‘The Bridgertons’: The differences between the first season and the original novel

Blending elite London marriage dramas of the early 19th century and a modern tone that encompasses everything from sex scenes to string versions of songs by Ariana Grande and Billie Eilish, ‘The Bridgertons‘ stands as a romantic comedy as anachronistic as it is charming. The Netflix series had a great reception at its premiere among viewers, who fell prey on Christmas dates of their torrid romances, their duels at dawn and their essence Austenian.

But the history of the Bridgerton family began on paper, in the successful saga of books written by Julia Quinn. The series created by Chris VanDusen under the label of Shondaland (the producer of Shonda Rhimes), which in its first seasons follows the same structure: each season is based on a book, and each book focuses on one of the brothers and sisters in the family. The first season follows the story of ‘The Duke and I’, starring Daphne Bridgerton (Phoebe Dynevor), but fans of Quinn’s novels may have been surprised to see that this adaptation changes many things from the source material.

From paper to the small screen, history has undergone many changes: We already reviewed the changes from the book to the second season of ‘The Bridgertons’, and now we do the same with the first, from those characters that have appeared out of nowhere or that have suddenly gained more prominence than they had, until certain moments that have softened in their jump to the images. Hold on to your cup of tea because we’re going to drop all the T.

A London free of racism

As many will have deduced, it is not true that the London of 1813 was so diverse and free of racism. In Julia Quinn’s books there are no explicit mentions of the skin color of the protagonistsso creator Chris Van Dusen, along with Shonda Rhimes, just needed an excuse to unleash the diversity of their elite British society, and they found her in queen charlotte. There is a not fully confirmed theory among historians that the monarch at the time, wife of King George III, had African ancestors.

The series accepts this fact as true and takes it to its ultimate consequences: invent a new situation in which the queen decides to use her position of power and influence to offer titles and land to various black families in the countryincluding the dukedom of Hastings to the father of Simon Basset (Rege-Jean Page). But this whole situation is exclusive to the Netflix series: in the books, the character played by Golda Rosheuvel did not appear at all and black characters in the series, such as Lady Danbury (Adjoa Andoh), they were simply not specified as such, so we cannot really speak of a change between the two stories, but of an interpretation.

The foreign prince, Lord Featherington and other characters that did not exist

No, Queen Charlotte is not the only one who has appeared in the series without first going through the Julia Quinn books. In fact, this adaptation of Shondaland has taken a lot of creative license and has added many characters that were not originally in the story. This is the case of Prince Friedrich (freddie stroma), the gallant foreign heir trying to woo Daphne, which is really just added to heighten tensions in the relationship between the young woman and the duke.

Another one we won’t see in the books either is Lord Featherington (ben miller), who should have died before the start of the story, and yet is alive and well (and gambling) in the Netflix series. Thus, Lady Featherington is not a widow, but a woman obsessed with marrying off her daughters while, unbeknownst to her, the family fortune hangs in the balance. This list of new characters is joined by Will Mondrich (Martins Imhangbe), Simon’s friends with whom he practices boxing, Genevieve Delacroix (Kathryn Drisdale), the seamstress with a fake French accent who is having an affair with Benedict Bridgerton, and her friend Siena Rosso (Sabrina Bartlett), the opera singer who lives a torrid affair with Anthony Bridgerton. Although the latter there is more fabric to cut.

Siena Rosso was in the books, but different

The opera singer appears early in the first season of ‘The Bridgertons’ as Anthony Bridgerton’s romantic interest, the firstborn of the family. Both are maintaining a passionate romantic and sexual relationship that goes through many ups and downs, especially caused by Anthony’s inability to fully commit to the relationship due to pressure from his mother to adopt the role of patriarch in the family, in the absence of his late father, and to find a good wife soon. And in that “of good”, according to the standards of the society of the time, Siena Rosso does not enter.

In the books there is a somewhat different character, Maria Rosso, who is also an opera singer but does not catch Anthony’s attention until the second book, ‘The viscount who loved me’. That is to say, that during the first book, on which this first season of the series is based, the woman does not have any leading role nor does she maintain a relationship with the older of the Bridgertons. What will happen in the future, we will have to see later. We are not going to reveal too many spoilers ahead of the second season!

Marina Thompson Drama

One of the most complicated situations in ‘The Bridgertons’ is that of Marina Thompson, a cousin of the Featheringtons who arrives in London to revolutionize the marriage market with her beauty and charm. But she has a secret: she is already in love with another man, a soldier fighting in the war, and she is pregnant by him. As we know, this causes numerous problems and various situations during the first season, which finally ends with the engagement between Marina and Sir Philip Crane, her brother in love with her, who is revealed to have died in combat.

In the books, this is true…sort of. To begin with, Marina Thompson is never a very important character, and Quinn doesn’t give her as much prominence in the role as she does in the series. Indeed, Marina marries Sir Philip Crane, but what little we are told about her is that they have a very unhappy marriage.that she suffers from a deep depression and that finally (as known in the fifth book of the saga)committed suicide. We will have to see what the series does with the character taking into account this bitter future. Although, as much as they have decided to change the events of the book, maybe Marina Thompson will find a happy ending.

The controversial sex scene

One of the most controversial scenes in ‘The Bridgertons’ comes during the war between Simon and Daphne during the first months of their marriage. She wants to have children, but he wants to fulfill the vindictive promise he made to his father and refuses to have children.. In the series, after a series of misunderstandings (that if ‘want’ and ‘can’ are not the same…), Daphne discovers how human fertilization works and understands that, every time her husband expels the semen, it is a maneuver to not get her pregnant. So she decides to take charge of her and trick him into doing it inside her this time. Questionable decision, to say the least. But in the books it’s even worse.

Quinn wrote these moments with other nuances that, for the sake of the sympathy that viewers should have for the characters, have been lost in their television adaptation. For example, when Daphne finds out why she isn’t getting pregnant, she tells Simon that she won’t sleep with him anymore, which leads the man to threaten to rape her and remind her that she is his property. Fortunately, the situation does not get worse. Later we have the scene where Daphne cheats on him, like in the series, but in the books he walks into her room drunk and she takes advantage of the situation. In the series, this whole moment is softer, although equally reprehensible.

The Mystery of Lady Whistledown

At the end of the first season of ‘The Bridgertons’ we discovered who is Lady Whistledown, and fans of the books will have been surprised. Not because of her identity (it is Penelope Featherington, and it is so both in the books and in the series), but because of how soon the news arrives: on paper, we don’t know who the hack is until the fourth book, ‘Seducing Mr. Bridgerton’. So the series left us with that mix of twist narrative and cliffhanger for the second season, which continued to explore the character he voices Julie Andrews.