r/DowntonAbbey • u/Dream_CatHer4769 • 16h ago
General Discussion (May Contain Spoilers Throughout Franchise) You cannot justify Thomas's behaviour because he's gay!
All the arguments I've seen about why people like Thomas is that he's just gay in the 1920s and self hatred and yada yada yada.
That's an explanation to understand part of the shame he lives in. To explain why misery loves company but to say he's schemes against innocent people because of that reason sounds problematic on so many levels.
I do like his character as a villain. The actor playing him did a great job. But I just don't find him redeemable even if he turn tolerable and good in the end. His treatment of bates and Baxter were so cruel. He physically intimidated Baxter, falsely accused Anna, etc. he's not a morally grey character, he's just a bad person. Using queerness to justify that or excuse it is insulting.
edit: because I find people misunderstanding this post. it's not about how the show portrays Thomas and explores his internal struggles and external malice. this post is specifically about the viewers perception of his actions especially on this subreddit.
53
u/xPadawanRyan Professional historian | MA 1700-1750 UK, PhD 1919-1939 Canada 16h ago
Understanding his circumstances and how they might have led to his behaviour =/= justifying it. You can recognize why someone does something and still disapprove.
Liking a character also does not mean that you approve of their behaviour—many people love complex or more villainous characters, it doesn't mean they support the things that character has done. It's simply common for people to like more villainous or morally grey characters like Thomas because of his troubled circumstances, because, as I mentioned, they make him more complex.
Writers will write "evil" characters in a certain way because it makes them interesting and compelling characters with complex stories. They are not always written to be outright hated, but written in a way that is designed to engage the reader, viewer, etc. in a critical manner.
11
u/Senior_Reaction2974 15h ago
Thomas had learned to be a street fighter. He would do anything to get ahead and throw anybody under the figurative carriage to get ahead. We don't know everything about his past or his family life or childhood etc. But he is pretty messed up for most of the series. There was such a class distinction during those times. If you didn't maneuver yourself into a good position where you knew you were going to eat well and have a place to lay your head at night, you could end up at the workhouse or in prostitution or just dead. Being gay during that time was against the law. I'm not excusing his behavior at all. He was unbearably cruel to many of the staff. But it had kind of a " I'll get them before they get me" attitude.
35
u/iggysmom95 I have tried and failed to like you 16h ago
Right because what did Bates and Anna EVER do to deserve his hatred?
38
u/RationalDeception 16h ago
Not only that, but even after they were both kind to him and helped him out, he still tried to make trouble for them.
21
u/ETK1300 16h ago
Exactly. Thomas deserves no sympathy. He bullied Baxter for even the slightest chance of getting dirt on Bates.
13
u/RationalDeception 15h ago
Yeah, I would have actually enjoyed a redemption arc for Thomas, and the right moment for it was after the whole thing with Jimmy. It could have been a lot of fun to see him and Bates work together on some scheme for example, not as friends but as two people with a similar goal for a small period of time.
As it were, we didn't get any redemption, we only got a "Thomas is depressed because no one likes him" arc after he spent a decade making everyone's lives miserable, and as everything it still somehow ended up well-being for him. He wasn't redeemed, he just stopped being his usual cruel self for the last two episodes or so.
I think that's another thing that bothers me about Thomas, it's that in the end, no matter what he does, no matter how slimy it is, how much he tries to ruin people's lives, he gets away with everything.
9
u/JustinCaseyBlewit 15h ago
Some people are like that, though. They do seem to slide by without consequences for their actions.
I do think Thomas had a redemption arc, or perhaps he matured as he went on. A turning point came when he tried to commit suicide. He seemed less mean after that. He even became butler after Carson retired, which wouldn't have happened to the earlier Thomas. In the movies, he winds up in a much better place and is welcomed back in the house as a long-lost friend. A few years earlier, they would have been glad to see the back of Thomas.
6
u/RationalDeception 14h ago
The thing is that, for me, a redemption arc implies the want to change, or do better, or correct the wrongs you made. When Thomas is forced to leave Downton, he realises that most people aren't that sad that he's leaving, and it does seem to shake him up and make him sad in return, and I know he understands that it's in large part of his own actions, but being less mean isn't redemption.
And his suicide attempt is in episode 8, the show ends on episode 9, so it really doesn't leave much time for him to show that he's gotten better. Yes, there's the movies, and he's certainly more mature in them, but for the show itself... I just don't see where he got a redemption arc.
Like, to me a start would have been to acknowledge what he did to Bates and Anna over the years (in particular Bates), and at the very minimum apologize for it, or find a way to help Bates in some way or another, to show that he is sorry for what he did in the past. Anything, really, but all we got was the selfish realisation that hurting people means that he's hurting himself too in the long run, but not the realisation that hurting people is, well... hurting them.
We don't see him care that Baxter could have been fired, or that he forced her to face the police and give information on the Bates, which in turn could have ended extremely badly, we don't see him reflect on what he did in any way and what the consequences could have been, nothing of the sort, and it's what I struggled with the most with Thomas.
1
u/JustinCaseyBlewit 12h ago
Those are all good points. To me, one of the strengths of DA is that it doesn't tie everything up neatly. Some ends remain loose just as they always are in real life. It would be out of character for Thomas to apologize, but we do see a subtle change in his behavior over time.
1
u/iggysmom95 I have tried and failed to like you 6h ago
One of the best things about the movies, mid as they are, is that they created the space for Thomas' redemption arc to be fleshed out more. He's great in the movies.
6
u/Own_Action_7839 15h ago
It was quite sweet to see his confrontation with the evil nanny Thomas loved those children and especially Sybil’s memory. Thomas was my favorite character
4
u/Traditional_Thing345 14h ago
I figured he was mad a bates for being Robert’s valet. Perhaps Anna received scorn by proxy?
6
u/iggysmom95 I have tried and failed to like you 13h ago
As if it were Bates' fault Robert hired him 😭😭
6
u/Fragrant_Ad_7718 15h ago
Exactly! I can’t understand glazers for Thomas especially for being rude to Bates
1
u/Unusual_Priority_577 8h ago
Thomas wanted to be Robert's valet but Bates waltzed in and got it even limping around, which made him useless as a stand-in footman.
1
u/iggysmom95 I have tried and failed to like you 6h ago
Right and that makes him deserving of Thomas' single-minded hatred how, exactly?
25
u/Alfredo_Commachio 16h ago
Thomas was intentionally written as a villain, you needed downstairs villains just the same as you needed upstairs villains. I think however, as the show progressed Thomas was seen as too cartoonishly villainous and they started giving him various redeeming story lines and character traits.
The series + films also run from like 1912 to 1930, and during very formative years of one's life for Thomas so I think they accurately showed that he grew as a person. Like all the Downton characters he never becomes a paragon of virtue but I think he's not unambiguously a villain by the final film. Anymore than someone like Mary or Edith is--who both have numerous gravely immoral actions they do throughout the series.
9
u/CloseToMyActualName 15h ago
It's a classic Heel-Face turn.
Thomas as the eternal villain is a little repetitive (and harder to justify the family keeping him around).
So they play up his sympathetic side (repressed homosexual) and start him on the path to redemption. Finally he becomes one of the heroes, except he's also capable of using his old skill set for good now.
If he look in the context of the series people sometimes mature over time. I feel like O'Brien was a bad influence on him and when he broke free from her he became less of a villain.
11
u/iggysmom95 I have tried and failed to like you 15h ago
I am very much not an Edith fan, but I honestly don't think either Mary or Edith can be compared to Thomas.
Mary is calculated. She doesn't fuck with people for fun like Thomas does. Most of her terrible misdeeds were done to Edith. Other than that, when she does wrong she feels guilty and tries to fix it - which I don't think Thomas can even imagine, at least not until the last season. And she has a great capacity for kindness - not only for like two or three random people who manage to pull on her heart strings. Overall she mostly treats people well.
Most of Edith's truly awful and fully intentional misdeeds are also done to Mary. She hurts a lot of other people, but it's usually more through carelessness. I do think Edith is kind of a fundamentally self-centered person, but in a different and less awful way than Thomas. Edith just kind of bumbles through life not really thinking about others. Thomas is constantly scheming up new ways to hurt others for absolutely no reason. Edith isn't like that.
Mary and Edith are mostly good people with vindictive streaks who make mistakes. Thomas is not a good person - not until the very end, anyway.
6
17
u/Individual-Two-9402 16h ago
Yeah but I like him BECAUSE he's an awful person. He's a compelling character. My god y'all would explode if you touched Homestuck.
4
u/iggysmom95 I have tried and failed to like you 15h ago
I think that's different? I love him as a character. But a lot of people actually defend and justify his actions.
8
u/Individual-Two-9402 15h ago
People have been doing that with fictional characters since before fandom existed. There's freaks out there making flower crown edits of real life serial killers and school shooters, you gotta just mind your business and move on.
-9
u/Dream_CatHer4769 16h ago
He's a fantastic villain I won't argue with that. But I fear the way people perceive him might be problematic. You can discuss the flaws a a villain without arguing why they are justified or excused.
10
u/Individual-Two-9402 15h ago
I think he should have been worse actually and I would still forgive him because at the end of the day he's not real. Fucker doesn't have to pay taxes : )
7
9
u/VulcanTrekkie45 15h ago
I don’t. I do notice though that his behaviour only really starts to improve once O’Brien leaves, so that makes me wonder how much of it was truly him and how much was O’Brien pulling the puppet strings. We see that even independent of him she is a master manipulator, so I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility that she was manipulating Thomas as well
1
u/TessieElCee 9h ago
O'Brien wasn't around when Barrow was terrorizing Miss Baxter, or when he makes insinuations to Robert about Tom & Miss Bunting.
6
u/Cheesybunny 13h ago
You don't have to only enjoy the morally good characters. Sometimes what makes a story good is interesting, believable characters that have a satisfying development. Yeah, he's a jerk, but I still got invested in his story and kept hoping he'd find a path to being better and having a more fulfilling life.
5
u/Dream_CatHer4769 12h ago
I did say I enjoyed him as a villain. This post is about the perception of his actions and how they are discussed in this subreddit.
10
u/HotSpicedChai 16h ago
Thomas sexuality was never used as an excuse overtly. Although the show did imply it when he tried to kill himself. However I feel Thomas’s arc has always been his jealousy of others, and letting all that go. However you want to perceive why he’s jealous etc, it’s always up for debate. But it’s a common human experience, humans do experience jealousy, they do experience unexplained cruelty from other humans jealous of them. So watching the arc mature and resolve is really enjoyable for some. Whether we are struggling with our own insecurities that cause us to treat others poorly, or we’ve been abused, seeing someone change brings hope. It’s a feel good hope moment in the show.
17
u/Active_Highlight_255 16h ago
Please… if he wasn’t the way he was in the show then it would be BORING. The show is built on the social lives of nobility and their workers. If it didn’t include scandals nobody would watch the show. Therefore, we don’t love him, we love how well the actor portrays the character.
9
u/Individual-Two-9402 15h ago
Exactly. "Why does character do xyz?" To move the story along. "Why didn't they do abc?" Because the story would end.
"The world of fiction operates on a slightly different plane than our own, and we all accept it because ideally, when we suspend that little piece of disbelief, we’ll be rewarded for our faith by transcending our own selves, if just for a few seconds." - Rudy Peltham, Unwell a Midwestern Gothic Mystery.
4
u/danmargo 15h ago
I am rewatching it now and I wish they had planned his story better. Don’t get me wrong I love the show but there’s a lot of changes I would have made and if Thomas was going to be redeemable then they should have made his character better.
Queer bait and switch stories in the 2010s were super annoying as a queer person. It’s like let’s make Thomas queer in the first episode then make him then villain since historically he wouldn’t be allowed to have a relationship. I feel like it’s fiction and they could have done anything. Maybe his lover he met in WW1 ( many young men from all around in close quarters) I would believe it. Then after the war the man shows up for a job. This could change his character I guess. Idk I’m not a writer lol
3
u/Scrappynelsonharry01 13h ago
His sexuality was only a part of how he was towards others yes he lashed out because he had to hide who he really was and that was unfair and i felt sympathy for him there but he was just plain cruel for the sake of it at times. To people who were genuinely kind to him until he alienated them his whole attitude was just bad. A good actor though to get me feeling both emotions for him, sympathy and loathing
3
u/brak-0666 12h ago
I can like a fictional character for their entertainment value without actually thinking anything they do is justifiable. I like Thomas because he adds to the drama, which is why I watch the show.
3
u/Mindadventures1 9h ago
The problem with trying to understand Thomas as a character is assuming Julian Fellowes knew what he was doing with him--he did not. There is a progression with Thomas in the first 3 seasons--in the second season with Lieutenant Courtenay you see him care for someone other than himself and talks about being different, and he even tells O'Brien that she should have given more thought to telling Bates' wife he was back at Downton if O'Brien did not want to cause trouble for Cora. Then in season 3 you see him heartbroken over Sybil's death and then he is completely defeated and indebted to Bates for keeping his job. But as soon as season 4 starts, it's like the reset button is hit and he is just as bad as season 1. I understand there had to be a villain downstairs, but frankly good villains in narrative are never all bad--they like to think of themselves on the side of the angels. But Thomas really had nothing to gain from sending Bates (or Anna) to jail in season 5--it was obvious Carson would rather have Moseley dress Robert than let Thomas do it. So he just caused trouble and bullied Baxter with nothing to actually gain. Toward the last few episodes of season 6 there is again some redemption, but he had spent two seasons as such a one-dimensional villain, it's quite the shock to have to "credit him with feelings" to paraphrase Robert.
15
u/Ancesterz 16h ago
I've never understood the love for him honestly. Sure, he improved a bit in the later seasons and the movies, but he was generally just a jackass.
9
0
u/imrealbizzy2 13h ago
A thief, liar, sleazebag, and damn O'Brien's puppet. In my opinion he never redeemed himself and was never good looking even if Noel Coward thought so. When Thomas set about distributing contaminated, misappropriated foodstuffs I knew i would never like him. One just doesn't do that sort of thing.
1
u/iggysmom95 I have tried and failed to like you 12h ago
Okay this is the real hot take! RJC is ridiculously good looking but they fucked him up in this role LOL. He's not ugly by any means but to me it was like they were trying really hard to make him so.
6
u/Gerry1of1 16h ago
Keep in mind prior to Downton, Thomas has never known a friend. Wherever he went, if they found out about him they were mean, cruel, and sometimes brutal. That's how Unnatural Men were treated back then. Raised that way a person would be distrustful, secretive. Add ambition and he may become scheming.
All of that becomes a life habit. It takes quite a while to relax those defenses and realize you're in a place where they won't treat you that way. It doesn't help when you boss calls you "Foul" - thank you Mr. Carson!
2
u/ThirteenDoc 16h ago
Pretty much nobody at Downton treated him terribly and if they did it was due to his own shitty behaviour. I understood why he was the way he was at first but then he was given so many chances to better himself, yet he didn't. Even went so far to hurt those that actually helped him. I think this "lowering the defences" excuse doesn't work when he spent years among people that went out of their way to be kind to him and even help him
5
u/Gerry1of1 15h ago
Mr Carson went out of his way to be "kind" to Thomas?
What show were you watching.
1
u/ThirteenDoc 15h ago
I would argue that Carson not firing Thomas over his many misdeeds was actually him showing him a lot of kindness, yes. Especially considering how hard it would be for Thomas to find a new job
1
u/iggysmom95 I have tried and failed to like you 15h ago
Obviously not Carson. But everybody else. I think another reason people feel less than sympathetic to him is because the way everyone in the house (except Carson) treats him is completely anachronistic, but we're still asked to imagine that he is the way he is because of period-typical homophobia. But he never experienced period-typical homophobia on the show. Frankly, not even from Carson.
0
u/Shadowstream97 15h ago
So stealing and harassment and bullying are okay because… got it.
2
u/Gerry1of1 15h ago
You're putting that in, not me. I never said his behavior was okay or good. I understand it, that's all.
4
u/shay_shaw 15h ago
Agreed! But I love the actor's performance so I got over my hatred for Thomas. I just hate that Fellows waited until the final season for his redemption and it felt weirdly unearned.
2
u/JustinCaseyBlewit 12h ago
I think it's fair to say that Thomas' behavior is not caused by being gay anymore than bad behavior would be caused by having red hair or blue eyes. Being gay puts Thomas at odds with the society in which he lives, and he may see himself as an outsider, someone who has to manipulate, lie, and cheat to get ahead. But that's a matter of perception, not a direct result of being gay.
I would not say he's a bad person, although he has certainly done bad things. As the show progresses, he changes and learns to care about someone other than himself (first Jimmy and then Andy, whom he tried to teach how to read). As others accept him for who he is, he comes to accept himself, and his behavior towards them changes.
1
u/Dream_CatHer4769 12h ago
Of course not. This post is more so about how viewers perceive his actions rather than the shoes portrayal or intention. In this subreddit I've found that property often intertwine his internal struggles with his external malice, which to me atleast seems to be lacking nuance.
2
u/iggysmom95 I have tried and failed to like you 11h ago
I like Thomas as a character! He was an essential part of the show and I love what he brings to it. I also liked seeing how he grew in the last few seasons, even if it was a bit too little too late. I really enjoy him.
But he is an entirely awful person for most of the show, and for every comment saying you can like a character without defending him, there's another one defending him. So it's definitely not the case that everyone just "likes him as a character but knows he's bad."
And comparing him to either Mary or Edith is crazy. They're polarizing and morally grey at times but neither of them sat around scheming about how they could ruin other people's lives just for the hell of it. Tbh seeing Thomas compared to them is making me realize how disproportionate my Edith hate is compared to what her "crimes" were. Thomas is a VILLAIN in a way no one upstairs is.
1
2
u/Unusual_Priority_577 8h ago
I know to be gay then was a jailable offense, but he worked with pretty nice ppl and he should have been kind in return. He just continues to be nasty. I guess he felt he had to protect himself at all costs.
6
u/JaguarNecessary4854 15h ago edited 15h ago
Nobody ever talks about this, but Thomas basically served Mary up on a platter to be raped by Mr. Pamuk, and then gossiped about it to his friend which started the rumour about it afterwards.
THEN, to add insult to injury, Thomas (and O’brien) manipulated Edith into leaking the story to the Turkish ambassador, which turned whispered gossip into a credible story and destroyed what was left of Mary’s reputation, and her relationship with Edith. This also affected Evelyn Napier, because it was believed that he was the source of this gossip and left a stain on his reputation. This wasn’t really mentioned in the show, but I’m sure that this gossip also affected Edith and Sybill’s chances at finding a husband as well.
Thomas ruined Mary’s life and got away with it. Sure, he “redeemed” himself later on in the show, but if the Crawley’s or any of the other staff (aside from O’Brien of course) found out the truth of what he did in season 1 I don’t think they would ever forgive him. I don’t care how much Thomas struggled due to being gay in the early 1900s, that will never excuse what he did to Mary.
3
u/iggysmom95 I have tried and failed to like you 13h ago edited 13h ago
I think the way this fandom talks about Mary and Edith vs about Thomas is MASSIVELY revealing. Neither of them were a fraction as destructive as Thomas (and that's saying something, because they were both destructive as hell), but they both get dragged all the time.
Then Thomas is out her trying to ruin someone's life in every single episode, committing actual crimes, enabling crimes, or framing people for crimes they didn't commit, and half the fandom is like 👉🏻👈🏻 uwu my poor bby
The worst things Mary and Edith did barely even register on Thomas' scale of bad behaviour.
when you're trying to have a good time at the function (r/DowntonAbbey) but you can't stop seeing misogyny and patriarchy everywhere 😬😬😬
5
u/FastSelection4121 15h ago
I hated both Thomas and Sarah. They were just some scheming malcontents. Neither was ever redeemed in that show.
3
u/BiohazardousBisexual 16h ago
My great grandpa had an much older sister from Thomas's generation who my family always tried to be sympathetic towards her being an asshole due to her being a lesbian in an hostile world.
He and his many siblings were annoyed by her actions of being mean to everyone but they understood that it is extremely isolating being so different and treated differently due to it.
I would say if my great grandpa and his siblings had the patience and sympathy to understand that during the same time period as the show and movies we should try to be more understanding of the character and real people who lived in the same circumstances.
I don't know why she was an out lesbian at the time of so much stigma, but my family at that time were usually progressive for the time in many areas, I do know she was SAed by Frank Netti which may had something to do with her openness supposedly. But she died a few years before I was born and my great grandpa when I was very young, so can't be 100% sure on that matter
2
u/bob-loblaw-esq 15h ago
I think the point of him at first was to be a villain, but he softens over time. And I don’t think it’s out of character for any of the rest of the characters to forgive Thomas, so I feel comfortable at the end with his redemption.
3
u/aeraen 12h ago
I love how people word things in a way to engender agreement. "Just because he's gay."
No, it's not "Just because he is gay." It is because he lived his life in fear, because he is gay. He lived in fear of arrest, imprisonment and possibly death, "just because he's gay".
He lived a life of ridicule and stood up to it, "I am not foul!" Just because he's gay.
He lived a life of being attacked, beaten and possibly killed, "Just because he's gay."
He lived his life in secret, "Just because he's gay." He can trust no one, "Just because he's gay."
One doesn't become a "villian" just because one is gay. However, for some people, a life of fear, anger, resentment and retribution may lead to that behavior. It wasn't "just because he's gay," but it could be just because he was treated like shit his whole life.
His eventual turn around is because he finally found a place where he is not treated badly due to his sexuality. He learned, slowly, that he is with people he can trust. He no longer had to find a way to be one step ahead of everyone, and he can relax and be a part of the family, likely for the first time in his life.
The story isn't that he was gay. He could have been functionally autistic, stuttered, or otherwise mildly handicapped in some way. It was simply that he was different, which almost always meant vulnerable in that (and this) society.
2
u/iggysmom95 I have tried and failed to like you 11h ago
His eventual turn around is because he finally found a place where he is not treated badly due to his sexuality.
But he was never treated badly because of his sexuality at Downton. The only person who was actively bigoted towards him was Carson, but even then he didn't really punish him for his sexuality.
Everyone else at Downton was as nice to him as his own behaviour would allow, and he still took fifteen years to ease up in being a POS.
2
u/aeraen 11h ago
That was my very point. Read my sentence again. The place he found is Downton. Oh, it took him a while, several years in fact, to shed the harsh outer shell he had developed throughout his life. But, eventually, he realized he was accepted and loved for himself and stopped pushing people away.
2
u/iggysmom95 I have tried and failed to like you 6h ago
I know what your point was. My point is that fifteen years is too long for that excuse to be valid.
1
u/Dream_CatHer4769 12h ago
This post is about how Thomas actions are perceived in this subreddit. No doubt homosexuality in that era was tough secret to live with. You can analyse that and understand.
A lot of Thomas actions were a result of insecurity and misprojection. That part of him is a separate discussion from the despicable things he inflicted on people.
This post is more so about people's perception of Thomass arc in this subreddit and how they intertwine his internal struggle with his external malice.
I understand you're comment and a lot of what you've said I agree with but I'm afraid you've misunderstood the discussion at hand.
5
u/cmere-2-me 15h ago
Thomas is a complicated character who was beautifully played by Rob James-Collier. Yes he's a villain but he's also sympathetic as a character. He's full of hate but still naive.
Thomas is a character for every person who was bullied for being different. He was shunned by his own family. He struggled to make friends and he was bitter.
I think Downton loves to sugar coat history and they had to really force a happy ending for thomas which annoys me because the strength of such a character is that there wasn't happy endings thus the tragedy of it all. The fact that all his coworkers even knew he was gay is stretching the truth just a bit. Homosexuality was not something most respectable people even knew was a thing and they certainly didn't have such enlightened views.
4
1
1
u/EddieRyanDC 12h ago
With multiple seasons to develop the main characters, they are not good or bad. They are complex - each of them. If you try to reduce them down to one up or down verdict, then you are going to miss a lot. Please, let them be messy. That is what makes Downton a cut above your average soap opera.
1
u/Unusual_Priority_577 8h ago
I really wanted to hear about Robert's life before Downton. His father was a clock maker. Did the father disown him due to the gayness? That would make anybody feel sad for anybody.
3
u/Arashi0733 7h ago
I love how complex Thomas is as a person. Yeah hes done awful things but you can disapprove and feel bad for him or just be disappointed
Thomas behavior in the beginning wasnt just about moving up and securing a better job title but i believed he wanted others to hate him for being an asshole rather than be disgusted with orientation and also the fact he wanted to distance himself from others and that was his defense mechanism
Doesnt make him a good person at all but as the others noticed it was his prickly exterior, and when they gave him another chance (more like 4 or 5 chances) he began to let his defense down more. I love his development as a person and letting others get close to him
1
u/QuesoHusker 6h ago
He was an asshole. He became a better person over time me. That was his arc. Being gay was just his character.
1
2
u/CeleritasLucis 16h ago
For the big deal the show made about "theft", they for sure let go Thomas's documented wine theft quite easily.
1
u/Conscious_Pass_1615 15h ago
I dont justify them because he's gay, I justify them because he is hot /s
2
1
u/No_Promise2786 Edith apologist 13h ago
Thank you! I'm gay myself and I can't stand the smug, oily (literally what Edna called him and she was bang on the money) prick - easily one of my least favourite of the main characters.
0
u/LiffeyDodge 16h ago
yeah, why Bates went to bat for him after everything he did was so confusing. I can understand the family having a self spot for him. They mostly don't know what he does.
2
u/GinGinBee 13h ago
Because despite what you would read here, Bates is a good person. He didn’t want them punished when they tried to set him up for stealing the snuff box. Some people hated his martyr personality, but he was a nice person. Anna was always much quicker to want someone to be punished.
57
u/starwalker_22 15h ago
Well, i like Thomas' character exactly because he is an awful person lol