- A Little Princess, chapter 4
In this episode, we meet Lavinia's parents... but nothing seems to go right for Lavinia.
You can obtain this episode from your standard anime torrent indexing sites.
I would like to ask the people who have watched this episode some open questions.
- Something happened to Lavinia in this episode. Was it appropriate? If not, was there a better way to deal with this? (Please keep in mind that this is the late 19th-century we are talking about, so a lot of what we have today didn't exist back then.)
- How complicit are Jessie and Gertrude?
- Did Miss Minchin have the correct attitude in this episode?
- How complicit are the other students, excluding Ermengarde and Lottie?
- Knowing Sara's character and personality, did you expect Sara's actions in this episode?
1. i think Lavinia deserved what she got! her attitude towards Sara, Lottie, and Ermengarde were just wrong, making such a request is very insulting, i think it was the first step of Sara Standing up for herself.
ReplyDelete2. I'll come back to this one when i can think of a good answer
3. Ms Minchin seemed to have the right attitude letting Sara make her decision to do it or not.
4. Same as #2
5. Sara's actions seems to be typical, i mean after hearing about her father's death and the failure of the diamond mine. she was able to keep her head up through hardships and the teasing from Lavinia, Gertrude, and Jessie. but i liked the way she was able to stand up for herself. even though she was in a position where she was scared to say no.
1. Lavinia's behaviour was terrible incorrect. In order to humiliate Sara, who has in fact done nothing to her, she went even that far. I believe that her father reacts correctly, not giving her a personal maid, although I am not sure if a slap was really the best method.
ReplyDelete2. People who are mistreated and you could do something against it, but decide not to get involved, then you are complicit. However, they are not only not helping Sara, but assisting Lavinia in humiliating her. Therefore, I believe they are as guilty as Lavinia.
3. Miss Minchin reacts correctly in that situation. However, as I have read the book, I am afraid that she was out of character.
4. If you are not helping someone who is in need, although you were able too, then you are also guilty, especially in the 19th century, in which religion was very important. Although I would say in Lottie and the other small children's case... They are still too young to understand that. Therefore, I would judge them innocent.
5. I believe that Sara's behaviour was typical. Without insulting or hurting Lavinia directly, she poses a question for Lavinia to answer, which might trouble her. That she nearly collapsed because of the situation, is very understandable as she had the positive behaviour of a princess and was not used to such situations. I have to admit that she was brave enough to say that though.
first thank you^^
ReplyDelete1. Lavinia's father reacted right. Even today if my daughter was like that I would have done something similar
2. Well of course they are complicit however their hypocrite side is more disturbing.
3. So-so. She shouldn`t have allowed the situation to progress as far.
4. The same as 2nd.
5. Kind of. There is no way for her to go if she let herself being pushed all the time
1. It was a bit harsh from the father. For he does not know how Lavinia have treated Sarah, or how she is about to treat her. He only have his suspicions. I assume that he does not see his daughter often, so he does not know how Lavinia is really like. We viewers know how she has treated Sarah, so of course we think it is the right action that he slapped her. In real life, it is rather hard to suddenly slap your daughter, if you only suspect something but is not sure of. Lavinia did hurt the family's pride.
ReplyDelete2. I don't like these two (you are referring to Lavinia's friends, right?). They only like to join the team that seems most appropriate to them. They are more bad guys than Lavinia are, at least she does the humiliation in public and on own incentive.
3. I have not read the book, so I do not know if she follows character. This episode does seem to show that she is not really cold-hearted after all. She is just someone who loves money more than anyone else, but is not complete heartless or a villain.
4. The other students are complicit as well, but at least they don't go giggling.
5. Sarah is a smart girl, so she took the right action. Although I am sure Lavinia will take revenge, but at least Sarah is better of now than to be her maid. I didn't expect her action though.
1. I remember watching this episode with my siblings a few years back and I have to say this was a favorite episode of mine because of seeing Lavinia get an instant dose of karma. Though I don't know what it likes to be a father, it seemed the slap was a way to redeem his request to Sara which he discovered was very rude because it was made with a sort of deceit or trickery by his daughter.
ReplyDeleteNevertheless if I think I'd be slapped like that, it will be kind of harsh. A better way probably is after a hurtful reprimand he would demand his daughter to apologize to Sara.
2. I have to agree with the above comment that Jessie and Gertude are far worse than Lavinia. As for the other girls, they could have not done anything though. I wouldn't say they're not a bit guilty but it really take guts to stand up to peer pressure especially in an environment like ms Minchin's seminary.
3. From the parts I've read in the novel and the way Minchin has conducted herself so far, maybe it's a bit out of character. But I think it's more of a "shock" from the request.
5. Sara's quite an intelligent girl in the way she challenged Lavinia's scheme. I don't know if it's out of character but I like how it played out in the in the drama.
I'm wondering why your asking this questions. Does it have something to do with your translations? I'm not sure if there is a scene in the Novel close to this episode because I didn't read some parts of the novel. Thanks for the wonderful release Licca.
1- it's the best way to deal with this kind of situations, because at that moment he didn't have anything else to slap Lavinia with except his hand [lol], i dont think words will move Lavinia's feelings, as his father he knew that.
ReplyDelete2- they're like idiots, laugh when lavinia is laughing, and cry when she's crying .. that's it.
3- YES, she knew that sara works hard, and Lavinia doesn't deserve her at all, that's why she prefer asking her first [to find any way to escape that problem, and it's proper to ask the sara at that situation, -= and i am happy when she smiled after that dad said " she doesn't need a personal maid".
4- well, other students move where the wind blows.
5- no, i didn't expect that acceptation at all, and her condition wasn't expected too!!.
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Thanks for this ep, really worthy to watch this series. :)
The reason why I asked these open questions is that this episode is one of those episodes where Lavinia and Sara's character and personality are fleshed out compared to the novel. As a matter of fact, this episode doesn't even exist in the novel.
ReplyDeleteHere is how I would have answered those questions. Do keep in mind that I have watched all the episodes, so there may be some bias because of that.
1. My answer is that slapping Lavinia so hard that she gets knocked down to the floor is not the correct way to go. Hypothetically, it is possible that Lavinia has been spoiled by her mother and beaten by her father like that. Although her father's intentions were correct, the means was not the best way to teach Lavinia a lesson. In fact, in the case of Lavinia, the fact that she is subjected to battery like that manifests in her behavior. See episode 5 (Lottie's episode) for an example of Lavinia shoving Lottie.
2. Yes, they are complicit, but as several others have mentioned... their hypocrisy is especially troublesome.
3. Miss Minchin was acting correctly, but not for the right reasons. Her reasoning makes a lot more sense once you get near the end of the series, and I prefer not to spoil too much.
4. Yes, they are complicit, but it's due to peer pressure. Again, explaining this would require me to spoil episodes. (When you watch episode 24, you'll really see this in action.)
5. The answer is yes, I was expecting Sara to do what she did. Under her mild exterior, she has brains that are superior to everyone else in the seminary, and that includes Miss Minchin and Amelia. The fact that she is able to read literature that is normally read by adults means a lot. She knew exactly what she needed to do to get out of Lavinia's trap.
Now that you mentioned about Lavinia's behavior, she sure does have a consistent tendency to be violent in this series. she hurt lottie twice if I recall correctly. The pony incident was her doing (she wasn't bothered by Ermengarde's fall!) and she also tripped Sara twice. She could grow up to be a very disturbed person..but I guess that's too much reading.
ReplyDeleteWatching this episode, Lavinia's Fathers actions seem to stem from the fact that she was insulting family pride. In those times, asking a former comrade, be it at arms or school mate, to be a personal servant is disrespectful and harms theirs and your family pride. Slapping her for dishonoring the family name seems appropriate for the times.
ReplyDeletePressure from Miss Minchin and fellow peers is making the students not do anything. As Sara states in an earlier episode, even her previous fellow students are feeling bad when Lavinia bullies her. I don't directly blame them because again as the times, people where much more in a hierarchy and the rich could pretty much get away with murder. Lavinia is the richest of the girls at the school.
Sara is acting like herself pretty much, but directly exposing herself as a former student and in front of Miss Minchin seemed like something more bolt then her norm.
Since I reached episode 20 today, I thought I'd leave my comment here even if it's late now.
ReplyDelete1. His reason for punishing her was correct, but the way in which he did it was not. Spoiling children and then violently punishing them when they act selfish is a very wrong way to raise them. It usually results in them feeling more sorry for themselves, instead of thinking about what they did. A good parent can make their children ashamed of their bahavior without hurting them physically or emotionally. Especially back then when parents were even more of authority figures than today.
2. They are complicit, since they also participate when Lavinia is picking on Sara. Even more because they don't think of either Lavinia or Sara as friends and simply try to befriend anyone who is rich and popular.
3. I haven't read the book in years, but my impression from Miss Minchin in the anime is that she's not an entirely bad person. She gives the impression that she despises/feels uncomfortable with people who live in too much luxury, or have a superior atitude. She must have thought what Lavinia was doing was too much, and she was right of course.
4. I guess they are not entirely innocent. But they are probably afraid of Lavinia and Miss Minchin and can't do anything about it. It takes a lot of courage to stand up to authority, even for the right reasons. Not everyone has that.
5. She is a good-natured girl, but also intelligent and proud. Answering like she is accepting, while she's actually asking for help fits her well.