In Defence of Peter Quint (The Haunting of Bly Manor)

I dunno, maybe this defence / rant isn't necessary on any level but having just finished watching 'The Haunting of Bly Manor' (the non-sequel to 'The Haunting of Hill House') on Netflix with my elder beastie I feel like viewers will probably see the character Peter Quint as a villain... and imho that's a tad unfair. 

WARNING: THIS WILL NOT BE A SPOILER FREE ZONE 

First up is the inevitable context argument. In 1980s Britain domestic violence was barely acknowledged. A man could LEGALLY rape his wife (that was true until Regina v. R (1991)) and date rape wasn't taken seriously either. Workplace sexism and sexual harassment was normalised. Sure, Peter Quint is a bit of a problematic git by modern standards but he's hardly even a blip for his era.
I'm still not even 100% sure if he'd stolen all the money he was accused of - Henry Wingrave was so far out of his gourd who's to say he didn't lose the funds or give Quint the necessary permissions?!

See also: https://www.elle.com/culture/movies-tv/a34348004/haunting-of-bly-manor-oliver-jackson-cohen-interview/

Instead I would argue that Viola Willoughby is the absolute villain of the piece. Not to deny she had a rough go of it but she was a damned nasty piece of work well before she morphed into the monster of the piece:

• Viola sweeps Arthur, the man her sister Perdita is interested in, off his feet; Perdita is then dependent on her brother-in-law and has no other marriage prospects.
• Viola has a child, Isabel, who supplants Perdita in her affections.
• Viola gets sick with (presumably) tuberculosis. She does not respect the enforced separation from her daughter - she's so selfish that she literally doesn't care if Isabel catches her disease.
• Perdita nurses her faithfully but Viola lashes out viciously - fuelled by anger, jealousy, and resentment. Perdita begs Viola to accept her fate, even if only so Isabel may have better memories of her mother. Viola doesn't care.
• Perdita, having borne all these things with good grace, eventually suffocates Viola - she tries to think of it as a mercy but (according to the narrator) she has 'had enough'. Like that isn't valid. Enough of Viola's suffering (having now far outlived all expectations) and enough of her cruelty. Everyone has a limit and that was Perdita's.

By the time Viola finally dies and Arthur marries Perdita it is seemingly too late for Perdita to have children of her own. Isabel resents her for usurping her mother, Arthur has lost the family wealth and treats his wife as something of a consolation prize, so Perdita still has nothing.

This article posits that Viola isn't a real villain but just as trapped as the other spirits:
https://www.oprahmag.com/entertainment/a34225149/haunting-of-bly-manor-lady-in-the-lake/
I disagree. She may not have trapped herself intentionally and she couldn't have foreseen the consequences her refusal to accept her fate would have but there's no denying she caused the whole damn mess through sheer bloody-mindedness! If she had been a kinder person, if she had put her daughter's needs first, if she had considered her sister AT ALL, none of it would have happened.

But this is supposed to be a rant in defence of Peter Quint, right? So let's bring it back to him.

The really unconscionable thing Quint does is kill his lover, Rebecca 'Bex' Jessel. But being me I have a counterpoint to that too.

Okay, I lied about being back to Quint. ANOTHER tangent: when Hannah Grose is coming to terms with the fact she's dead she's working through her emotions by projecting the object of her affections - Owen Sharma - so when he asks her to warn him of the danger it's her own mind telling her to save the man she loves.
So we judge Peter Quint for taking the life of his lover instead of saving her. But Hannah and Peter being very different people doesn't make Quint an  inherently bad guy, just not as good as Hannah. People are varied, not just good and bad. As it is, when the danger is pressing upon them Hannah tells Owen only "they need you at the lake" sending him straight into harm's way with no warning of what lay ahead!

The fact Peter reveals himself as a ghost to Bex should warn her - but somehow it doesn't. Her own reaction is, in my humble opinion, 'off': she should surely want to discover Quint's body and have his name cleared when everyone believes him an absconding thief? Instead she falls in with his plans to find a way for them to stay together forever... for a wannabe barrister she's exceptionally slow on the uptake of what that must inevitably entail. Nor does she seem to be over-burdened with guilt for the 'help' they demand of Miles and Flora, the children she was responsible for.
Yeah, Peter's not a 'good' guy but then Bex wasn't so sweet and innocent... she was totally using the kids as a way to get to Henry Wingrave, using the kids to see Peter - even AFTER he killed her. And lets not forget that she STILL didn't tell him 'no' when she pretended to go along with possessing Flora permanently: Bex was complicit in Peter's attempt to eradicate Miles even as she tried to 'save' Flora.

So let's address THAT. Peter loves Bex. Hannah loves Owen. Hannah wants Owen SAVED. Peter wants Bex dead? Is it really so simple or cruel? I'm not so sure. Peter wanted to be WITH Bex and the only way he could see that happening was if she died too. It's almost the exact same thing as Viola trying to fetch Isabel every night in her madness... and I wonder if that's where he got it from? He's not so far gone as Viola but her loss, her madness infects all the spirits she traps at Bly. The other ghosts aren't hell-bent on dragging their loved ones off to a watery grave because (so it seems) none of them was possessed by that destructive, possessive kind of love in life. Or at least not with the object of that 'affection' within the boundaries.
Perhaps if Perdita's ghost had risen at her death (rather than waiting for Viola's chest to rot down in the lake) she'd have harmed Arthur or Isabel... but I think not. Life had not been kind to Perdita but she was fundamentally an unselfish person: she had stood back to allow Arthur to be happy with Viola; even before her post-death insanity Viola wouldn't step back even for the sake of Isabel's life.
As Viola kept selfishly trying to bring Isabel to her so too did Peter try to keep Bex with him. Perhaps Viola is excused because she was too far gone to realise what she was doing? But I'm still of the mind that he thought Bex realised what the goal was - he didn't tell her the plan and tucked her away in a memory to cause her less fear and suffering, not as a deliberate deception.
But my theory is that, given time, Hannah might have tried to induce Owen - by whatever means she could - to stay at Bly with her. Whether that would be from a normal human fear of loneliness or the warped influence of Viola who could tell? Maybe Hannah loved Owen enough to let him go... but as it turned out he didn't let her go - he took her memory with him. If he'd had the chance I fear he'd have jumped at the chance to stay with her at Bly forever.

As you may know I have been alone just this side of forever. I refer to finding my fictional future spouse as finding a willing victim. Y'all think I'd let a little thing like death get in my way if I finally met the right someone?! "Till death us do part" is kinda short term... So yeah, I'm not gonna condemn Peter Quint for 'keeping' Bex, especially if he thought she was willing.
He was afraid. Lonely, afraid, and desperate. The memory he kept slipping back to, unlike Bex and Hannah's happy moments, was being manipulated by his abusive mother. A damaged man, human enough to make some terrible mistakes, and yet still capable of love.

Did Peter Quint redeem himself? It's a tough one. I believed his apology to Miles was heartfelt but it is it enough to say "I'm sorry I tried to kill you kid"? I'm not sure. But hey, Miles lived and completely forgot his childhood trauma. What kind of 'peace' Quint went to when Viola's spell was broken is, like everything about the hereafter, unknowable.
Did Rebecca Jessel redeem herself? Also kind of tough. She was willing to sacrifice Miles to save Flora. She was willing to suffer Flora's drowning so the child didn't have to. It's not because she's a woman that I find her more problematic than Quint - Quint made a decision to permanently possess the children, a terrible thing to do indeed... but an open and 'honest' decision. Bex, for a grown and supposedly highly educated woman, shows herself to be horribly suggestible at best. It's like she's supposed to be the victim of a manipulative boyfriend and sure, even smart women do stupid shit for men but I'm not buying it.
If she'd CHOSEN to hurt those kids for her own ends I'd understand it more than this... stupidity. I've often said that if I kill someone I want it to be because I MEANT TO. Killing someone by accident or ignorance or neglect or stupidity is, to me somehow worse than deliberate murder because you just didn't care if someone got hurt. If someone kills me I want it to be because they wanted me dead, not because I was convenient, or there.

Viola definitely didn't redeem herself and I'm still baffled by the conclusion... why did she bide her time within Dani? Why did she re-assert herself after such a long time? Is it supposed to be a metaphor for things like HIV that once contracted will get you in the end???
Although Perdita killed Viola she's the one I feel for. She bore her misfortunes with grace and suffered a great deal, getting a raw deal from Arthur, Isabel and Viola. I also felt her ghost was of little significance in the haunting. Rather a sad afterlife.

Pyeongchang 2018: Flying The Flag

I couldn't sleep... Browsing through the BBC News website I stumbled across this story which left a poor impression, so I decided to have a closer look at it in this blog.

"Winter Olympics: Shani Davis says Team USA

have been 'dishonourable' with coin toss"

(http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/winter-olympics/42992814)

Who is Shani Davis?

At the time of writing Shani is a 35 year old black American speedskater noted for being the first black athlete to win a Winter Olympics gold in an individual event. 

He is not unfamiliar with controversy: in 2002 his qualification for the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics was investigated as a team-mate was under suspicion of throwing the race in Davis' favour. Despite being Shani's first Winter Olympics "after the opening day ceremonies, he decided to leave the Games early". Pyeongchang is his fifth Winter Olympic Games, if you count Salt Lake which his Team USA profile does not.

At the Turin 2006 Games he was unfairly vilified in a cock-up over a new team pursuit event. He won a gold and silver at Turin and again at Vancouver in 2010. 

He has also held a number of world records. (sources: Wikipedia. Yeah, yeah, I know but I'm not a student anymore and this is not an academic article. Also, https://www.teamusa.org/us-speedskating/athletes/Shani-Davis)

Who is Erin Hamlin?

Erin is a 31 year old white American luger noted for being the first female American luger to win a Olympic medal and the first American to gain a medal in singles competition - this was a Bronze at the 2014 Sochi games.

The BBC article claims Pyeongchang is her "fifth and final games" having announced her intention to retire. However, her team USA profile confirms it is in fact her fourth. (Sources: Wikipedia and https://www.teamusa.org/usa-luge/athletes/Erin-Hamlin)

What happened?

Shani Davis was one of eight nominees to be flag-bearer for team USA at the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony. The vote was tied between Shani Davis and Erin Hamlin so it was settled (as prearranged) by the toss of a coin - a time-honoured method. Erin Hamlin won. So far, so simple.

In consequence, Davis posted the following tweet:

I am an American and when I won the 1000m in 2010

I became the first American to 2-peat in that event.

@TeamUSA dishonourably tossed a coin to decide its 2018 flag bearer. No problem. I can wait until 2022.

#BlackHistoryMonth2018 #PyeongChang2018

At best it reads as unsporting. Summer Britcher, a 23 year old luger on Team USA responded:

Wow.

Very happy a #soreloser like this is not representing us tomorrow.

Good luck in your events,

good thing character doesn't play a part in your results.

BURN!!!

To succeed in sports requires a fair amount of ego; confidence and self-belief but being a sore loser is very much frowned upon. Being able to deal with the inevitable disappointments is a crucial skill; not celebrating the successes of others is shabby behaviour in a team.

The word 'dishonourably' is confusing. What is dishonourable about a coin-toss? It's settling a tie with a game of chance. Did he think he should have been awarded the honour without being put to a democratic vote with other nominees? I don't know the credentials of the other candidates but Davis and Hamlin are both medallists and veterans of multiple Games. It is a big honour, often reserved for a team member of particular merit but should it come down to how many medals you've previously won, or the colour of them?

And why bring skin colour into it?! His tweet strongly implies he had been passed over for the honour due to race...but if it was a coin toss, how can the decision have been made on racial grounds? It just doesn't make sense to me.

My feeling is that the hashtag was intended to refer to his own place in history as a successful black athlete. But that explanation is kind of clunky. Surely Black History Month is not just an excuse to laud your own achievements? 

If the tweet had been structured differently it could have a different effect. With the hashtag next to his achievement rather than the perceived slight:

@TeamUSA dishonourably tossed a coin to decide its 2018 flag bearer. No problem. I can wait until 2022. #PyeongChang2018

I am an American and when I won the 1000m in 2010

I became the first American to 2-peat in that event. #BlackHistoryMonth2018

Better still would have been to split it as two different tweets; one for his disappointment (which may still have sounded bitter and unsporting) and another for his prior achievements. 

Also, if he had used the undated hashtag (#BlackHistoryMonth) it *might* have read more to do with his achievements and less to do with the current event he was tweeting about. Using the date version it reads far more as "...and this is how black athletes get treated in 2018". Of course, this is very much a matter of interpretation.

My opinion is...

Was the whole mess a matter of bad tweeting? I'd like to think so but I'm really not sure.

There seem to me three basic options: (i) apologise and delete, (ii) clarify what you meant - either acknowledging you phrased it poorly or claiming you've been misinterpreted, (iii) stand by it. What Shani Davis has done (so far, it has been roughly 48 hours at this point) is to lock his twitter account. Emphatically not an apology or a clarification.

The flag-bearer represents the whole nation's team. Davis' tweet reads that he thinks that he's better than the rest. Or at least better than Hamlin...I find myself wondering if 'losing out' to a woman is a factor here too.

At best Davis appears to be a sore loser and a lousy team-mate. At worst he's playing the race card (because there seems no way it can have been a factor) and possibly misogynistic.

Any which way you look at it he's going to find it hard to move on from this. Pissing off your team-mates is one thing, painting yourself as a diva when you rely on media attention and sponsorship deals for your livelihood is another.