I just really, really want Edith to have a happy ending in Season Three.
Disclaimer: Nope!
"Someone's been sleeping in my bed and she's still there!" exclaimed Baby bear.
Edith was the sort of child who enjoyed fairytales up until the point where somebody turned their nose up and scoffed, "Only children want fairytales."
In Edith's case, that someone was Mary, and so she gave up her desire to hear any fairytales when she was only seven, preferring instead to tell Cora all about what had happened earlier that day. Cora would nod, but her eyes were distant and tired, a look Edith grew accustomed to mean "not tonight, dear, Mama's tired". Edith thus begin to learn at the age of seven and a half to acknowledge the fact that she would always be caught in limbo, stuck between being a girl and being a woman.
When she was eight, she met with a woman named Elizabeth Langley who introduced herself as the new governess. No matter what Edith said, the new governess insisted on reading her a fairytale ("Oh, don't be silly, little one, all children love fairytales"), and thus at the age of nine, Edith was subjected to listening to the tales of Hans Christian Andersen.
Edith hated the stories, but she could identify with one: Goldilocks and the three bears. Maybe it was because the protagonist too had yellow hair ("boring", as Mary had so artfully described it), but Edith loved the concept that there was only one perfect chair, one perfect bowl of porridge. The idea that there could be two extremes- too hot, too cold- intrigued her.
The middle daughter began to regard her world in a different light. People became extremes- those who were too hot (Sybil, with all her tempers), those who were too cold (Mary, because she was frozen composure) and then there were those who didn't seem too firmly on either side and belonged in the middle (Edith, who tried to walk the fine line between emotion and rationale).
In that way, Edith considered herself set apart from her sisters. Mary she deemed too unforgiving, chilly in her desire to be a façade of composure, and she tried to reach out, bring Mary around to her place of understanding- but she was rebuffed. Ice tends to like being left alone to its own devices, rather than be brought into the light where it might be melted.
Sybil, being the one who burned the most passionate among all three of them, too denied Edith, albeit in a more polite and tactful manner. Edith loved Sybil, but sometimes she felt scalded by Sybil's behavior and antics, so different from her and Mary. But fire does not like to be tamed- fire likes to be free, to rampage through and bring new life to the undergrowth.
And so Edith went through her childhood on the middle path, the quiet, unassuming middle daughter who never challenged, never questioned. She played her part well- she was the perfect daughter by all accounts- but some days she could not resist feeling envious towards her sisters, too hot and too cold and yet receiving the love she never did.
The only thing left to do was wait. Edith often reminded herself of this fact when Mary threw her a particularly cutting remark. Some day, someone would discover that she was the perfect daughter. Some day, someone would realize the merits of the middle road, the unextreme, the comfort of being safe.
Some day.
Thoughts are always welcome. :)
