Normal People [BBC - RTE] - [**SPOILERS**]

volchitsa

Mad_maxx wrote: »

If ever a guy deserved a hiding, couldn't believe Connell didn't deck him,seeing as he looks down on him all the time to boot

Assuming this is still about the Italian meal (soz, I haven't checked back as I haven't yet it all and am trying to dip in and out but without seeing too many spoilers) I couldn't understand why Marianne's girlfriend (Peggy?) seemed to take Jamie's side, and blamed Marianne for inviting Connell.

Have we seen that Jamie is a lovely person the rest of the time? I don't think so as she actually said "Jamie's a dick (but he adores you)" - what makes him such a catch that being a dick isn't an issue?

I get that Marianne thinks she isn't lovable - but why does her best friend seem to agree?

BTW I love the series, but a couple of things niggle, and this is one of them. Maybe I need to read the book?)

Beechwoodspark

Mad_maxx wrote: »

They're from mere sligo, they're not the Roys from succession or even the Irish 1% from ballsbridge, I like it a lot otherwise but details lend credibility

It’s yet another small detail that doesn’t have a ring of authenticity to it, which diminishes the entire show

Mad_maxx

volchitsa wrote: »

Assuming this is still about the Italian meal (soz, I haven't checked back as I haven't yet it all and am trying to dip in and out but without seeing too many spoilers) I couldn't understand why Marianne's girlfriend (Peggy?) seemed to take Jamie's side, and blamed Marianne for inviting Connell.

Have we seen that Jamie is a lovely person the rest of the time? I don't think so as she actually said "Jamie's a dick (but he adores you)" - what makes him such a catch that being a dick isn't an issue?

I get that Marianne thinks she isn't lovable - but why does her best friend seem to agree?

BTW I love the series, but a couple of things niggle, and this is one of them. Maybe I need to read the book?)

Peggy is a south Dublin posh girl, Jamie's a dick as she says but he's not an impostor like Connell, Connell hangs out with a nordie, he has little time for the D4 set

Birds of a feather flock together etc

A Consonant Please Carol

Mad_maxx wrote:

They're from mere sligo, they're not the Roys from succession or even the Irish 1% from ballsbridge, I like it a lot otherwise but details lend credibility

Because nobody is rich in Sligo?

Hrududu

A Consonant Please Carol wrote: »

Because nobody is rich in Sligo?

Obviously.

So things that this show has gotten wrong:
- Nobody in Sligo is rich
- Nobody who gets 600 points in the LC could have social issues, or issues with communication in general

A Consonant Please Carol

Hrududu wrote:

So things that this show has gotten wrong: - Nobody in Sligo is rich - Nobody who gets 600 points in the LC could have social issues, or issues with communication in general

:pac:

lainey_d_123

Mad_maxx wrote: »

They could have bought the house in Dublin forty years ago, they're house in sligo is relatively modest

That place in Italy is huge as summer retreats go and while many country folk owned houses in the capital going back decades when Dublin wasn't especially expensive, they didn't holiday in their own estate in Italy

What did the father do anyway?

We don't find out, but it seems like they have inherited wealth. Marianne's aunt references Marianne's mother living in the Dublin flat as a student. They're portrayed as being a wealthy family, so not sure why a house in Italy is so hard to believe. Marianne's mother is presumably covering all her college expenses, her lovely clothes, they never seem to struggle for money at all. The Dublin flat was probably rented out for years before Marianne went to live in it, bringing in a good bit of passive income. Wealth creates wealth.

otnomart

Mad_maxx wrote: »

That place in Italy is huge as summer retreats go and while many country folk owned houses in the capital going back decades when Dublin wasn't especially expensive, they didn't holiday in their own estate in Italy

What did the father do anyway?

Got to agree with that.
I know many Irish owning properties in Spain; less so in France; much, much less in Italy.
The house itself reminded me (on a smaller scale) of that in a movie with Sinéad Cusack and Donal McCann: Stealing Beauty (1996)

Mad_maxx

A Consonant Please Carol wrote: »

Because nobody is rich in Sligo?

there are degrees of " rich "

obviously marianne is a lot better off than connell , the house marianne lives in in sligo however is nothing special , if they are wealthy enough to own a lavish place ( and it is lavish ) in italy , marianne would be attending a private school and the likes of connell would never have come next or near to her during her education years


inconsistency

A Consonant Please Carol

Mad_maxx wrote:

obviously marianne is a lot better off than connell , the house marianne lives in in sligo however is nothing special , if they are wealthy enough to own a lavish place ( and it is lavish ) in italy , marianne would be attending a private school and the likes of connell would never have come next or near to her during her education years

There's no private school in tubbercurry which is a village miles away from Sligo town where there would be a private school. It says it's a village in show right?

Beechwoodspark

Mad_maxx wrote: »

there are degrees of " rich "

obviously marianne is a lot better off than connell , the house marianne lives in in sligo however is nothing special , if they are wealthy enough to own a lavish place ( and it is lavish ) in italy , marianne would be attending a private school and the likes of connell would never have come next or near to her during her education years


inconsistency

Good piece in the Irish times the other day pointing out that too. Can’t remember the exact quote but it v similar to what you have posted.

There’s way too many plot hole and inconsistencies for this to be taken seriously

Sleepy

Amirani wrote: »

I think your analysis of it here is good. I was a big fan of the show, but I thought it was slightly weak on how the show depicted Marianne's family. In every scene her brother was exclusively an asshole, with no redeeming or sympathetic qualities. I felt that it didn't really portray the motivations behind this (possibly due to time constraints), though you've inferred them quite well.

Did you read the book or did you just pick it up from watching?

Just watched the show.

Everything Italian wrote: »

Eh...?:eek:

Either you have been reading a different story, or there is some projection from your own experience floating around. There is no - zero - reference to a family farm!

There is a solitary use of the work "farm" in the book and it is when one of her Trinity mates has a go off her from being from outside Dublin.

Deleted User wrote: »

i must have missed the bit where it says he is a farmer. I thought he was running the family business but hadnt realised it was a farm. He does resent the fact she is off to college and living the life whereas he has been committed with a ball and chain around his foot. okay he has a guaranteed income, but his freedom is basically down the swanny.

I inferred that the family business was a farm from a few things tbh. I took it as read that Marianne's family were of the Protestant land-owner class from the period property in Dublin, the stately looking home in Sligo and the Italian villa. The kind of families given land during the plantation who accumulated wealth over the generations and held onto it through prudent management, inter-marriage and simply not having had a tear-away in the line who blew it on gambling or bad investments. Once you get to a certain level of wealth, it's not difficult to hold onto it and grow it ime.

They'd be equivalent to the traditional middle-class in the UK: highly educated, careers in the classic professions (law, medicine, architecture etc.), strong social connections (the sort who can loan your kid a flat / house for college and who you'll lend the use of your Italian villa to for a few weeks in summer etc.), small families, ("ideally" a son to inherit and a daughter to marry one of your peers sons and share his inheritance etc.). They'd be socially a step below the Royal Earls and Barons though thinking about it, particularly in Ireland it might not be that out there to think there may be a Baronet title in the family (or have been at some point e.g. on the matriarchal line of the family etc).

Historically, there'd be one of those families in most parishes in Ireland outside of the cities. The one's living in "the big house". Many will have fallen in social status as inheritances began to be split equally among offspring, unsuitable heirs gambled or mismanaged their inheritance and socialist public policies, particularly around education, lead to the emergence of the modern middle classes. Plenty of them still around though and while they may not feature on Irish Times rich lists, they'll be very comfortably set up. Just take a stroll around the older parts of Dalkey, Howth or Clontarf and you'll meet the Dublin version.

lainey_d_123

volchitsa wrote: »

Assuming this is still about the Italian meal (soz, I haven't checked back as I haven't yet it all and am trying to dip in and out but without seeing too many spoilers) I couldn't understand why Marianne's girlfriend (Peggy?) seemed to take Jamie's side, and blamed Marianne for inviting Connell.

Have we seen that Jamie is a lovely person the rest of the time? I don't think so as she actually said "Jamie's a dick (but he adores you)" - what makes him such a catch that being a dick isn't an issue?

I get that Marianne thinks she isn't lovable - but why does her best friend seem to agree?

BTW I love the series, but a couple of things niggle, and this is one of them. Maybe I need to read the book?)

Peggy is a bit of a knob. She's not too bright and doesn't seem to see how truly abusive and manipulative Jamie is (hence the victim blaming), and she also seems to love drama. More of a frenemy than a best friend.

lainey_d_123

Mad_maxx wrote: »

there are degrees of " rich "

obviously marianne is a lot better off than connell , the house marianne lives in in sligo however is nothing special , if they are wealthy enough to own a lavish place ( and it is lavish ) in italy , marianne would be attending a private school and the likes of connell would never have come next or near to her during her education years


inconsistency

There aren't that many private schools around that area. Plenty of kids from wealthy families would just attend the best of the bunch of the local secondary schools.

We never really get to see the scale of the Sligo house, do we? It looks quite substantial while being understated. An 'old money' family wouldn't be into building McMansions.

gmisk

I see the rights have now been sold to more than 20 countries.
Including France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. Pretty impressive

volchitsa

That makes sense that Peggy sees Connell as an outsider (I'm a nordie myself and discovered the Foxrock set myself with a certain amount of amused shock when I went to UCD, so thinking about it, I can actually see that they probably would stick with Jamie despite what a complete B... he is.
Some of them really were a load of .... And that's in real life. (Others were lovely, for the record, but there was a weird atmosphere about class among Dublin students to those of us rocking up from Northern Ireland in the 80s).

Beechwoodspark

gmisk wrote: »

I see the rights have now been sold to more than 20 countries.
Including France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. Pretty impressive

It’s mass market shallow mainstream stuff so no surprise

Friend of mine put it well -“home and away set on the wild Atlantic way”

Higgins5473

Beechwoodspark wrote: »

It’s mass market shallow mainstream stuff so no surprise

Friend of mine put it well -“home and away set on the wild Atlantic way with dick, tits and bush”

Mad_maxx

A Consonant Please Carol wrote: »

There's no private school in tubbercurry which is a village miles away from Sligo town where there would be a private school. It says it's a village in show right?

when it comes to wealthy people , boarding school as far away as dublin is not uncommon

Mad_maxx

Sleepy wrote: »

Just watched the show.




I inferred that the family business was a farm from a few things tbh. I took it as read that Marianne's family were of the Protestant land-owner class from the period property in Dublin, the stately looking home in Sligo and the Italian villa. The kind of families given land during the plantation who accumulated wealth over the generations and held onto it through prudent management, inter-marriage and simply not having had a tear-away in the line who blew it on gambling or bad investments. Once you get to a certain level of wealth, it's not difficult to hold onto it and grow it ime.

They'd be equivalent to the traditional middle-class in the UK: highly educated, careers in the classic professions (law, medicine, architecture etc.), strong social connections (the sort who can loan your kid a flat / house for college and who you'll lend the use of your Italian villa to for a few weeks in summer etc.), small families, ("ideally" a son to inherit and a daughter to marry one of your peers sons and share his inheritance etc.). They'd be socially a step below the Royal Earls and Barons though thinking about it, particularly in Ireland it might not be that out there to think there may be a Baronet title in the family (or have been at some point e.g. on the matriarchal line of the family etc).

Historically, there'd be one of those families in most parishes in Ireland outside of the cities. The one's living in "the big house". Many will have fallen in social status as inheritances began to be split equally among offspring, unsuitable heirs gambled or mismanaged their inheritance and socialist public policies, particularly around education, lead to the emergence of the modern middle classes. Plenty of them still around though and while they may not feature on Irish Times rich lists, they'll be very comfortably set up. Just take a stroll around the older parts of Dalkey, Howth or Clontarf and you'll meet the Dublin version.

they live in a bungalow , not a " big house "

marianne referred to her fathers mass so not protestant either

sligo is not a place known for wealthy farmers either

Mad_maxx

lainey_d_123 wrote: »

There aren't that many private schools around that area. Plenty of kids from wealthy families would just attend the best of the bunch of the local secondary schools.

We never really get to see the scale of the Sligo house, do we? It looks quite substantial while being understated. An 'old money' family wouldn't be into building McMansions.

i saw no leaves on the wall , in fact it was a bungalow , old money like their big old two story houses where the walls are green with foliage , no sign of that here

A Consonant Please Carol

Mad_maxx wrote:

when it comes to wealthy people , boarding school as far away as dublin is not uncommon

It's not common. You're clutching now. You'd swear you knew rich people like the back of your hand. And "levels" of rich is a load of made up rubbish too. How can you tell what level they are? Because they're from Sligo? Pullease

Mad_maxx

Mad_maxx wrote: »

Peggy is a south Dublin posh girl, Jamie's a dick as she says but he's not an impostor like Connell, Connell hangs out with a nordie, he has little time for the D4 set

Birds of a feather flock together etc

I'm not defending Jamie's behaviour but it's definitely insensitive to invite an ex boyfriend along like that.

Also not everyone has such a chip on their shoulder...

Hamachi

volchitsa wrote: »

That makes sense that Peggy sees Connell as an outsider (I'm a nordie myself and discovered the Foxrock set myself with a certain amount of amused shock when I went to UCD, so thinking about it, I can actually see that they probably would stick with Jamie despite what a complete B... he is.
Some of them really were a load of .... And that's in real life. (Others were lovely, for the record, but there was a weird atmosphere about class among Dublin students to those of us rocking up from Northern Ireland in the 80s).

Totally agree. I had a very similar experience there as recently as 2004 / 2005. I was surprised at how insular the D4 / Foxrock types are. They tend to stick strictly to their ‘own’ for friendship and dating.

Peggy’s reaction rang true to me. Jamie is one of the tribe; in her eyes Connell is a spud muncher that she has to tolerate. Even Marianne is only accepted as she speaks and dresses the right way. However, she too would be very vulnerable to being ejected from the group if she undermines a core member of the tribe, which she has done in inviting Connell to the Italian villa.

I had virtually forgotten about college social dynamics until I watched ‘Normal People’. The show pretty much nailed this, particularly for alumni of the Dublin universities.

Strazdas

Hamachi wrote: »

Totally agree. I had a very similar experience there as recently as 2004 / 2005. I was surprised at how insular the D4 / Foxrock types are. They tend to stick strictly to their ‘own’ for friendship and dating.

Peggy’s reaction rang true to me. Jamie is one of the tribe; in her eyes Connell is a spud muncher that she has to tolerate. Even Marianne is only accepted as she speaks and dresses the right way. However, she too would be very vulnerable to being ejected from the group if she undermines a core member of the tribe, which she has done in inviting Connell to the Italian villa.

I had virtually forgotten about college social dynamics until I watched ‘Normal People’. The show pretty much nailed this, particularly for alumni of the Dublin universities.

Paul Howard's 'Ross O'Carroll Kelly' books focus very much in on this point - the elitism and clannishness of the D4 set.

Connell as a working class Sligo man and GAA player would be completely outside their social bubble. As you say, even Marianne would be somewhat outside their clan, it's just the fact that she comes from a wealthy family and is well dressed and spoken that saves her.

1 sheep2

I’ve been operating in a Twitter bubble and feeling increasingly alienated by the adulation this is getting. Nice to see some dissent here. My take:

The show is undoubtedly one of the best Irish TV productions ever. The "sumptuous" photography is inventive without being pretentious, and the writing, despite what I’m going to say below, is largely excellent. But, with such credentials and adulation comes heightened expectations.

Connell, as a lead protagonist, is scarcely believable. He is uninteresting, humourless, and actively bad for Marianne. Other than a 'connection with home,' he appears to offer her nothing that she couldn't get from someone else. Others have defended that he got 600 points and "Schols" while persistently struggling to form a sentence, but it’s simply inconceivable that someone exceptionally talented in an arts discipline would be incapable to the point of disability of gathering and expressing his thoughts - it is precisely this skill that arts subjects seek to develop and reward. And, what’s more, English literature calls for a certain amount of emotional perceptiveness.

What’s significant is that Connell is not simply shy but incoherent. He never says a single thing that might cause you to think he is remotely bright. We aren’t given reason to think that this is someone who, if only we could have access to his thoughts, we’d see that he is intelligent. Which brings me to my biggest issue with the show: the lingering, close-up shots of the characters’ faces, which is seen as a ground-breaking development in how to convey the thought process of a character on-screen. But we’ve never been given reason to think Connell has an interesting thought process!! So when we’re shown a close up, Connell’s eyes flicking to indicate thought, all I visualise is, Erm..eh..uhm...yeah, the thing is..uhm..” Sometimes I imagine I’m watching an android.

This emotional vacuousness wouldn't be a problem if we weren't so often told how clever Normal People supposedly is. It's praised for revealing the subtle dynamics in a relationship that go undeveloped in other fiction. And that’s perhaps true of the book. But the adaption is simply the story of one young man’s uncommon inability to gather and express his thoughts, and the crippling affect that has on his relationships.

Hamachi wrote: »

I was surprised at how insular the D4 / Foxrock types are. They tend to stick strictly to their ‘own’ for friendship and dating. Peggy’s reaction rang true to me. Jamie is one of the tribe; in her eyes Connell is a spud muncher that she has to tolerate. Even Marianne is only accepted as she speaks and dresses the right way. However, she too would be very vulnerable to being ejected from the group if she undermines a core member of the tribe...

This typifies so much of the reaction on Twitter and from some people in this thread. Jamie, the D4 head, is a painful caricature that half the country is gleefully accepting as typical. It's a cringe-inducing prejudice.

Higgins5473

I went to UCD, the 'D4 Heads' were as plentiful as the culchies and I hadn't a single bad interaction with them. They hung about together just like the Galway muldoons did also, it's natural that you have a connection with a group from where you come from, that doesn't make you insular. They went to school together, grew up in the same area, same clubs etc. I'm from Raheny, and guess what, I ended up hanging out with a bunch of northsiders, and this will be even more surprising to you clearly country folk lumping southside dubliners into one bracket; although we were northsiders we weren't all a bunch of junkie layabout dole drawing scumbags :eek:

TheBlaaMan

Beechwoodspark wrote: »

Good piece in the Irish times the other day pointing out that too. Can’t remember the exact quote but it v similar to what you have posted.

There’s way too many plot hole and inconsistencies for this to be taken seriously

OK, we get it.
Every single post in the thread from you is a downer. Fine, you dont like the story.
Jesus.....

Rothko

TheBlaaMan wrote: »

OK, we get it.
Every single post in the thread from you is a downer. Fine, you dont like the story.
Jesus.....

Some people get obsessed with things they dislike or hate. I never understood it.

Mad_maxx

1 sheep2 wrote: »

I’ve been operating in a Twitter bubble and feeling increasingly alienated by the adulation this is getting. Nice to see some dissent here. My take:

The show is undoubtedly one of the best Irish TV productions ever. The "sumptuous" photography is inventive without being pretentious, and the writing, despite what I’m going to say below, is largely excellent. But, with such credentials and adulation comes heightened expectations.

Connell, as a lead protagonist, is scarcely believable. He is uninteresting, humourless, and actively bad for Marianne. Other than a 'connection with home,' he appears to offer her nothing that she couldn't get from someone else. Others have defended that he got 600 points and "Schols" while persistently struggling to form a sentence, but it’s simply inconceivable that someone exceptionally talented in an arts discipline would be incapable to the point of disability of gathering and expressing his thoughts - it is precisely this skill that arts subjects seek to develop and reward. And, what’s more, English literature calls for a certain amount of emotional perceptiveness.

What’s significant is that Connell is not simply shy but incoherent. He never says a single thing that might cause you to think he is remotely bright. We aren’t given reason to think that this is someone who, if only we could have access to his thoughts, we’d see that he is intelligent. Which brings me to my biggest issue with the show: the lingering, close-up shots of the characters’ faces, which is seen as a ground-breaking development in how to convey the thought process of a character on-screen. But we’ve never been given reason to think Connell has an interesting thought process!! So when we’re shown a close up, Connell’s eyes flicking to indicate thought, all I visualise is, Erm..eh..uhm...yeah, the thing is..uhm..” Sometimes I imagine I’m watching an android.

This emotional vacuousness wouldn't be a problem if we weren't so often told how clever Normal People supposedly is. It's praised for revealing the subtle dynamics in a relationship that go undeveloped in other fiction. And that’s perhaps true of the book. But the adaption is simply the story of one young man’s uncommon inability to gather and express his thoughts, and the crippling affect that has on his relationships.



This typifies so much of the reaction on Twitter and from some people in this thread. Jamie, the D4 head, is a painful caricature that half the country is gleefully accepting as typical. It's a cringe-inducing prejudice.

marianne is no better for connell than he is for her , less so i might say , he is as solid as they come , always has been