress. Colin and Gareth both get passes - they kind of know they want the girl, but they also deliberately choose to seduce their lady of choice, who hasn't any sexual experience. Philip is emotionally out of control while Eloise is staying under his roof, and Gregory refuses to believe that Lucy is marrying someone else of her own accord.
Michael...someone pointed out that he threatened to sleep with her as many time as it took to get her pregnant and get her to marry him, but that was once he and Francesca are in a sexual relationship, when she's still emotionally hesitant over him.
(I have an issue with the poster who pointed this out; something about the way they approach commenting is just abrasive and aggressive, and even when I agree, I don't like the way they phrase or argue their point. I've blocked them, just so I don't have to put up with seeing them.)
But, yes. There was discussion! Conversation! Some agreement, some disagreement. More people who wanted Eloise to have the lesbian relationship, a couple of Cressida-stans (the mean girl). A bunch of people arguing Why You Are Wrong About This (including the poster I blocked) and others arguing back at them!
It's...nostalgic. Bringing new angles to fandom. Discussions. The kinds of things that we lost when fandom moved away from LJ. I mean, FB is not the best place to have this discussion, maybe, but also...I do very much miss those conversations, which I simply can't have with people anymore.
I need new Bridgerton icons, dammit. Especially since they've now cast Sophie. East Asian FTW!