Benedict Bridgerton's Blind Spots

Your Honour, my Client, Mr Benedict Bridgerton, is a good man, but his upbringing has left him rather an idiot.

This is not to suggest that Mr Bridgerton is a bad person, but merely that the extreme privilege of his lifestyle has left him with some exceedingly large blind spots.

Upper Class Society is a platform that frees and traps in equal measure, and those who inhabit it cannot help but suffer from a degree of affluenza, blinding them and shielding them to the realities of the world. Additionally, Mr Bridgerton is rather adept at panicking when confronted with emotional intimacy, and shooting himself in the foot.

I am not defending Benedict's offer to make Sophie his Mistress in any way shape or form, but if you look at the narrative, it makes sense to him, even as it is an offer Sophie could never accept, and the most hurtful thing he could say to her.

Benedict's flaws are impulse and inability to commit, because he has never needed to. He's always been able to chase his latest dream, without ever having to worry about what he might do when he catches up to that dream.

From the first scenes of the Season, Benedict is struggling. He was always the spare in case Anthony died, but he never really learned anything about being Viscount, because everyone except Anthony predicted he'd live a long life and have heirs. He's never had to worry about investments, or dealing with tenants, or running the household. His role until now has been to focus on his hobbies, and have the occasional witty one liner.

But now, Anthony and Kate are in India, and Benedict is dealing with it the same way Anthony initially did, but spending as little time at home as possible, pursuing external pleasures where he can.

This is not the picture of a man in control of his life and decisions; it's a man desperately trying to find meaning in a world that sees the Second Bridgerton Son, rather than Benedict.

All the people Benedict has loved before the Lady In Silver and Sophie, he's loved in the shadows.

Geneveive, that model from the Royal School of Art, Lady Tilly Arnold... all secret assignations, casual and discreet, people to indulge with at clubs and perhaps invite home for the night, but never to be paraded proudly on his arm. The closest he came was in introducing Lady Arnold to his mother, but the moment she hinted at being after a more serious relationship, rather than the Beneficial Friends casual one they'd enjoyed previously, he fled into the night.

Because, as Lord Kilmartin and Mr Mondrich point out in episode 4, that is the way of the upper class: if you cannot love who you marry, you can at least have a mistress to give your heart to.

Anthony was a prime example of this. He kept a Mistress, but out of sight, where his family could pretend she didn't exist. While he tried to give his lover up for the sake of his family, in the end, Sienna left him becase she was tired of his wavering, not because Anthony was bored of her.

Even Lord Tuss, probably Benedict's best friend and fellow Confirmed Bachelor, is blissfully delighted that the woman he loves returns his affections and has agreed to become his Mistress. Victoria the Actress is accompanying him to parties, dressed in fine clothing, and they clearly adore each other. She shows no regret that her Lordly Lover can never marry her.

This is Benedict's mindset, when he meets Sophie on the stairs: She can have all that, if she is his mistress. The life of luxury that he longs to give her, the ability to spend time together without scrutiny. She can live at My Cottage, away from prying eyes of London Mamas. Sophie liked it there, and the Crabtrees liked her. This is the way Benedict can give her everything he would give a wife.

(Other than the Lady In Silver) What could be more perfect?

This is, of course, a very Masculine perspective.

Benedict can spend his days flitting between beds, because he is a man. Benedict can have money and property that he owns, because he is a man. Benedict can remain unmarried and face few if any social repercussions, because he is a man. Benedict can take a temporary lover, or even a Mistress, and no one will bat an eye, because he is a man in a regency fantasy rom-com, where not even skin colour affects a man's ability to do whatever he wants.

At the same time, the double standard for women has been a recurring theme throughout the first half of the Season.

Penelope refuses to print a scandalous story, because to write about a Lady having an affair would ruin any chance said Lady's daughters have of marrying. Violet is cautious about starting a relationship with Lord Anderson because she worries about the effect on her unmarried children and their prospects. There are multiple instances of maids who can't just thump their handsy employers or houseguests for being overly-familiar. Lady Araminta Penwood made Sophie unemployable by calling her 'troublesome'.

Mrs Crabtree has to beat Benedict over the head with the fact that it doesn't matter what his intentions are; he brought Sophie with him with the promise of employment, and its that promise that keeps Sophie at My Cottage during Benedict's recovery. If he tries to start anything, will Sophie feel safe, or even able, to say 'no, thank you'?

His word got her hired at Bridgerton house, too. If the affair is ever discovered, it won't be Benedict who suffers for having seduced a maid, other than yet another dose of his mother's Disappointment. They'll just dismiss Sophie without a reference and with nowhere else to go.

Of course, the very solution that Benedict sees as the perfect solution to all of his problems is the very thing that Sophie fears most.

She's the illegitimate daughter of a man who loved her enough to call her his ward and raise her as if she were... but who she could never publically call her Papa, and whose death left her abandoned and destitute. She's the daughter of a woman who was never her father's wife, and who died birthing her, or shortly after.

(Do I think Lady Araminta was telling the truth about Lord Penwood not providing for Sophie? Not for a second. Did that matter in the grand scheme of things? No.)

Becoming a mistress would trap Sophie in a hanging cage, but rather than being able to rely on herself and her own hard work, the suspension would be at a man's whim. No, it does not matter that the man in question is Benedict Bridgerton, who she knows to be kind and who she is in love with. It still places her life and wellbeing on a man's whim, and the higher he raises her up, the farther she has to fall.

Being a mistress to one of the Gentry means that she can no longer associate with people like the Crabtrees, or Alfie and Irma, or Hazel, or Rose, or Mrs Wilson. But nor would she be able to rub elbows with people like Eloise or Hyacinth, because Mistresses are not people that the Quality associate with publically.

From Sophie's perspective, Benedict is asking her to commit to a life of having no friends or social interaction outside of him, whether he realises it or not.

Maybe he'll remember her in his Will when he dies, maybe he won't. She doesn't know if she'll have any support if he eventually meets and marries a more suitable lady, or if their children will ever be acknowledged, much less given an education or any means to be more than servants.

For Sophie, the only certain things about becoming a Mistress is isolation, eventual poverty and uncertainty.

Even for Benedict, she can't accept that.

If you're craving something to read before Part 2 comes to our screens, go enjoy some of my original writing and Jane Austen fanfiction.

Or find me on Archive Of Our Own for some Bridgerton Fanfic.