Woman of the Month: Mary Crawley

Mary Crawley from Downton Abbey

Yes, Mary Crawley is 2016's first Woman of the Month. Fight me.

I know she's a contentious character amidst Downton Abbey viewers, regarded as everything from a snob to a bully to an Ice Queen. And I'm not arguing with that. She's cold and proud, conscious of her own status and beauty, and bathed in wealth and privilege. I can understand completely why many viewers don't like her, but I've always appreciated the fact that Julian Fellowes never felt any pressing need to make her likable. (As the old saying goes: fandom wants complex and flawed female characters until they actually get them).

But the interesting thing is that Mary herself doesn't consider herself particularly likeable. Her Character Establishing Moment is striking: on hearing that her cousin/fiancé has died on the Titanic, she goes to her father and asks: "does this mean I have to go into full mourning?" He's visibly taken aback, but it's not until later, in the privacy of her own bedroom, that she confides her to sister: "I'm not as sad as I should be – and that's what makes me sad."

It soon becomes obvious that she has some grounds for grievance. Her father will not break the legal entail for her sake, and so despite being the most highly qualified person to inherit the estate, she has no choice but to watch her father's home and mother's fortune be passed on to a complete stranger. With her mother's attempts to pair her off with every suitor that comes to call, Mary soon realizes she's little more than an inconvenient pawn to be married off and ushered out of the way.

As the series goes on, we gradually peel back some of her layers. She has a degree of integrity, as when she apologizes to Bates when she's caught with a guest prying into the servants' rooms, and is more perceptive than most people give her credit for (she's the only one to notice the quickly-stifled commotion Branson makes when he tries to tip gunk over a dignitary's head, and five years later is the only family member to find the revisiting Gwen familiar).  

She also has the very human trait of having a small circle of favourites – Sybil, Carson, Anna – that she's devoted to, and though she can bestow kindness on her rivals (Lavinia) she's also capable of heaping great cruelty on those she should love more (Edith).

You'd be hard-pressed to admit she wasn't the focal character of the show's six-year run, and we see her at her best and worse, as a debutante, a wife, a widow and a mother. She experiences happiness and tragedy in equal measure, and though I wish we had seen more of her relationship with George and reconciliation with Edith, what we're finally left with is her softer side, her sense of fairness, and her determination to push Downton into the future regardless of all the obstacles that surround her.